Friends Festive Blackpool Winter Gardens is a real coup for resort and Winter Gardens ahead of special Christmas programme

Friends was a TV landmark - particularly for myself as it represented a real growing up moment being allowed to stay up past 9pm on a Friday to watch it in the mid-1990s.

From those early episodes I was invested in the life and times of six 30 something New Yorkers, siblings Ross and Monica Gellar, Rachel Green, Joey Tribbiani, Chandler Bing and Phoebe Buffay.

And now, there is a chance to do just that with a little early Christmas treat for long-time fans at Blackpool Winter Gardens - the Friends Festive experience.

The venue proves a perfect, feel-good festive setting for the live event which sees the recreation of true-to-life sets, full of colour and dripping in Christmas cheer and nostalgia.

With a little sneak peek behind the sets before official visiting hours it was exciting and strangely comforting to be in the surrounds of familiar settings I'd come to grow and love over the course of a decade.

The first early visitors definitely felt that buzz too as they caught their first glimpses of that famous purple door and the iconic sofa of Central Perk. In the background those instantly recognisable voices playing out with some of the series famous lines. Friends Festive really does have the ultimate Friends experience wrapped up - that is of course with the exception of the real life presence of Jenifer Aniston, Matt Le Blanc, Courtney Cox, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow and Matthew Perry.

The event is also yet another coup for the resort for the winter season – being the only place outside of London to welcome the recreation and of the popular sitcom’s Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes.

Friends Festive parks up its sleigh in Blackpool Winter Gardens until November 19. Tickets £34.50.

To book, visit wintergardensblackpool.co.uk