Gogglebox is a gift Caroline Aherne left me, Craig Cash says

Cash and Aherne worked together on several shows, including the much-loved BBC series The Royle Family

Writer and actor Craig Cash has said he sometimes feels the "presence" of his late friend Caroline Aherne when recording his Gogglebox voiceovers.

The star, who worked with Aherne on The Royle Family and other comedies, said she asked him to cover for her on the show after her cancer diagnosis.

He said since her death, the work was like having "a gift that she left me".

He also revealed that a special celebrating Aherne's life would be aired by the BBC over Christmas.

Aherne was the Channel 4 programme's first presenter, providing commentary from its beginning in 2013 to shortly before her death in 2016.

Cash told BBC Radio Manchester it was during her treatment for cancer that she first turned to him for help.

"She just asked me if I'd do the show for her if she was poorly and when she had to go for chemo, so of course I said yes just to help out, because I couldn't help in any other way," he said.

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He said after her death, he was asked to continue in the role, which he had come to see as a present from Aherne.

"It was really lovely, because it feel like a gift she has left me and I'm very grateful," he said.

"It felt like only natural I should keep doing it and I feel like she's with me sometimes.

"When I go in the studio where we used to record it, I can feel her presence sometimes.

"That feels a bit weird but true."

Aherne came to prominence as the hilariously acerbic chat show host Mrs Merton

The pair had worked together on a number of projects, including BBC hit series The Mrs Merton Show and The Fast Show, after meeting in Manchester in the late 1980s.

However, it was their work both in front of and behind the camera on The Royle Family for which they became best known.

The Stockport-born star said the BBC comedy, which was first broadcast in 1998, sprang out of an idea Aherne had while still working on The Mrs Merton Show.

"We wanted to write something that we knew and the likes of which we grew up in, as opposed to the posh middle-class families that you got on TV at that time," he said.

"The working title was the Wythenshawe Project, because Caroline was from Wythenshawe and we set it in Wythenshawe.

"We just wanted it to be about a family like our family really and that's what it ended up being, just sat there watching telly."

He said the much-loved patriarch Jim Royle, who was portrayed by Ricky Tomlinson, was "basically my dad apart from we couldn't make him a big [Manchester] City fan because Ricky was a Scouser".

'Like my house'

The show has become a TV classic and is often repeated, finding new audiences every time, but Cash said when it was first developed, "nobody wanted to make it, because it was just about people sat around talking drivel".

"We had to convince them [because] they all said 'no, it won't work'," he said.

"Caroline actually threatened not to do any more Mrs Merton shows if they didn't commission it.

"She meant it as well."

He said even when it had been filmed, some executives were still not convinced.

"When we'd made it, they [still] didn't really want to put it out.

"They were looking at and saying, 'people will be climbing the walls, because it's people just sat round talking."

Cash said at first, no-one wanted to make The Royle Family "because it was just about people sat around talking drivel"

He said he was delighted it had become such a success, but he was still shocked at how the programme had found such a wide audience.

"I thought it would only be popular in Manchester or the North-West," he said.

"But I get in taxis in London and [the drivers] say, 'it's just like my house'.

"It turns out to be a lot of people's real lives."

He added that he had discussed how he felt Aherne was still with him in a documentary about her, which he said would be broadcast over Christmas.

"I haven't seen the final cut of it yet, but hopefully, it will be a nice reminder of her genius," he said.