Morecambe & Wise: The Unseen Tapes

Morecambe & Wise remain Britain's best-loved double act, over four decades after they last performed together. This special programme features rare footage of the comedy duo doing what they did best - entertaining the nation. Some of the footage is previously unseen on network television, some unseen by a British audience, some unseen since an original single transmission, and some unseen by Eric and Ernie's star guests who appeared alongside them in it.

The programme also includes testimony from some of Eric and Ernie's guest stars who regard working with them as a highlight in their own careers. For the first time on TV, Dame Judi Dench recalls the thrill of appearing on their show in 1978 and working with them on a sketch set in Victorian London. Wayne Sleep performed a dance routine with them - a "tribute to Hollywood" - and remembers the fun of rehearsing. Rula Lenska recounts how much she learned about comedy when working on their Christmas show in 1982. Valerie Singleton interviewed them for a 1973 children's programme and remembers how actively they engaged with the young audience. And Tommy Boyd remembers welcoming Eric Morecambe onto what would fatefully be his last performance on television, and on which Eric would perform his final sketch.

Also included is Eric's last television recording, for a programme that never transmitted, and Ernie's guest role in an American sitcom. There's also the newly-discovered earliest existing footage of Morecambe & Wise and some of their appearances from the earliest days of TV, unseen since their original transmission.

Eric's children Gary and Gail watch some of the footage for the first time and reveal the Christmas Day routine in the Morecambe household, when - along with the rest of the nation - they settled down to watch The Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show.