It was perfect in nearly every way, although if you were going to carp, you might say that Osborne Hamley's secret wife spoke implausibly good English for a French maid But I'm not going to carp. Michael Gambon and Francesca Annis had the best lines, yet made more of them than you would have believed possible. Just to say that Justine Waddell, as Molly, was not overawed in such company would be praise indeed But she was much, much better than that. Truly, Christmas-time telly is not always what it used to be.. YOU'VE PROBABLY heard "Shine Jesus Shine". It was sung at the memorial services after Dunblane and the Tasmanian massacre. I recall an Inspector Morse - also made with WGBH, if memory serves - in which the backdrop suddenly and needlessly shifted from the dreaming spires of Oxford to the Royal Crescent, Bath.

Before long the trail of clues would undoubtedly have led Morse to Stonehenge, Stratford, York Minster, and the zebra-crossing outside Abbey Road Studios.Wives and Daughters, I'm pleased to say, made no such compromises. BBC costume dramas are usually shot in Wiltshire but there is just no way you can easily replicate the veldt within easy reach of Devizes, so sometimes budgets have to be stretched And budgets shared with WGBH Boston stretch further Thank heavens for American co- production money Even though we occasionally pay for it artistically. It was lively, amiable stuff - adapted by Alex Shearer from his own popular novel - and my kids loved it, even though my four-year-old, bless him, wondered how there could be a truly happy ending without the children's missing daddy being restored to the bosom of his family.There was an exceedingly happy ending at the conclusion of Wives and Daughters (BBC1), and an expensive ending too, shot in Africa At least it looked like Africa. Anyway, Santa was aided by his elf (Sean Hughes) but the dastardly pair were foiled by a couple of girls (Elizabeth and Holly Earl) and their spirited mum (Dervla Kirwan). The store, Scottley's, looked suspiciously like Harrods, so it was a safe worth ransacking, though to have been really topical, it should have been loaded with Christine Hamilton's jewellery. For one thing, the Royles get together all day and every day to look at the bloody television. While for those who really do get together just one day a year, The Royle Family made at least 40 minutes of it worthwhile.There was another dose of Tomlinson in The Greatest Store In The World (BBC1), as a department store Santa bent on ransacking the corporate safe.

I wouldn't want to over-analyse, but this was a sentence that resounded in different ways. As for Tomlinson, a man who offers such little evidence that he has learnt his lines in advance is either a very poor actor or a sublimely good one. In his case, of course, the latter.There's not much to say about The Royle Family that hasn't been said already. To be vegged (and turkeyed) out in front of the telly watching the Royles vegged out in front of the telly is a definitive fin-de-siecle experience But as I said, that's been said. "This is the one day of the year we all get together to look at the bloody television and look at the shite they put on," moaned Jim Royle (Tomlinson). "What if the baby doesn't like me?" she sobbed, and if you weren't sobbing with her, you must have nodded off. But the scene was perfectly in context, and besides, the performances of Caroline Aherne (like sinister Rosie Webster, a Christmas Eve baby herself) and Ricky Tomlinson were simply awesome.Because of her other talents it is sometimes overlooked, but Aherne is an astoundingly good actress, and to steal a show from Liz Smith and Sue Johnston amounts to grand larceny.