Did mine last August/September time. Passed first time with three minors. I think you are allowed up to 15 minors but no majors.
The test consists of eye test, the reversing manoeuvre, unhitch and re-hitch (along with a pretend check over of the trailer for dodgy tyres and road worthiness) and show and tell. Then go for a drive, which for a while the examiner will give you instructions where to go and have you stop and start safely a few times along the way, then will ask you to follow road signs to somewhere. I'm sure the driving part alone was an hour, and hour and a half for the whole test.
In Chelmsford, they tested a specific bus lane (when it wasn't in operation) so that you demonstrated that you know the law by driving straight into it and not in the lane next to it. That would have been a fail. Also, some of the test is at motorway speeds on a dual carriageway.
The driving must be very smooth. It was explained to me that if your passenger had his eyes shut in a kind of dozing off type way, he shouldnt be able to tell when you change gear. You must not speed. That is a fail also. Unless some other road user is about to kill you and that is your only possibility to stay alive. You are expected to do mirror checks loads when driving along, but also some very specific mirror checks on roundabouts. I was taught to skip fifth gear when getting up to speed on a dual carriage way. I.e go straight from fourth to sixth. Apparently the examiner likes to see that. If you get overtaken on the inside on a duel carriageway you will fail, unless, under certain circumstances, it by a motorbike, if it was safer for you to stay where you were and let him past on the inside.
You should time your arrival at every obstacle so as not to arrive, say, at a pedestrian crossing at the same time as a pedestrian. You should also time your arrival at the traffic light queue, just as the traffic is pulling away, so you don't have to stop. Same goes for arriving at roundabouts. By arriving slowly (15mph in second gear) you are far more likely to find a gap without stopping than by racing up to it and having to stop. The more you can do this the better.
At any point that you are stopped and a pedestrian is crossing in front of you, you should have the hand brake on, and don't realease it until they are out of the way.
The whole test is about being the safest person on the road, and doing everything in the safest way possible. If anything unexpected happens, like you get cut up etc, as long as you handle it in such a way that the examiner thinks, I'd have done the same, then you won't get any minors.
I think after everything I learned whilst taking the lessons, it has made me a better driver (although a lot of bad habits come straight back). Overall it cost about £550 all in.
Everyone I've spoken to about towing always fixates on the reversing as being the difficult bit about towing. I actually found that to be the most easy bit by far. It's the only bit of the test that you're in complete control of.
