{"id":42488,"date":"2023-12-25T10:00:58","date_gmt":"2023-12-25T09:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1947221"},"modified":"2023-12-25T16:18:41","modified_gmt":"2023-12-25T15:18:41","slug":"craig-cash-caroline-aherne-was-an-ordinary-girl-with-an-extraordinary-talent","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/craig-cash-caroline-aherne-was-an-ordinary-girl-with-an-extraordinary-talent\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig Cash: \u2018Caroline Aherne was an ordinary girl with an extraordinary talent\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

This interview first appeared in Radio Times Magazine. <\/p>

By Caroline Frost\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 25 December 2023 at 09:00 AM<\/p>

\n\n

\u201cWithin two minutes of meeting Caroline, you\u2019d be laughing. She\u2019d find your funny bone, and she\u2019d play on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Craig Cash is revisiting memories of his great friend, writing partner and co-star Caroline Aherne ahead of a BBC tribute to her work and legacy. Talking about her at length on camera for the first time since her death in 2016 has been bittersweet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still an open wound,\u201d he says. \u201cI was reticent, but I wanted the film to be balanced, to show the funny side of Caroline, the biggest part of her. To me, she was an ordinary girl with an extraordinary talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cash, who first worked with Aherne on Manchester radio station KFM in the early 1990s, says it was their shared sense of humour that inspired them to write together. In 1995, they created The Mrs Merton Show, where she dressed up as a little old lady to plant gentle but deadly grenades on her unsuspecting guests, from Chris Eubank to Bernard Manning. Her innocent enquiry to Debbie McGee, \u201cSo, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?\u201d lives on in legend.<\/p>\n

Veteran producer Andy Harries signed up the show as head of comedy at Granada TV. He believes that, from her very first comedy commission, Aherne was ahead of her time, becoming one of the original British showrunners.<\/p>\n

He remembers, \u201cShe told me, \u2018You\u2019re not editing it without me. I know what makes people laugh.\u2019 She had the whole toolkit \u2013 wrote, directed, produced, starred. You couldn\u2019t argue with her. She\u2019d just tell you to eff off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Caroline Aherne.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Then, in 1998 came The Royle Family, which Cash and Aherne wrote and starred in as Dave and Denise, permanently sharing the front room with her parents Jim and Barbara (Ricky Tomlinson and Sue Johnston).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took inspiration from real life and our families,\u201d Cash says. \u201cAnd we watched the documentary about hairdressers Three Salons at the Seaside, which we thought was hilarious. Sometimes people get bogged down in plot and narrative at the expense of character and dialogue. For us it was all about the pauses, how people really are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harries says Aherne had absorbed the British tradition of Ken Loach\u2019s film work, naturalistic and real, taken Brookside\u2019s Ricky and Sue and reinvented them in a family comedy: \u201cShe came from that background so she knew what she was doing, showing families laughing at the small things in life.\u201d The sitcom still draws huge audiences, which pleases Cash: \u201cIf we can make people laugh 25 years later, we\u2019ve done a great thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cash reveals in the film that he and Aherne kept laughing, even when he visited her in hospital in the days before her death. \u201cI did this stupid walk for her benefit, but I\u2019d gone to the wrong room. Caroline thought it was hilarious.\u201d His voice catches. \u201cShe always wanted to make me laugh, even when she was telling me her days were numbered.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s how he\u2019d like her to be remembered, along with her loyalty and generosity. He shares one more story: \u201cI met her for a drink in Soho. She\u2019d gone to a cashpoint but given all her money straight to a homeless person. At the pub, she said, \u2018I\u2019ve got no money. Can you buy me a drink?\u2019\u201d<\/p>

Caroline Aherne: Comedy Queen will air on BBC Two on Christmas Day at 10:25pm. Looking for something to watch in the meantime? Check out more of our Documentaries<\/a>\u00a0coverage or visit our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/a>\u00a0to see what\u2019s on tonight.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only \u00a310 \u2013\u00a0subscribe now<\/a>. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to\u00a0The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n

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