The humour had always been largely derived from their on-stage relationship, but whereas Hills and Green had cast Morecambe as the comic and Wise as the straight man, Braben inverted the relationship ; as theatre critic Kenneth Tynan noted, Braben made Wise's character a comic who was not funny, while Morecambe became a straight man who was funny.

Morecambe and Wise's final show together was the 1983 Christmas special for ITV.

Morecambe and Wise's comic style varied subtly throughout their career, depending on their writers.

Wise's character would write a play, complete with cheap props, shaky scenery and appallingly clumsy writing (" the play what I wrote " became a catchphrase ), which would then be acted out by Morecambe, Wise and the show's guest star.

The Morecambe and Wise's Christmas Show in 1977 scored one of the highest ever audiences in British television history with more than 28 million viewers.

In December 2007, viewers of satellite channel Gold voted the sketch the best moment of Morecambe and Wise's shows.

In series one he sang Morecambe and Wise's " Bring Me Sunshine " with that week's star guest, while in series two he sang Andy Williams ' " It's So Easy ".

* A version performed by the UK comedy partnership Morecambe and Wise was ranked at the top of a 2007 poll of their Greatest Moments.

Large numbers travelling to quiet fishing villages such as Worthing, Brighton, Morecambe and Scarborough began turning them into major tourist centres, and people like Thomas Cook saw tourism and even overseas travel as viable businesses.

After the war — and a chance reunion in London, where Sadie once again encouraged them to work together — Morecambe and Wise began to make a name for themselves on stage and radio, before managing to secure a contract with the BBC to make a television show.

Gradually, Wise and Morecambe formed a close friendship, and, in 1941, they began their comedy double act, which was to last until Morecambe's death in 1984.

In Britain, double acts would remain confined to theatres and radio until the late 1950s, when double acts such as Morecambe and Wise and Mike and Bernie Winters slowly began the transition to television on variety programmes such as Sunday Night at the London Palladium.

When Morecambe and Wise teamed up with writer Eddie Braben, they began to redefine what was meant by a double act, with Wise, the straight man, being developed into a comic character in his own right.

After guesting on Cliff Richard's TV show, they began regular appearances on variety and comedy shows including Summertime Special, The Morecambe & Wise Show and The Two Ronnies.

The station formerly had additional platforms ( which can still be seen ), a Shell fuel oil distribution terminal and also a frequent EMU local service to and from Lancaster via Morecambe ( which began in 1908 ), but this ended in January 1966 when the old Midland route to Lancaster Green Ayre fell victim to the Beeching Axe.

In the forties, the Lyceum began to produce its own pantomime and was soon bringing in stars of radio such as Morecambe and Wise, Harry Secombe and Frankie Howerd.

* 2004 – Twenty-three Chinese people drown when a group of 35 cockle-pickers are trapped by rising tides in Morecambe Bay, England.

In one diary entry from 17 August 1967, when Morecambe and Wise were appearing in Great Yarmouth as part of a summer season, Morecambe noted, " I have a slight pain on the left side around my heart.

The railway was also featured in an episode of Coronation Street ( transmitted on August Bank Holiday 2010 ) when Hayley and Roy Cropper travelled to their wedding aboard an ELR train of Mark 1 coaches hauled by LMS " Black 5 " No. 44871, and in the BBC television film Eric and Ernie, aired on New Year's Day 2011, about the early career of the British comedy act Morecambe and Wise.

* The troupe were given one of the top accolades on British TV in 1975 when they were asked to perform alongside Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise on their BBC1 Christmas Day TV Show, one of the most popular TV shows in the UK.

Morecambe and Wise would often pretend not to have heard of their guest, or would appear to confuse them with someone else ( former UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson returned the favour, when appearing as a guest at the duo's ' flat ', by referring to Morecambe as ' Mor-e-cam-by ').

Yarwood's career peaked during the 1970s when he was one of a stable of stars under the BBC Light Entertainment impresario Bill Cotton, alongside Bruce Forsyth, Dick Emery, Morecambe and Wise, Val Doonican and The Two Ronnies, all these performers having started their careers on ITV during the preceding decade.

Braben's ultimate success came when the BBC lured Morecambe and Wise from ITV.

As the two leading double acts of the day, Morecambe and Wise and the Winters brothers enjoyed a playful rivalry — the Winters themselves mocked the slight edge Morecambe and Wise had over them in popularity while Morecambe, when asked what he and Wise would have been if not comedians, replied " Mike and Bernie Winters ".

He kept a clean sheet on his debut a day later at Morecambe, and continued to play until the end of the 2006 – 07 season, when he was named Burton's Player of the Season.

The show started off as a production at Morecambe Pier as the first staged musical version, but was also first staged when Hill was working as Director of Productions for the Newcastle Playhouse.

In September 2009 Schmeichel almost scored with an audacious overhead kick against Morecambe when he came up from a corner late on in the game.

" Barker and Corbett wished to avoid being remembered primarily as a duo, and felt they could not work in the same way as a conventional double act like Morecambe and Wise, and so each maintained their solo careers as well.

One reviewer gave a definition of television as " the box they buried Morecambe and Wise in ".

In 1968, as a result of problems with contract negotiations with Lew Grade ( they were not offered enough money or allowed to continue making their shows in colour ), Morecambe and Wise left ATV to return to the BBC.

Morecambe and Wise worked on their much-desired film, a television movie in 1983, Night Train to Murder, with which both were unhappy: recorded on videotape using the new medium of lightweight ENG cameras instead of 16mm or 35mm film, they felt it looked " cheap ".

A change of name followed in the autumn: after agreeing that the combination of their respective places of birth — Morecambe and Leeds — would make the act sound too much like a cheap day return, they settled on ' Morecambe and Wise '.

Their show, Running Wild, was not well received and led to a damning newspaper review: " Definition of the week: TV set – the box in which they buried Morecambe and Wise.

In the later and most successful part of their career, which spanned the 1970s, they were joined behind the scenes by Eddie Braben, a script writer who generated almost all their material ( Morecambe and Wise were also sometimes credited as supplying " additional material ") and defined what is now thought of as typical Morecambe and Wise humour.

Eric and Ernie often cited the earlier comedy team Flanagan and Allen as influences on their own work ; although Morecambe and Wise never imitated or copied Flanagan and Allen, they did sometimes work explicit references to the earlier team into their own cross-talk routines and sketches.

In the mid-1970s, Eric and Ernie recorded a tribute album, Morecambe and Wise Sing Flanagan and Allen ( Phillips 6382 095 ), in which they performed some of the earlier team's more popular songs in their own style, without attempting to imitate the originals.

Morecambe played their first game in the Football League against Barnet at Christie Park in August 2007, in which they played out a 0 – 0 draw to secure their first ever Football League point.

This earned Morecambe a Lancashire Derby in the Second Round against another Championship side, Burnley, where they lost 3 – 1.

Braben had seen Morecambe and Wise some years previously in music hall and thought they were terrible.

When they first appeared Little and Large were seen for a time as successors to Morecambe and Wise, who defected from the BBC to ITV in 1978, but despite the long run of their show the pair never entered the public consciousness in the way Eric and Ernie did.

However, they lost a challenge match against Morecambe, the bottom club in the First Division and they failed to gain promotion.

The later comedy team Morecambe and Wise, who often expressed their admiration for Flanagan and Allen, recorded a tribute album, Morecambe and Wise Sing Flanagan and Allen ( Phillips 6382 095 ), in which they performed some of the earlier team's more popular songs in their own style, without attempting to imitate the originals.

The puppets also appeared on TV in the USA on a number of episodes of The Ed Sullivan Show: 532 ( 14 September 1958 ), 548 ( 4 January 1959 ), 573 ( 5 July 1959 ), 740 ( 10 March 1963 ), 780 ( 23 February 1964, where they shared the bill with The Beatles and Morecambe and Wise ) and 908 ( 26 February 1967 ).