Excellent tribute to Eddie Braben.
Eric, Ernie And Me
Superb. Stephen Tompkinson was brilliant as the writer pushed to the limit - reminded me so much of how Milligan suffered under the pressure.
Just a pity the two actors didn't live up to it as the two in the "Eric & Ernie" did a few years back - the Eric Morecambe didn't look like him at all in this one, so why didn't they use the previous ones.
Just watched this on iPlayer - excellent!
Superb. Stephen Tompkinson deserves a gong for his performance here and wonderful that Braben got this drama made about him, well deserved and long overdue! Trouble is, I've never had more of a problem with a piece of casting than Neil Maskell as Ernie. Bonnar actually had a fair crack at Eric (though why they couldn't get the brilliant Bob Golding from the play Morecambe is beyond me) but I didn't get any impression of Ernie whatsoever. Also just as I was getting into it, it was over! Surely there was enough complexity in the relationship to make it a feature?
This film would have been absolutely baffling to anyone not familiar with Morecambe & Wise. It was largely a race through a string of allusions to their greatest hits. Tompkinson though was very good as Braden, and Bonnar and McQueen surprisingly good cast against type as Morecambe and Cotton. The actors playing Previn and Jackson were also on the mark. But I could not really see Ernie in Maskell's performance.
Cannot agree at all with you over Mark Bonnar being "surprisingly good" as I don't think he looked like him at all. Anyone could put on horn rim glasses and say "Get out of that" or "Tea Ern" and people would know who you are trying to impersonate. His face shape was all wrong for starters.
No, they should have had these two who were excellent :-
Disabled video Herc.
You finally work out how to embed them and it doesn't work (snigger)
Quote: Stephen Goodlad @ 3rd January 2018, 4:13 PMDisabled video Herc.
You finally work out how to embed them and it doesn't work (snigger)
ARSE!
Yes I can see that but it still works by a round about route. 
No giggling at the back!
Quote: Tursiops @ 3rd January 2018, 1:30 PMThis film would have been absolutely baffling to anyone not familiar with Morecambe & Wise. It was largely a race through a string of allusions to their greatest hits. Tompkinson though was very good as Braden, and Bonnar and McQueen surprisingly good cast against type as Morecambe and Cotton. The actors playing Previn and Jackson were also on the mark. But I could not really see Ernie in Maskell's performance.
Stephen Tompkinson was as good as ever and so was everybody else in the individual portrayals of everybody involved back in those days.
I thought the guy playing Ernie was much taller and more heavier built, than the real Ernie Wise, who was a few inches smaller and also bit thinner and maybe the guy playing Eric did look bit thinner in the face, than the real Eric looked.
The most realistic resemblance was probably the guy who played John Ammonds, but that probably wasn't difficult for someone with a big moustache.
Bill Cotton looked pretty realistic, but in real life he actually had whiter hair in the late 1960's / early 1970's and his office on the 6th floor of BBC Television Centre, certainly did not have wooden panels, because those offices were all of an early 1960's style, with white painted walls everywhere and no individual windows either.
Due to some of the frontage of the old BBC Television Centre currently being refurbished, it is a shame that it still couldn't have been used, with maybe a tight shot of a completed section of buildings, because the frontage of the BBC studios used in the programme, looked more like a police station, but they were just minor details missed out and that's me just nit-picking, because it was a fantastic riveting programme, which I didn't want to finish and thoroughly enjoyed.
I felt for Eddie Braben, having recently gone through the same thing of writing under pressure - albeit in a small way.
Just caught up with this while catching up with the recordings I made, having been away over Christmas & New Year. Like everyone else, thoroughly enjoyed it. Wasn't too put off by the casting.
Did anyone else, though, notice that they seemed to treat the 1971 Christmas Special as Eddie Braben's first one ("What I want is a Christmas show that isn't just a chance to mop up the left-overs but a proper special... We've even got your first guest - Mr Andre Previn"; "Half-hour?"; ""No, hour") whereas surely he had already been the writer for the hour-long Christmas specials in 1969 & 1970 (with Eric Porter & Peter Cushing)? Just an observation...
I thought the drama was very good largely thanks to Tomkinson and they got the spikiness of Morecambe's character right, according to the reports of his off stage moods and edginess. These dramas of old comedy acts exposing the dark side and rough times are always quite clichéd but still enthralling. It showed the real pressure involved in producing a classic hit show watched by half the country. Pretty good in all.
They were one of the many acts of the time employing writers for all their material, not at all unusual then but it did make me spare a thought for the comedians who wrote their own material like Benny Hill. He even wrote this duo's greatest sketch for them, expanded on by Braben.
Rewatched this last night - well worth catching on iPlayer if you've not seen it (or if you have seen it).