The Christmas TV comedy greats- will we ever see their like again.

Christmas Day and then the salad days of  TV comedy greats - will we ever see their like again?  First on the bill - Morecambe and Wise and then shortly The Two Ronnies.

So where are we? You've wrapped up your Christmas presents, plonked that huge turkey in the fridge, added the final touches to the Christmas tree and generally abandoned yourself to a rip roaringly good time of booze, telly, more booze and more telly plus a generous helping of festive jollity and joviality. But are you looking forward to the big day or simply dreading it? Do you wish you were on some sun kissed tropical isle where nobody has even heard of Christmas? The truth is that somehow  the world will hold its breath, feast itself on excessive indulgence and then forget what day it is.

And then after an almost irrational consumption of turkey, roast potatoes, brussel sprouts, cranberry sauce, onion stuffing, plus anything that looks remotely edible, we all collapse in our sofas, puffing out our cheeks, glad that all of that painstaking preparation is finally over and murmurs of appreciation have been expressed. Uncle Tom can finally show off the socks the family have once again given him. He was so looking forward to adding to his extensive collection of handkerchiefs.

Then of course there are the beaming, red faced and angelic faces of children. Peter has got another X Box and Play Station, Jill just leapt up into the air when Auntie Barbara gave her another Russian doll and all of the nieces, cousins and uncles have been suitably rewarded. It is, after all, the season to be jolly and where would we be without Christmas, the Queen at 3pm in the afternoon and the traditional James Stewart classic 'It's a Wonderful Life'. It is a quintessentially English domestic scene and yet around the world they do exactly the same thing - over and over again. It is all about family solidarity, wholesome unity, wonderful togetherness and the most heartening of Christian festivals.

Of course we'll never tire of it, of course we'll sing, dance, joke and laugh joyously until the church bells ring out resoundingly in the shires and counties of  Britain. The vicar has delivered his yearly sermon of peace on earth, his plea for harmonious relations in all communities, religious and spiritual goodwill to all mankind until once again a bomb goes off in some far off war torn zone and we all wonder whether it was worth all of the effort.

So we go back to the TV comedy of yesteryear. Four gentlemen of rich comic heritage and breeding gave us a perfectly plausible reason for just kicking off our shoes in the evening, flopping into our sofas and then rolling about on the floor with irresistible, belly aching laughter. We cried with laughter, we wept with laughter, we fell off our seats with laughter and we spent the best part of an hour trying not to make a spectacle of ourselves such was the intensity and sheer volume of comedy that had been put before us.

Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise were followed by the Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. If anybody had sought the most perfect evening of entertainment to light up a dark, wintry Christmas night then this was your moment. Ladies and Gentlemen. We proudly give you Morecambe and Wise and the Two Ronnies. Sheer compulsive showbiz and box office, sheer magnificence, the BBC performing miracles and just exquisitely funny. We split our sides, rocked backwards and forwards at the unalloyed hilarity of it all, the sheer formidable beauty of TV at its very best. It was far too good to be true. We had to be dreaming it all. And yet we weren't because it was perfectly true.

On Christmas Day 40 years ago Britain was undeniably spoilt by firstly Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game at roughly tea time and then wonder of wonders Morecambe and Wise accompanied by The Two Ronnies. We'd barely digested our Christmas pud with lashings of custard before Eric and Ern launched into what amounted to an evening of heavenly comic genius.

From a personal point of view Morecambe and Wise were the embodiment of comic brilliance, rising to heights never previously scaled. Eric slapped Ern on the face unashamedly, Ern tried hard to keep a straight face and the audience were just convulsed with the giggles.Then there was an outburst of more breathtaking gags and sketches while Eric grabbed Ern by the shirt collar and chuckled  superbly at Ern's knobbly knees.

 There were the plays that Ern allegedly wrote and the bedroom scenes that in those days were regarded as  perfectly acceptable. We could never understand why two adult men, happily married in real life, got into bed with each other and then cracked jokes as if it were some morally permissible activity. In retrospect it was not only outrageously silly it also challenged all the boundaries of taste and decency. Two men were in bed with each other, both in dressing gowns and both quite comfortable. It looked terribly inappropriate and horribly questionable. And yet none of us batted an eye lid because that's what TV was like 40 years ago.

But then there were the epic moments in the Eric and Ern Christmas spectacular. These were the end of show plays that turned into Hollywood style extravaganzas. There was the splendid sight of Penelope Keith climbing off a huge platform from a great height and Shirley Bassey somehow being expected to wear a pair of wellington boots after singing Hey Big Spender with barely controlled mirth. There was Glenda Jackson subjected to utter humiliation and degradation and then Angela Rippon, that most consummate of all BBC newsreaders revealing her long and glamorous legs before a stunned nation.

Then there was that final and unforgettable conclusion when everybody assumed, quite rightly, that Eric and Ern had finished their glorious frolics and hilarious wisecracking. Before the show there had been what seemed like an inexplicable shuffling of the curtains before the boys came out to perform. Nobody quite knew what was happening but by the time Eric flicked back the curtains for the last time it was abundantly clear that here was a piece of comic mastery that maybe Eric and Ern had perfected a million times in the war time music halls.

There was that much celebrated show where the great composer and classical conductor Andre Previn was asked to appear with Eric and Ern. To this day it has to be one of the finest pieces of comedy ever seen. Eric, complete in smart dress, top hat and tails, sat down on his piano chair, rolled his fingers, pulled up his shirt sleeves, adjusted his tails and then gave his rendition of a classical piece of music. What proceeded was some old pub tune that none of us could have anticipated. Previn demanded to know what was going on and then Eric once again, in all seriousness, insisted that he was playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order. None of us questioned Eric because he knew he was right and so perhaps privately did Previn.

So here we were at the end of the Morecambe and Wise show. The curtains had closed for the last time but not before one moment of magical TV. A gentleman called Arthur, in all innocence, darted in front of a microphone and tried valiantly to play the harmonica at which point he was whipped away from view and told by Eric that the show had finished and the bus stop was in that direction. Sorry Arthur harmonica playing wasn't part of the Eric and Ern fun factory. It was time to go home Arthur. You're superfluous to requirements. And yet Eric and Ern had satisfied the job description because that Christmas Day night we all knew that we'd been grandly entertained. The Two Ronnies- you're on up - next lads.