Recently, I was very sad to hear that Caroline Aherne had died.
It’s a celebrity loss I feel more acutely than the death of pop legends like Bowie and Prince because my relationship to her work felt so much more personal.
If you’ve never heard of her, and it’s too bad that most Americans haven’t, she was a brilliant comedic actress and writer who created an absolutely genius British sitcom called The Royle Family (1998) which lasted three seasons and spawned several one-hour specials. And yes, that’s Royle, not Royal. It’s the ironic last name of a working-class family in Manchester, England, and the episodes take place almost exclusively in their cramped living room, where they mostly sit and watch TV.
And that’s it…that’s the show.
That’s why it was genius.
Forget Seinfeld, this was the real show about nothing!
No plots, no big events, just everyday life in all its humdrum glory. If art holds up a mirror, this was a mirror under a microscope; revolutionary in its minimalism. And yet, it very pointedly seemed to ask: Isn’t this type of listless gathering and idle family chatter the real meat of our lives? And isn’t there something kind of wonderful about that?
I stumbled onto the show on BBC America one day in 2001 and was instantly sucked in by the simplicity of it. It was the perfect antidote to the forced mayhem of most American sitcoms. Of course, I had trouble at first with the characters’ thick Manchester accents (thank god for subtitles) and I had to learn a whole new vocabulary of British slang, but that only made the discovery more exciting.
And, as a writer, I knew all too well such simplicity was an illusion.
“Effortless” naturalism does not come easy, it requires tremendous skill. Aherne possessed a perfectly-tuned ear for the way people really talk – especially when they are lying to themselves; and she and co-creator, Craig Cash, managed to hide a cutting, scalpel-sharp wit behind every seemingly inane line of dialogue and pregnant pause, finding the poetry in the crude and inarticulate.
They rightfully won multiple BAFTA awards for their work on the show, and I ended up buying the published scripts so I could pore over every word, study their precision and learn from the best.
The famous Television-POV opening credits for “The Royle Family” with Oasis song. (To play, press the long link code below. Recorded from, where else, my own TV. Please forgive the shaky-cam framing)
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Meet the Royles:
The patriarch Jim, like most fathers, enjoys ranting at the world from the comfort of his easy chair. His wife Barbara, is ever the peacemaker, smoothing out his temper with her eternal optimism. Denise (played by Aherne), is their spoiled princess daughter who makes an art form out of laziness. Younger brother Anthony, the put-upon baby of the family, is frequently abused as slave labor. And then there’s Dave (played by Cash), Denise’s fiance/husband, a gormless bloke completely unburdened by higher thought.
The characters are silly, peevish, vulnerable and fiercely loyal all at once.
The show makes fun of them, yes – but lovingly, never meanly.
The first two seasons (or “series”, as the Brits say) are sheer perfection. The first leads up to Denise and Dave’s wedding, the second to the birth of their son. As hilarious as they are, they each finish with a powerful emotional wallop.
The third season is fine, but has no such story arc and feels less focused. Then there are several one-hour Christmas specials of varying quality – the very best being The Queen Of Sheba, which deals beautifully with the passing of the family’s Nana.
A talented sketch performer, Aherne was also beloved for her parody of an elderly talk show host called “Mrs. Merton”
I have to admit I became obsessed with Aherne – my admiration for her work mixed with a schoolboy crush. Like Lucille Ball or Gilda Radner, she was hugely appealing.
Hunting for more info online, I found out she was a brassy Manchester girl in real life as well – prone to drinking too much and loving the wrong people. Unfortunately, her every vodka shot and stumble became fodder for the tabloids. In one incident, well in her cups at an awards show, she got impatient with a winner’s long-winded speech and yelled “Get on with it!” at the top of her lungs. I thought that was hilarious. It just made me love her more. But, unfortunately, it was also a sign of a big substance problem.
Her addiction issues were fueled by a tragic life. She survived two bouts of cancer, one that cost her an eye as a child. She lost one boyfriend to cancer and another to suicide. She herself attempted suicide with an overdose of pills and champagne after frequent battles with depression and was committed to a mental hospital. All of this was chronicled in gleeful detail by the British press. Eventually, she felt the need to “escape” to Australia just for the privacy and space to recuperate.
Not to be melodramatic – which she would hate – but it seems she spent the majority of her very successful career just fighting to survive.
Then by all accounts, in the last decade or so, a happy calming. Things quieted down and she was finally at peace with herself. She moved back to Manchester to be close to her family. Returned with the occasional Royle holiday episode, which was always much anticipated and a big ratings winner. Made a good living with voice-over work. No longer in the white-hot spotlight, no longer the wild phenom or “future of British comedy”, but having beaten her demons and enjoying a simpler life.
Until, in a sick joke of fate, she was attacked by cancer for yet a third time. This time it was lung cancer. This time she lost the battle.
She died all alone, in her home, having only the day before reassured her brother over the phone she was “feeling fine”. Almost certainly a lie.
She was 52. Robbed of a good 30 more years of hard-won happiness. As we were robbed of her comic brilliance, her crooked grin, and one helluva’ memoir.
I never knew the woman. But I wish I had…
Her work was nothing less than a joyous celebration of humanity.
Sometimes it’s just easier not being a genius.
–RR