Royle Family wasted £100,000 after huge error that almost 'bankrupted' BBC

The Royle Family cost the BBC £100,000 after a “farcical” error while filming. The sitcom stars had reunited for a Christmas special in 2009 that quickly went wrong when it turned out that the actors’ heads had been severed from their bodies, with the cameras all pointing at the wrong angle.

When the film returned from the processing laboratory, writer Phil Mealey confessed it looked like someone’s “holiday photographs”, and cut everyone off above the shoulders. The blunder meant that all the actors had to be brought back on-set for a reshoot, meaning their wages had to be handed out again and all the equipment and relevant costs doubled.

Stars including Ralf Little and Sue Johnston were brought back to the Salford studios to shoot the footage again, with Mealey confessing: “When we looked at the footage, it was like my holiday photographs – everyone's head was cut off. Everything was lost. We were absolutely gutted.

“The camera had been checked and what was coming through on the monitors in the studio was fine.

“But a ground glass piece or something had dropped in the lens. It was like going to Boots with your wedding snaps ruined but on a massive scale. We lost the first two days’ footage and had to drag everyone back to film it again. It was one of the most expensive rehearsals in the history of television.

“I’ve spoken to quite a few people in television and nobody has ever experienced that amount of footage completely lost.”

Producer John Rushton had come back from the labs with bad news – the footage was unusable. It meant Jessica Hynes – who played Cheryl Carroll in the comedy – had to be brought back from London where she had rushed to appear in a production of The Priory at the Royal Court Theatre.

Thankfully, the BBC and production company Jellylegs were saved from spending a fortune as the production was insured “in the event of something happening”.

The second take was completed in just one day at The Pie Factory TV studios in MediaCity, with the team “delighted” with the finished product, which reached almost 12million people and became the highest-rated episode of the series ever.