M & W Christmas Special 1982 (Requested)

Episode: Christmas Special 1982. Returning from the previous seasonal show was All Creatures Great & Small star Robert Hardy, joined by both Rula Lenska and Richard Vernon who had appeared in previous shows; the opening routine perhaps prophetically discussed the retiring of the double act but this in itself was a further reworking of BBC material but somehow the pace of the dialogue was becoming lost. In an update of several older sketches, the Video Shop was offered as well as a Lingerie Shop and a Chattanooga Choo Choo routine (the blackface ending of this sketch was edited out of the recent Complete Thames series box set release by Network). The closing play was the Yukon Gold Rush featuring Rula Lenska. Notable of this and many other shows was the absence of the favourite signature tune over the end credits. Again, because Christmas Day fell on a weekend, when Thames was not the franchise holder, this show was not broadcast on Christmas Night but two evenings later.