Eric & Ernie's Home Movies

For an honest depiction of Morecambe and Wise, we had an hour of cine film shot by the boys themselves, in Eric & Ernie's Home Movies (BBC2) -- though why this was aired on a different channel was not explained.

Some of the best material was the very earliest, from a Fifties panto season. We saw the duo doing slapstick routines on stage, knocking each other down and riding about (for reasons not specified) in a pram.

Other reels showed them in New York, hoping to conquer America, and touring Australia -- as well as larking about on family holidays and at home.

The tenderness that Eric felt for his children, and the attention Ernie lavished on his wife Doreen, shone through.

Because the stars were behind the lens most of the time, the really interesting moments were few, with much padding in between. And it wasn't clear why the home movies stopped in the Sixties. Is there more to come?

Because Christmas wouldn't be Christmas and all that, a double dose of E&E. First, a trawl of their archive of home movies from the 1950s and 60s, seen for the first time by Eric's surviving relatives. Then, on BBC Four, an engaging Neil Forsyth-scripted drama starring Stephen Tompkinson as Eddie Braben, the Liverpudlian co-responsible for the massive success of the duo in the 70s but who was worked to exhaustion under pressure.

Eric, Ernie and Me, BBC Four review

The moving story of Morecambe and Wise's scriptwriter Eddie Braben, plus a gentle hour with Eric & Ernie's Home Movies.