Eric & Ernie (2011)

Morecambe and Wise aren't part of my cultural heritage (I guess the equivalent comedy team in my childhood would be Wayne and Shuster) but I had no trouble enjoying this without reference to the originals. Of course comedy is very time and place specific so it's virtually impossible to actually BE funny while playing funny people from another place and time. But Daniel Rigby and Bryan Dick radiate so much charm and energy as Eric and Ernie that I can easily imagine them becoming big stars.It must have been the sequence in the burlesque theater that made me think of "Gypsy." There are certainly parallels between these two dramatizations of the early lives of stars and their stage mothers. Victoria Wood was casting herself very much against type as Mama Sadie, bullying and manipulating her son Eric into a stage career he never wanted. Now I'm thinking of Imelda Staunton's Mama Rose, which captured the monstrous ambition of the character without her seductive charm (I'm sorry but there is no way in hell that Staunton could ever been seen to have made a damn good stripper.) Wood herself would have been terribly cast as Rose--she was a crooner, not a belter. But her own warm, vulnerable persona radiates through Sadie's ruthlessness, and her version of "Rose's Turn"--weeping quietly after Eric and Ernie have informed her they've hired a proper manager and packed her off into a first-class train carriage home--is just as touching as Wood meant it to be.

Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise were for decades Britain's best-loved comedy duo. From humble beginnings in the last years of variety, they worked their way up through the theater, then on to television, radio and stardom. Jonny Campbell's biodrama contains two remarkable impersonations of the two comedians from Daniel Rigby (as Morecambe) and Bryan Dick (as Wise). They have both the vocal and physical mannerisms spot-on, and make an admirable double-act in their own right. As a piece of drama, however, ERIC & ERNIE founders on its clichés; during the wartime sequences, we have to hear snatches of Winston Churchill and King George VI speaking, complete with the obligatory air-raid siren; in the variety theaters where the comedy due ply their trade, there has to be the smoke-filled dressing-rooms and the fat theater manager (Ted Robbins) smoking a cigar. And don't forget the extracts from the classic backstage musical from 1933 - FORTY-SECOND STREET. And to cap it all, we have Victoria Wood playing Eric Morecambe's mother as a dominant figure incorporating every single stereotype about the Northern English woman, complete with full-strength cigarette hanging from the side of her mouth. She washes the front steps of a house, makes Sunday lunch and bosses her hapless husband George (Jim Moir aka Vic Reeves) around. The quintessential Nora Batty-type figure (from Roy Clarke's LAST OF THE SUMMER WINE), all she lacks are the cheap stockings and the pinafore permanently strapped round her waist. It's a shame that such potentially suggestive material should have been approached in so slipshod a manner; there was ample opportunity for the director and production team to recreate the world of the last days of variety, in which touring acts toured Britain to unappreciative audiences, most of whom were more interested in the nudes that often came on between the comedy acts.

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!"

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".