The BBC has put lots of repeats into its schedule, so there’s every chance if you fell into a turkey-coma last Christmas Day you could wake up not knowing the difference. In which case you lucky sod, I envy you – you’ve been spared 2018.
I do understand why they do this though – the last thing you want on Christmas Day is to spend it with anyone new, so they wheel out the old favourites and you can relax, reassured that you’ve seen this Victoria Wood Special before, or the Royle Family or wait? What! NEW MORECAMBE AND WISE?
But there’s telly to watch this Christmas – tons of it, miles, acres – and if you’re the kind of family who are better off reclining after dining, and would rather not talk to each other, then tuck into my festive guide.
I’ll be honest, some of this stuff they didn’t let me watch yet what with it being top secret and that, some of it I’ve seen before and some of it I can reliably predict, but I hope this helps with those long necessary silences in your household. Cheers!
EastEnders
“PEACE and goodwill to all men” is the motto of Christmas, but for EastEnders it’s “terms and conditions apply”.
Year in, year out, the people of Walford look forward to Christmas, their happy little faces alive with the potential joy of the season, and then, SPLAT!, the scriptwriters take a great big Yuletide dump on everyone.
This year’s hot Christmas log lands on Kat and Alfie and it’s tidings of rumpo and Oi! She learns that he pulled a cracker just over nine months ago in the shape of her cousin Hayley – and he’s the father of newborn baby Cherry.
No matter how rotten your Christmas Day turns out to be, this episode will make you feel better about yourself, your life and the choices you made this year. One whole hour.
The ABC Murders
DRAMA, if it’s done properly, is murder – costumes, posh people having it off and lying about it, someone else getting murdered, detective turns up, another stiff cops it, game over in under an hour and a half.
And this is exactly that – Agatha Christie, spiced up. Cast a big American star in it and don’t get too bothered about his Belgian accent and there’s your ABC Murders. John Malkovich has stepped up as Hercule Poirot – so rather than David Suchet and his perfect ’tache, we’ve got some kind of goatee, which is going to upset the kind of divots who care about that sort of thing.
Poirot has to crack the case: People are being killed in alphabetical order but he’s got plenty of time to solve it – as his name starts with a P.
Ken Dodd: How We Were Tickled
KEN Dodd was a colossus, a titan of titters, one of the funniest men ever to tread the boards – and he left us this year in March, aged 90.
BBC2 has rolled out the red carpet in his memory, and it is a proper Christmas treat.
We have his one-liners – “Do I believe in safe sex? Of course, I do. I have a handrail around the bed” and “I do all the exercises every morning in front of the television – up, down, up, down, up, down. Then the other eyelid”. Then there are his shaggy dog stories, his tickle stick, his epic long shows, his hit records. He was an unstoppable one-man entertainment factory.
If I were you, I’d record this one and tuck it away as a sweet treat for that boring stretch between Christmas and New Year.
- The Pub Landlord will be performing a special Christmas-themed show Twelve Days Of Christmas at London’s Leicester Square Theatre from December 11-23, while his new UK stand-up tour Landlord Of Hope And Glory starts in May 2019. See thepublandlord.com.
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