Comedy With Character (The Royle Family)

Member Name: assethound

Product:	The Royle Family
Date:	22/09/00 (100 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Family fun

Disadvantages: none

I am living with a combination of Jim Royle and Dave Best. He sits in his chair, never has the remote more than an inch away from his hand, unless that is, someone has put it on top of the telly, and as I told him last week, he wouldn’t have lasted five minutes if he had lived in the Big Brother house. If he’s not picking his teeth he’s trying to prise fifty pence worth of his underpants out of his arse. The other residents would have had him nominated out of there in a shot. How else would they have been able to get in the lavvy for a tom tit?

I’ve got me little part-time job, just like Barb, and our daughter, a toddler version of Denise, spends much of her time lounging on the settee. No Antony I’m afraid, but then we can’t be the perfect family can we? Anyway there is time for that too, I suppose. It would be lovely to have a Lurchio to answer the phone and make us a brew.

The Royle Family first slumped into our living rooms in 1998. Starting out on BBC2, it soon graduated to the dizzy heights of BBC1 as the Beeb realised that they had a surprise hit on their hands. It was no surprise to those of us who watched it from the beginning, and witnessed the strange and wonderful partnership of Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash bear - to some eyes - monstrous fruit. Never had a comedy made so many belly-laugh with such an unpromising premise. Who would find The Royle Family funny? All they did was sit in their front room, with the occasional wild impulse to slouch into the kind of chip-oil encrusted kitchen that seemed dredged up from deep within the collective consciousness. They slagged off each other and the people on the telly: Chris Evans "he“s all about like shit in a field"; Lesley Joseph "She's got a mouth like a horse". They made the kind of jokes we make when we are with our friends and families, and made us cry laughing. Set in an ordinary Manchester semi, occupie
d by an ordinary family, they made us laugh because they held up a comic mirror to family life.

There is Jim, the father, a cantankerous banjo-playing couch potato; Barbara, the long-suffering mother, who brings home broken cream cakes from the bakery where she works. Denise is their daughter, the apple of her mothers eye, and her father's too, if only he would admit it. Antony is gangling Lurchio, going through his teens and never quite gelling with the rest of the family, although they are quite happy to send him to the shop for their fags Antony: "Can I get ten for myself out of the change?" Mam: "You know what I've told you about smoking. You're only fifteen, you can't smoke until you're old enough to buy your own." Nana, Barbara's mother is a frequent visitor, but won't stay too long, because if she missed Heartbeat she might as well be dead. Mary and Joe are the next door neighbours, parents of Denise's chubby best friend and bridesmaid Cheryl: Joe doesn't say much, but Mary can't say even the most mundane thing without laughing, and according to Jim would suck Pomagne out of a sweaty sock. Dave Best is Denise's fiance, and works picking up second hand furniture by day, and as a DJ by night, all the time farting and announcing what he has had for his tea.

There is another side to The Royle Family: the pathos that lies just under the surface. In the first episode Jim stands alone in front of the mirror above the fire in the front room, admiring himself in the knock-off jeans he got from Twiggy. The balance tips over into pathos, as he makes pistols out of his hands and draws them like a cowboy. This knife edge balance between bathos and pathos is delicately kept throughout The Royle Family. The best episode for this is episode six of the first series, with the women of the family in a bedroom on Denise’s wedding day hinting that it isn’t all wisecracks. Na
na: “This is the happiest day of your life this, luv...it all goes downhill from here, doesn’t it Barbara?" Downstairs, Jim provides his usual comedic star turn: “I’m sorry Denise...the last thing I wanted was to be stood at the altar with you with ring-sting. I’ll tell you what, if they pass that collection box round, it won’t be money I’ll be putting in it.”

Watch the Royle family or miss out big style. Not everyone comes from a family just like the Royles, but there are elements of us all there, the biggest being the family’s internal wranglings being submerged under a genuine tenderness when they are in danger of losing each other. All the most vicious remarks hurled between Denise and her Dad are forgotten when he realises he is just about to lose his little girl: Denise: “You and m’mam...more than anything.” Dad: “I know...I hope my arse holds up.”

The new series of The Royle Family starts on Monday 16th October 2000 at 9.30pm on BBC1.

Episode One: commentary to follow tonight.

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