MERRY CHRISTMAS MR POTATO-HEAD
(now bugger off and don’t come back for a year at least)
There’s some big row that contrives to scatter the Wattses from Weird Family Central on Christmas morning, leaving Kyert all on her ownsome, but I missed it because I was watching Some Like It Hot (nobody’s perfect). Just as she’s making herself some breakfast and wondering whether or not to swap around the labels on the presents, Fill (with his arm in a really manky sling) kicks the front door in.

So how did he escape exactly? Did he put a wooden horse next to the prison yard wall and encourage his fellow inmates to leap over it while he dug a tunnel with a teaspoon? Answers on a postcard please.

Fill has grown a Ray Winstone-as-Henry-VIII-style ginger beard that makes him look less like a potato and more like a mouldy kiwi fruit. He stomps around the house, and discovers Kyert’s underwear in Denman’s bedroom. This makes him really cross, and he goes downstairs to ask why….why? Ummm…look in the mirror, pal. He and Kyert shout about their failed marriage, and Kyert yammers on about marrying a kind, sensitive man, not a bank-robbing thug. Did she turn up at the wrong wedding or something? In the end, Kyert persuades him to leave his gun behind, and she’ll give him an hour before she sets the Dogs of DS Marsden on him.

Meanwhile, Fool’s decree absolute is still not around, and the registrar has refused to marry him. But, instead of calling the whole thing off, Fool gets David Walliams off Little Britain to do his village idiot act, and pretend to be the registrar. This idea is so crap that even Backstreet is moved to call him a muppet – coming from The Great Gonzo, that is truth indeed. Ethel 2.0 has a moment of sanity and says that he should stop trying to play the big fixer and be the “real” Fool Moon for Slutty.

Slutty and the Slater girls all get ready over at the Slater house. Billy remembers their wedding anniversary at the last minute and makes Drippy a card out of a Blue Peter presenter and a packet of fags. Drippy is stupidly happy. Billy spends the rest of the day looking uncomfortable every time Drippy says something.

AGarry and Sullen have a very public secret liaison on the forecourt of Evans Cars. Sullen is still in her pyjamas, the slattern. Posh arrives for bridesmaid duty, and seems to have ditched the wigs for good. But she doesn’t actually get to say anything. Boo!

Slutty’s bridal outfit appears to be her previous wedding dress dyed scarlet, with some weird bustle contraption at the back. It could have been worn by one of the Dickensian doxies on Oliver! (shown earlier today).

The Ferreira Kidz all escape down the pub, but they’re still shunning Shirley, who is alone in the flat with her turkey breast and solitary glass of vino. That is, until Nat and Pat rescue her from Single Xmas Hell and take her down the pub.

Just as the wedding starts, Fool whisks Slutty upstairs and tells her that it’s all a tissue of lies – he’s not legally marrying her, and the registrar is actually Him off Little Britain. Slutty screams and rages about not wanting to be Slutty any more – she wants to be a nice girl, she does. Anyway, there’s another exchange where they talk about putting on a front and it all being about the Truth, Alfie, the Truth yadda yadda. Alfie goes downstairs to risk his life by telling the Slaters that it’s all off again but then Lewis the Loser Lawyer appears from nowhere with the Decree Absolute. ‘Tis a Miracle! A proper registrar is rustled up from nowhere and Slutty does indeed have her Christmastide wedding, with fake snow and everything.

But what happens to Fill? Well, he follows O-Den into the club and starts beating him up, one-armed. O-Den breaks a chair over his head to calm him down, and then offers him his share of the loot to bugger off for a year or two. Then Denman appears. Fill punches Denman, accepts his share of the loot, and hides in the caff while Sham hunts for Billy.

Oh yes, and there’s quite a sweet exchange between the Dens about fathers and sons, and Traditional Family Christmas Rows and Denman’s temper etc.

Sham appears to have a fit of amnesia because she walks right past Billy in the Vic. She gets Rickay to drive Fill’s getaway Ford Fiesta. While they're waiting, Fill moans on about how every woman he ever married wanted to change him - incidentally, does he use the same ring every time he gets married, or does he buy a new one - and nobody will love him for the ugly little bruiser that he really is. Not while the likes of Denman can give the same services in a more aesthetically pleasing fashion anyway. He and Rickay escape while everybody else dances around in the fake snow, and DS Marsden’s Pretty Plods scratch their heads in wonder.