tion>
Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris
Foreword by
Craig Cash and Caroline Aherne
Illustrations by
Quinton Winter
Published in Great Britain in 2014 by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street,
Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2014 by Canongate Books
Text and photography © Studio Lambert
Programme and format © Studio Lambert
Foreword © Craig Cash and Caroline Aherne, 2014
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Design © Unreal Ltd, 2014
Illustrations © Quinton Winter
Additional photography
Page 208 © Shutterstock
Page 231 © Jason Hazeley
Page 232 © BBC Photo Library
Page 234 © Tony Larkin/Rex
Endpaper artwork © @goggleblox (Fiona Evans)
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 78211 489 5
Export ISBN 978 1 78211 598 4
eISBN 978 1 78211 491 8
Contents
FOREWORD
Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash
Imagine watching Jim Royle watching Gogglebox.
‘Barbara, have you seen this shite? They’re expecting us to watch people we’ve never even heard of, sat around watching TV and carping on about it. Who in their right mind would do that, Barb? Gogglebox, my arse!’
The following Friday at 9 p.m. you’re watching Gogglebox, where the wonderful regulars are watching The Royle Family watching them and saying something much funnier than we could ever write. It could happen. It probably will one day, once we get over the fact that the child we have spawned is much funnier than we are. We could never have written Leon and June sat watching as the titles to When Corden Met Barlow rolled.
LEON: Who’s Barlow?
JUNE: Gary Barlow!
LEON: Oh no. TWO dickheads!
Gogglebox is not only properly funny, it’s also brave, true, heartwarming and heartbreaking. Each episode is assembled with a remarkable deftness of touch and a clear fondness for each of the participants.
When so much TV would have us believe that Britain is broken, you only have to watch Gogglebox to realise that it isn’t broken at all. It’s alive and well, with the biggest and warmest of hearts.
A work of sheer genius.
Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash (Sat on a sofa, pissed up with Steph and Dom)
PREFACE
Tania Alexander
Jim Royle’s likely dismissive scoffing at an episode of Gogglebox is pretty much the reaction a lot of people had when we presented them with the idea of a TV show where we watch people watching television. To them, it seemed like the moment when TV was about to eat itself whole and regurgitate the contents of its own stomach across the screen.
But that was, of course, before they’d seen a single frame of it.
Gogglebox required us to believe in one simple notion: that the great British public knows best when it comes to what the television makers serve up. The moment when
