I don't know how to properly explain just how happy this news made me feel, so I'll simply say that I ran down the stairs so fast, I tripped and basically missed out half of the steps.
Fast forward to this Thursday, the day in which I was due to head down to Glasgow's Pacific Quay to watch one of my favourite TV shows being filmed.
Yes, the 16th May is apparently a perfectly reasonable time to record a Christmas special.
First off, I'm in love with Glasgow. Any time I visit the city, I always become incredibly happy (probably due to the fact that I head down there to see my favourite bands performing live, but let's just ignore that fact for a second). Megan came from her show's rehearsals to come and meet me and off we went.
We got to BBC Scotland at about 5.40pm. On-site admission was said to be from 6pm. When we got there, we realised that there were a couple of hundred of people in front of us.
251 people ahead of us, if you need to know.
The problem was, not everyone that received tickets was guaranteed a space in the live studio audience. Megan and I managed to get in by the skin of our teeth however.
Brendan O'Carroll (Mrs Brown herself) came out and explained that those who were not lucky enough to get into the studio were watching the show in the 'overflow' room.
BRENDAN: Hello everyone in the overflow room! Yeah... I bet you wish you got here feckin' earlier! Don't worry, you will be able to watch and hear everything that is going on in the studi- *begins to mouth words, pretending that the audio has cut out*It took a good deal of time to set up the equipment and get the set prepared for certain scenes, so instead of having the audience sitting in silence, an Irish comedian was on standby to get the crowd amped.
The only thing is, he was pissing off a number of us. Including Megan. She couldn't stand him.
COMEDIAN: You can be the leader for group B! What is your job?
WOMAN: A horse exporter.
COMEDIAN: ... Is that even a job?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Aye, she works for Tesco!He was also running an ongoing competition to find the best joke:
DAN: Mary and Frank were sitting at the coffee table on their sixtieth wedding anniversary. Mary turns to Frank and says "Frank, my boobs are as hot for you today as they were sixty years ago". Franks replies "I'm not surprised Mary, one is in your porridge and the other is in your tea."The apparent winner was:
AUDIENCE MEMBER: How do you find Will Smith in the snow? Look for the fresh prints.I don't want to spoil any of the jokes for you, but I'll say this: the episode is bloody brilliant. Wee Bono (played by Brendan's grandson Jamie) makes an appearance and absolutely steals the show. He's such a gem.
The actress who plays Winnie, Eilish O'Carroll, messed up so much. There was a line in which her character asks Agnes why Christmas always takes place when the shops are so busy, and they had to stop and start at least seven different times before they managed to nail that line.
During one of the pauses between filming, Brendan told us that they received 68,000 ticket requests for the show, and that we were the lucky few that managed to get them.
Anyway, it was a great experience, and I'm glad that I can tick this off of my bucket list.
Lauren xxx
