Advent Calendar 2020 Day 18: The Comedians Christmas Cracker

Until its stars started literally doing so, The Comedians was a show that would not die. The initial run of seven series in three years from 1971 to 1974 was followed by two more in 1979 and 1980, then another two in 1984 and 1985, and one more in 1992. It was cheap - a mike, a basic studio set, brief club sets for editing together - but in the face of comedy's shifting tones - "alternative *to* comedy, more like!", a sentence that somehow goes unsaid here - it feels like Granada had no better ideas. Even then that wasn't enough as the tail end of 1993 the group got together in a club to perform to an audience including all their compatriots in the front row, Bernard Manning as the alpha male guv'nor of the working men's club set and so getting chief heckling duties. Carson, Bowen, Boardman, Walker, Williams, Miller, Goodwin, Casson - they're all here, along with young stripling fella-me-lad Les Dennis. Charlie Williams, who was still active at the time, gets the last word with a weirdly emotional little speech.