Caroline Aherne is always in my head. It’s either her own voice – in character as Denise Royle or Mrs Merton – or the words she wrote for someone else’s. This week, it’s that (to me) immortal line from Barbara Royle, “Ooh, Valerie, what a Christmas! Implants, and a Dyson!”, that I struggle not to say every time someone opens a present in front of me.
Other quotes come up all the time. When someone’s making me breakfast: “Can you make Denise’s bacon dead dead crispy?” When someone’s changing a nappy: “Smells of shite.” When I can’t believe my hangover: “I’ve never even drank ethanol.” When people are bickering at the table: “Shit and piss? It’s Sunday dinner!” When someone mentions corned beef: “We’re gonna have that one night.” When someone in my family gets on my nerves: “Mam, will you tell him?”
Aherne’s dialogue slips into how you speak because it already feels so familiar. Some of her biggest laughs came from Mrs Merton’s putdowns of Debbie McGee and George Best and Kriss Akabusi; and The Fast Show sketches “Scorchio!” and “What did I say Roy?” and “Brown bread, very posh, keeps you regular, though, doesn’t it?” and “I love Lisa Stansfield”.
But to me, Aherne’s gift didn’t lie in catchphrases but in simply noticing exactly what ordinary people are really like and delivering it right back to them, without beating you over the head with grand statements about class or aspiration or grief or love. It was that sparseness and restraint that made her work so hysterical, and also, often, so tragic, too.
“People are funny, aren’t they?” she once said. It’s something I think about all the time. The people you live with, work with, overhear in the pub – they’re often far more funny than any character you might dream up. Like the Royles, my own family communicate by teasing and nobody makes me laugh more.
If you can really indulge in the wit and silliness and good nature of the people around you, I think nothing can make your life richer. Aherne did everything to make people around her laugh. She filled her Mrs Merton audience with her aunties and older friends. She revelled in mischief whenever she could. All of us are lucky if we know someone as spirited as her.
In 2016, Aherne died aged 52 from lung cancer. This Christmas Eve would have been her 60th birthday, and on Christmas Day at 10.25pm, BBC Two will mark the occasion with Caroline Aherne: Queen of Comedy. It’s a really special portrait; it will make you howl and weep.
It showcases her genius, with lots of archive clips and interviews (there is not enough of her material easily found online – believe me, I’ve searched) and insight from her old friends – the people she grew up with in Manchester and the ones she worked with: Steve Coogan, John Thomson, Henry Normal, Craig Cash, of course, and all of the Royle Family cast.
It is far more powerful than some nostalgia-fest, or reverential, fawning study of her influence on comedy (which surely she’d have screeched at). Instead, every single person here deeply knew her, and loved her, and so present their memories, generously, with delight, and with regret: that she lost confidence, that she was hounded by the press, that she suffered so severely from depression and cancer during her life. As they talk about their “crackpot” friend they let you feel like she was yours too.
Aherne has been my hero since I was a child, when I was probably a bit young for The Royle Family but identified with “bone idle” Denise anyway. Now, it’s because of her conviction in her ideas, her candour, her perfectionism, her unapologetic love of a good time, her unapologetic discussion of what she found hard in life – the press, fame, drinking, relationships – without self-pity, and because she didn’t give in to a pressure to present herself as glamorous and sexy and “together” in order to be taken seriously.
She didn’t grandstand about the rarity of her position as a northern working class woman triumphing in the blokey Oxbridge 90s comedy world – her work was proof enough that she belonged (what a shame so few in her image have followed). And that work reminded everyone that really, there isn’t much more entertaining than just sitting around and being really, really daft.
People are funny. To me, Caroline Aherne is still the funniest of them all.
‘Caroline Aherne: Queen of Comedy’ is on BBC Two at 10.25pm