The Americans watched in deepening bafflement - 50 stony- faced pensioners supremely uncomprehending of the show's most vital ingredient - irony. Yet the show - of course - had to go on.It was immediately apparent however, that Caroline's odd voice, her Mancunian accent and the very boldness of the show was not going to bridge the cultural divide. There seemed no medical remedy that could make her sound better. She sounded very odd, neither able to talk recognisably as Caroline or in character as Mrs Merton. They all had such a good time they kept coming back.By the end of the second series the spontaneous contributions from the audience in the "heated debates", had become such an original and funny part of the show that we had cut the guests from three to two to accommodate more of them.But while Caroline wouldn't have contemplated the Las Vegas shows without her faithful ageing posse, their presence couldn't prevent the problem that developed.Caroline woke up on the morning of the first show with what is commonly described as Las Vegas throat, caused usually by the combination of dry climate and air conditioning. Then there are the three Wigan ladies, Enid, Sylvia and Liz, who are forever tying to lure the hunkier guests like Daniel O'Donnell and Des Lynam back to their place.The notion of a regular audience was never planned, but had developed from the pilot show in 1994 when the production team had been so desperate to fill the studio that they had forced all their "old" relatives, neighbours and friends to turn up.

Many have become minor celebrities in their own right, such as Roy, the colourfully dressed ex- roadsweeper, who boldly told Lorraine Kelly that he'd like to crawl into the TV and give her one "of a morning", or Horace the former car-tyre salesman who told Boy George all about his experiences in a Manchester sauna, when a fellow dry heat enthusiast suddenly died from a heart attack. They arrived full of enthusiasm.Our audience is crucial to the show's success. LaToya Jackson and Tammy Wynette were the guests and we had invited 50 local pensioners, all of whom had seen tapes of the show, and been schooled in the ways of Mrs M. They got delayed at Newark, New Jersey when 15 appeared not to have been booked on the plane, and then were stuck in Cleveland, Ohio for a further eight hours due to a snowstorm.But they arrived at long last in good spirits and, despite jetlag, were ready to support Caroline on the first show the following day. And on the back of such executive bravado (and a BBC cheque) 50 pensioners from the North-west with an average age of 70, set off for Buggy Seigel's famous "Flamingo" hotel. Top idea it may have been, but this little tale is a reminder of how television is so frequently produced on the thinnest of margins between success and failure.Our intrepid pensioners had a rough ride out. She was fearful that it might not work so far from its Manchester home, and without the regular hand-picked audience Then let's take the audience with us, I argued. Caroline Aherne was not convinced by my bright idea to record three episodes of The Mrs Merton Show in Las Vegas.

You have to realise that how you saw the world at the age of six or nine is different and you have to try to get through to that.". He has since admitted that abuse went on inside and outside the family, says Carol.Carol says that those who recover memories do not do so rashly, but cautiously "They are not simple. Fragments gradually began to make sense."The sisters wrote to their father confronting him with their allegations. "You don't just get your memories back and think 'Yes, that's what happened,' you test it out. It was when their father emigrated that the sisters felt free to remember.Both sisters recovered memory before going into therapy and Carol stresses it did not involve hypnosis Remembering was slow and painful. It took another decade before they could speak freely to each other.