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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 255513" data-attributes="member: 23">What Larks Or… What I Did On My Holidays! (December 2009) <img src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1200x675/p02bjvwy.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 795px" />For most hour long TV specials, an accompanying making of which runs for forty minutes would be excessive, and would probably wear thin after ten of those minutes. But this is written and presented by Vic and so is an absolute treat. She talks us through Mid Life Christmas from conception to production. It’s all here: putting together a period piece; learning dance routines; working with green screen. There’s also an in-depth look at the wonderful dance sequence in which Vic plays The Apprentice’s Margaret Mountford to perfection. From the splitting desk to the timing of the skirt being ripped off. It’s all covered. How else would we know that Alan Sugar's silhouette was played by Susan Tully's Dad?! Typically, Vic is quite frank about the things that went wrong or that she wasn’t happy with, and as we get to some reshoots of the Freda and Barry sequence, Vic talks us through how she’d have liked it to be if they’d had the time and budget. It covers the sort of stresss we wouldn’t normally think about - like the road outside the theatre being dug up by workmen with loud drills on the day  the show was to be played to an audience.The producer gets a number of scathing comments from Vic in voiceover and, possibly through editing, comes out of it looking a little ineffectual. It’s difficult to know whether she really felt he wasn’t that good or she loved him enough to be able to take the pee, as she would with Julie Walters. It could be either. Vic has said that she didn’t feel the BBC trusted her and were too heavy handed with their input, and it seems to be common knowledge that Vic was unhappy with the scheduling of this special as she’d expected it to air on Christmas Day rather than Christmas Eve. Perhaps the slightly derisory comments about the producer are representative of those creative struggles.There are several prolonged sequences of Vic walking round London by the National Theatre or across the Golden Jubilee Footbridge talking into camera that feel very natural and accessible. It’s just like taking a walk with a friend. Which is how it should be for a national treasure. It might be an accompanying piece, but this look at wheels of showbiz turning is hugely entertaining in its own right, being viewed as it is through Vic’s eyes.  </blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?