Ernie Wise

Morecambe and Wise - comedy duo brilliance

The immense popularity of Eric Morcambe and Ernie Wise is evidenced by a December 1963 appearance by The Beatles (broadcast in April 1964) where they performed This Boy, All My Loving and I Want to Hold Your Hand ending with a classic performance of Moonlight Bay joined by Eric and Ernie.

Amid the wealth of entertainment on TV today, a reminder - if ever it were needed - of one of the great double acts of British comedy and a reminder too of a time when humour came in gentler form. These days stars are made overnight, but Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise's success was hard-earned, the result of many years of apprenticeship. Eric's wife, Joan, once said there was never a moment when her husband became famous, it was more a gradual process. The Greatest Moment runs through some of the pair's finely honed sketches, including a musical number featuring Angela Rippon.

Ernie Wise was one half of the most popular British comedy duo of the last century but rarely got his due credit, with most of the critical acclaim going to his partner Eric Morecambe. Using previously unseen footage and photos this documentary redresses the balance, revealing a man familiar with fame from an early age, for whom life off the stage was more important than the limelight.

Doreen Wise: Truth about my little Ernie Wise

Ernie Wise died aged 73 after a series of strokes which left him with a 50 per cent loss of sight and hearing . The last five years of his life were tough although the public was unaware of his private torment.

Television Review: Eric and Ernie

We have many wonderful hours of Morecambe and Wise shows which will undoubtedly be enjoyed for years to come. This drama devised by Victoria Wood and written by Peter Bowker deserves to be enjoyed along with them. Not only is it a fitting tribute to a great comedy double act, but its the first in such dramas that can be appreciated by the whole family - and that's probably how Eric and Ernie would have wanted it.

You can warm your hands on the waves of affection that waft from writer Peter Bowker's funny, sweet-natured look at the early years of our most beloved comic partnership, Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise.

We follow the duo just before they hit the really big time, from their first meeting when they were both child stars on the same bill, through the days touring grotty clubs and music halls, right up to their first, disastrous television appearance: "Northern comedy just doesn't play on television," says a snitty BBC exec, before forcing the lads into a series of lame, generic TV sketches.

The evolution of the surreally brilliant act that was to make them adored is nicely done, thanks to Bowker's light touch and to a smashing cast, particularly comedian Daniel Rigby as the genial, uncomplaining but sharp-witted Morecambe, who manages both to look and sound like Eric without resorting to caricature. Bryan Dick is grafter Ernie, whose forbearance is frequently tested by his partner.

It's more than a quarter of a century since Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise's double act was stopped in its tracks by Morecambe's untimely death - which, in the world of showbiz, is certainly enough time to be forgotten, usurped or found to be desperately unfashionable by a new generation of viewers and performers. But the pair retain enough comic sparkle to put most of their successors in the shade.

Eric and Ernie is a biopic that follows the pair from their beginnings on Jack Hylton's youth theatre circuit up until the brink of TV success in the 1950s. Written by Peter Bowker, and starring Bryan Dick as Ernie Wise, Daniel Rigby as Eric Morecambe and Victoria Wood as Morecambe's ambitious, plain-talking mother Sadie, it's a wonderful piece of drama: warm-hearted, clever, beautifully acted and funny enough to make your cheeks ache.

Eric and Ernie: Victoria Wood's Morecambe & Wise biopic

Eric Morecambe kept one review in his wallet for decades to remind him of where the duo had come from. It suggested the definition of TV as "the box in which they buried Morecambe and Wise". The clipping was still in his wallet when he died.

'You don't become a national treasure overnight'

Victoria Wood's new project tells the story of Morecambe and Wise's troubled early years. "You don't become a national treasure overnight", she says.

Victoria Wood tells all about Eric and Ernie

Victoria Wood insists her latest TV venture, which delves into the early career of Morecambe and Wise, "will not be one of those dark dramas."