There was also a talking heads piece on after it with J.K. Rowling, Peter Kay and Noel Gallagher geeking out over it in the most affectionate ways.
OMG. Bless.
Seriously, I could wax lyrical about The Royle Family at length. It's seriously fantastic writing and acting and it deserves to be studied alongside late 20th Century drama on University courses - it's really much more in the theatrical tradition than using the medium of television.
Christ, that sounds shockingly pretentious. But what I mean is that Aherne used only a handful of sets and it's all dialogue-based, character revealing stuff rather than action-y stuff. It could totally be done on stage with the most minimal changes and not lose anything, which isn't true of most television. And it's so painfully funny and funnily painful and just spot on... yeah. Go Team Aherne.