Eric & Ernie

Morecambe and Wise remain to this day one of the best double acts of all time and this great drama from the BBC shows us their early years. We all know what happened when they achieved fame so it is nice that this drama focuses on the other side of the coin.

The casting in this is great. All the actors playing Morecambe and Wise not only look the part but capture the voice and characteristics of the two men and in some places you start to think you're watching the real men.

Victoria Wood is also great as Sadie, Eric's mother and her story arc is at the centre of this piece that is beautifully captured by director Johnny Campbell.

My only grumble is that much like every other media piece surrounding the comedians this drama is centred more on Eric than Ernie but otherwise this is a great drama.

Simply the best programme on British TV over the festive period. Unlike previous biopics of comedians which tend to be dark and depressing, Eric and Ernie was a warm, moving and funny story of the early days of Britain's best loved double act.

The cast was marvellous, it was really like watching the real Eric and Ernie perform. Victoria Wood and Jim Moir (Vic Reeves)were outstanding as Eric's parents.

The film was clearly a labour of love and it shows in every detail.

So why did I give it 9 instead of 10? Well, I would have preferred it to end with their song "Bring Me Sunshine".

Daniel Rigby and Bryan Dick portrayed Eric and Ernie to perfection. It must have been an incredibly daunting task to do Morecambe and Wise's material and make it work. And make it work they did. Daniel Rigby had Eric down to a tee and Bryan Dick was equally as good as Ernie. Jim Moir played Eric's dad in an understated way and Victoria Wood was her usual reliable self as Eric's mum. The writer of the this piece did a fantastic job, capturing the times and the rhythms - he made it all hang together perfectly. If this does not win some kind of award this year there will be no justice. I had waited to see this eagerly but with trepidation as I would have thought it impossible to pull off, but pull it off is what they did, with aplomb.

Eric And Ernie (2011) -

I remembered enjoying this greatly when I first saw it, for its strong castings and wonderful humour, but I had begun to doubt myself after rewatching 'Rather You Than Me' (2008), the similar Frankie Howerd BBC biopic, which didn't resound as well as I had recalled.

My fears were needless though because I thoroughly loved this exploration of Morecambe & Wise's early years.

The script and direction cleverly sculpted the path to define where and how some of the humour might have been formed and used suggestions to represent what I knew that the two jokers became.

Vic Reeves (Jim Moir) and Victoria Wood worked really well as Eric's parents and again I could see how they shaped Eric's onstage persona. I didn't think that the smoking suited her though, looking as if she was an actor with a prop and that she didn't really like it. It sounds nitpicky, but it really jarred for me. I was surprised to see very little about Ernie's parents though.

As for Daniel Rigby as Eric himself, he absolutely stole the show. He had clearly studied the man to get all of his inflections and mannerisms. It was hard to remember that he wasn't the actual comedian in question.

Bryan Dick in the role of Ernie was good too, but he didn't quite pack the same punch. The younger incarnation played by Josh Benson could have been something from an old Wise family home movie though, because he nailed Little Ern.

Overall I felt that the casting was spot on, they all looked and acted like they belonged in that era. I never once thought that I wasn't watching something from that time. The sets, costumes etc were all appropriate too.

Although it was essentially a very well done drama I also loved the humour throughout. I could absolutely see those kids growing into those teens in to those men that I've laughed at for years and how the jokes and affectations matured into their acts.

From their earliest days of pageantry to their first appearance on BBC, It was a very worthwhile piece about a pair of comic geniuses that was highly entertaining. A masterpiece in how to do a biopic properly and one that I would have liked to have seen a sequel to.

919.81/1000.

I'm of that generation that religiously waited for and watched Morecambe and Wise's usually superb BBC TV specials in the mid 70's when they were at their peak (although nowhere near enough credit is given to their writer Eddie Braben) and so was very interested to watch this dramatisation of their formative years.

It has to be said that their old employer does them proud with a well written, produced and acted TV movie. In truth I could find little to fault in it, my only complaints being perhaps the limited dynamic arc in the story itself and a little too much screen-time for the inspiration behind the project, Victoria Walters. That's not to say she's not good in the part of Eric's pushy, typical show-biz mother, but she takes too much focus away from our heroes, to the, as I say, slight detriment of the piece.

The other main casting credits work very well, with Jim (Vic Reeves) Moir a revelation as Eric's docile dad and the young actors playing Eric and Ern as spot on as they could be with look, voice and mannerisms. They have that essential ingredient for any double-act, chemistry. The script includes some decent gags, but enough of what really matters here, drama, to make it entertaining.

The duo's well-known personae are developed naturally and enough signposts are inserted to their future routines and catch-phrases to please admirers of their later work. As I indicated, this wasn't the most essential show-biz bio-pic I've ever watched but it was amongst the more entertaining of them.

What did I think of it (so far)? Definitely not "Rubbish!"