The Royle Family Christmas Special 2010 Page 5

I really really enjoyed this. Laughed a lot. Made me happy. I hope they do a Royle Wedding episode.

I haven't seen this show for a long long time - got a bit bored of it tbh, but I thought this ep was brilliant. Really enjoyed it and glad I decided to give it a go. Is Anthony really 30? How long has The Royle Family been on, wasn't he just a teenager when it started?

Quote: Moonstone @ December 26 2010, 1:02 AM GMT

I haven't seen this show for a long long time - got a bit bored of it tbh, but I thought this ep was brilliant. Really enjoyed it and glad I decided to give it a go. Is Anthony really 30? How long has The Royle Family been on, wasn't he just a teenager when it started?

Ralf Little is 30 so I presume the actor and character of Anthony are the same age. The show started in 1998.

Not perfect, but certainly a return to form and an enjoyable Christmas evening in front of iPlayer.

Quote: Phil Cottrell @ December 26 2010, 4:33 AM GMT

Not perfect, but certainly a return to form and an enjoyable Christmas evening in front of iPlayer.

Errr Thought it was regurgated old stuff, really boring. Please try to keep things fresh, totally yawn city, disappointing!

Good stuff. The best comedy offering on the BBC so far this year.

I hope Daniel Peak is reading this thread. If so, he'll know where he went wrong with 'Big Top'. Nowhere near enough toilet humour.

'The Royle Family' used to be the funniest thing on TV when Caroline Aherne put some effort into writing it.

Ah well, you can't please everyone no matter what the comedy.

I thought it was great! Big belly laughs all the way through and a nicely paced plot.
I thought Saskia was excellently written and played. From being shocked and disgusted at Jim to laughing with and at him.
And the minute's silence part was hillarious.

I shall look forward to watching the recording again.

Don't misunderstand me: there was a very decent 30-minute episode in there somewhere.

It's just a pity she padded it out with so much crap.

Quote: Blenkinsop @ November 29 2010, 6:00 PM GMT

If Santa brings me nothing else this year then I will be delighted if he has a 'Royles return to form gift-set' with my name on it in his sack.

I'm off now to put a note up my chimney and cross my fingers until 11:00pm Christmas night.

Thank you Santa!!

I really enjoyed last night's episode. It was full of all the things that made The Royle Family great. I agree with the comments Veronica made about the toilet humour - I don't think that the toilet gags were really needed or if they were then perhaps a lot less of them. I've never been a fan of our nation's obsession with toilet / lavatorial humour anyway always finding it weak and a bit pathetic really.

But...

The family was back again doing what it does best. Nana and Mary, despite not being there, were brilliant and the jokes (OK so one or two were heavily set up) were excellent in most cases. Dave has perhaps been recently abducted by aliens and had a quarter of his brain restored as, thankfully, he was just gormless enough without being a complete arse and Denise was back at her best too. Cheryl was superb, Joe was brilliant and almost stole the show - Jim and Barb continued to be the best ever sitcom husband and wife team as always, and Antony and Saskia hadn't just been crowbarred in there to make up numbers; both of them turning in great performances too.

As the credits rolled I asked myself "WTF were those two previous specials all about?" I hope that in some small way the writers took onboard some comments that die-hard fans of the show had made about these two aberrations and decided to right some of the heinous wrongs.

It might now be an idea to leave it there and finish on a really high note rather than be tempeted to go to the well once more.

Santa mate, you played a blinder son!!

I thought it was fairly good. Probably better than the previous few specials.

Worst one of the Christmas specials to date. There was a few LOL moments, mostly involving Joe, but all in all pretty mediocre.

I can't stand 'Remember when this funny thing happened' scenes in sitcoms.

"Hey Cheryl, remember that time your head got stuck in the railings, and your mum came down to help and she got her head stuck in the railings too. And then your dad came down, and he got his stuck too! HAHAHAHA!"

Rolling eyes Poor. Very poor.

I thought it was brilliant, first time I'd seen the special in its entirety (and I even got a credit at the end!)

I did like Come Fly With Me as well, interesting to see how that series pans out.

Quote: pbv3010 @ December 26 2010, 5:14 PM GMT

I thought it was brilliant, first time I'd seen the special in its entirety (and I even got a credit at the end!)

?
:)

Quote: Eat My Shirts @ December 26 2010, 4:55 PM GMT

I can't stand 'Remember when this funny thing happened' scenes in sitcoms.

Too right. I lost count of the number of times that jokes were set up by Denise saying something like "what was it they called it?" or "what was it she said to them?".

It's like they had good lines and jokes but didn't know how (or simply couldn't be bothered) to write them into the script so just resorted to that easy set up device.