End of the Royle line

TVReview:  'Spell funeral, Denise." "F-U-N . . ." "Stop there."

Norma Jean Sweetman's chair-lift to heaven, in a one-off return of the superb The Royle Family, surely marked the end of one of the funniest and most innovative British sitcoms of all time. Written by Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash, who play on-screen husband and wife Denise and Dave, The Royle Family, having from the outset dispensed with the external world, canned laughter and signposted punchlines, kept its audience riveted over three series from 1998 to 2000.

Six years later, Aherne, having taken a professional break to overcome personal difficulties, has given her legions of fans an early Christmas present by inviting them back into the shabby Royle living room, this time hosting not just Jim's (Ricky Tomlinson) portal to the world, his sexy new telly and digibox, but the effervescent Nana (Liz Smith) luxuriating on her deathbed.

The hour-long special, in keeping with the show's traditions, invited us to witness another milestone in the family saga, having previously covered Denise's wedding, endured her pregnancy and celebrated the birth of her son. This time it was Nana's rather majestic last days that provided the mirth, as the old girl ebulliently embraced death, shrouded in blonde hair extensions and patterned acrylic fingernails. Having endured the monotony of Dave's turgid reading aloud of a bodice-ripping novel ("on the road a head! . . . sorry . . . on the road ahead . . ."), she was rewarded with the joy of holding her great-granddaughter, Denise and Dave's second child, whom, in her honour, they had named Norma (Norma Orchard Tallulah Portia).

All the show's superbly drawn characters were featured, including Nana's gleefully insane friend, Mary Carroll (our own wonderful Doreen Keogh), who was on hand to share tragic stories of misfortune and to admire the colours of the medication prescribed by Nana's doctor ("He's Pakistani but he's very open about it"), and Mary's beleaguered daughter, Cheryl (Jessica Stevenson), who brought around a selection of respondents to her alarmingly inclusive lonely-hearts ad to meet the cheery old soon-to-be-corpse and have a sing-song.

The swansong for Aherne's melancholic comedy at times veered a little close to feel-good sentimentality, but it was nevertheless funny, poignant and beautifully observed. Her gift is in making the most seemingly inane and pedestrian elements of our lives feel like the most important. RIP to a tribal masterpiece in a scruffy doll's house; let's hope Aherne is laying the foundations for something equally original.

FEELING LIKE A sour satsuma in a plastic goodie-bag, I turned away from ITV's latest drama premiere, Mysterious Creatures, with a bad taste in my mouth. The based-on-truth/some-bits-made-up disclaimer at the top of the drama was a distinctly flimsy shield against the disturbingly prurient nature of the piece, the ethics of which were enough to get it dissected on Newsnight.

Mysterious Creatures was a docu- drama about Merseyside supply teacher Wendy Ainscow and her struggle to cope with the behaviour of her adult daughter, Lisa (Rebekah Stanton), who may or may not have Asperger's syndrome. Wendy, after surviving a suicide pact with her husband, Bill (Timothy Spall), has in the two years since her husband's death repeatedly tried to take her own life in the choppy waters off the Canary island of La Gomera, where Bill drowned. Shockingly, her latest attempt was only two weeks prior to the screening of her story, a dramatisation she had fully endorsed and been paid for but which had focused attention and immense pressure on Lisa, who is still struggling to live with her obsessive behaviour.

Wendy, as played by Brenda Blethyn, who unlocked her character's haphazard emotional machinations with her trademark domesticated intensity, was of course believable and quite sympathetic. This version was, after all, mainly her story, focusing on the disturbing events and discordant patterns that had ruined her life. Bill, her postmaster husband who had been freed from jail on appeal after stealing £50,000 from his employers to fund his daughter's extravagant, obsessive and seemingly uncontrollable spending habits (she bought more than 2,000 pairs of designer shoes), also turned in an empathetic performance. But why? Why did these reputable professionals deem this ragged and subjective script worthy of their undoubted talent?

Mysterious Creatures was a sad and inconclusive tale of a despairing family unable to trust or make use of a mental health system that itself was compromised by legal constraints. Implications in the script that Wendy Ainscow's "catastrophic parenting regime" had infantilised her daughter remained unexplored, while a half-realised storyline about Lisa's vulnerability to other patients when she was in care felt vaguely salacious. Neither illuminating nor helpful, the drama presented a cauldron of despair which, unlike the real people the characters were based on, we could switch off whenever we wanted.

Wendy Ainscow is currently in a stable condition in a Tenerife hospital where she is undergoing tests to determine whether or not her latest overdose and attempt at drowning herself have left her with brain damage.

UNLIKE THE ROYLE FAMILY, which shattered previous television conventions, and the quixotic and often bloody ITV drama premieres that dominate our Sunday night viewing, the national broadcaster's drama staple, The Clinic, rolls on at a more sedate, possibly over-medicated pace.

The drama series has built a considerable fan base over its lifetime and the central characters, played by a strong and talented cast, have deservedly established themselves as comfortably familiar faces.

There is, however, a muted, vaguely anaesthetised quality to the script, which offers its characters ostensibly interesting and fertile stories and then all too quickly closes them down again by means of predictable conclusions and unimaginative dialogue.

This week's episode focused on suave Dan Woodhouse (Dominic Mafham), the clinic's erstwhile "shallow, greedy plastics man" as he discovered that he had a life-threatening and complicated little tumour nestling in his well-qualified noggin. As Dan confronted his murky X-ray and the necessity for surgery and told a colleague through gritted teeth that he'd be lucky to wield a pencil again, let alone a scalpel, one suddenly experienced an overwhelming sense of deja vu. How many times before have we witnessed this scenario, from daytime kangaroo soap operas to just about every other medical drama with a beating stethoscope you've ever seen?

And later, when an irate patient of the stunned surgeon complained to the clinic's staff about being charged €120 for a one-minute consultation (been there, she had my sympathy), the unsympathetic receptionists were chastised with the uniquely un-unique reprimand: "She was a patient, and deserving of our care and respect." In a popular genre, The Clinic has the potential to be a dynamic presence in RTÉ's increasingly healthy stable of good drama. Well-stocked with seriously good acting talent, this is one show that doesn't need to be weighted with pedestrian dialogue and borrowed ideas.

WITH MY OWN "parenting regime" having all the consistency of a crumbling roux in a pot of boiling newts, I happily identified with TG4's terrific new series for teenagers, Aifric, which blew on to our screens just as the extinguished wisps of TG4's 10th birthday candles evaporated. Sweet and light, natural and unforced, Aifric is every Aussie teenage soap you've ever seen (go on, admit it), only warmer, brighter, in Irish, and co-starring the roaring and beautiful Connemara coastline.

Aifric, played by the lovely and unself-conscious Clíona Ní Chiosáin, is a teenage east-coaster who moves west with her hippy-dippy mother, her funky muso/accountant father and her macrobiotic, chakra-conscious little brother. It's a novelty to hear people talking about Polish films and polenta as Gaeilge (we didn't do that in my school, just lashings of stormy Peig), but even better to see series director and script editor Paul Mercier's young cast and optimistic storyline flourish. Aifric could be just the birthday present TG4 needs.