It's that time of year of which I've become a big fan, the older I've got. As the circumstances of my Christmas period (not literally this year, whoop!) have changed, my post-Christmas days have gone from me being a bored and fed up child, to the middle-aged sofa-clinging security of nostalgic TV and a diet of picking at bits from the fridge. (My death row meal would definitely be picking at bits. FYI)
Here's what I posted this time last year. The first chunk of it is 2018 specific, but what follows is still true today. Christmas provides a TV planner that brims over with festive specials, old films from childhood, and this year's big budget dramas. If you want to remind yourself of Christmas past, then do click the link to see what I watched this time a year ago. Or, if you are rooted firmly in the present, then read on. Here's the festive TV that I am recommending this season. (Everything is available on catch up, streaming services, or cinema listings I think.)
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| Photo from BBC iPlayer |
This is the kind of thing I love circling in the Christmas Radio Times. It's a compilation show of clips of Christmas TV. This time they went with 1979; a year in which I was technically alive, although my memories are deeply repressed or non-existent. (I was one.) Packaged up as a fun look at yesteryear's fashions and TV craziness, it's actually a fascinating historical source. Grace Dent starts the intro by showing us Penelope Keith start the intro in 1979 for a similar retrospective of the seventies. It's all very meta. Then we're thrown into clips from Hi Di Hi, Tomorrow's World, Doctor Who, Butterflies, and Parkinson. It's properly absorbing and perfect to watch with a mince pie and fairy lights.
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| Photo from the BBC iPlayer |
This was broadcast on prime time Christmas Day so was the flagship hope of the BBC. I, on the other hand, only got to watch it on 27th. I was full of food and entirely horizontal, and not sure I was in the right emotional place for seeing one of my favourite series of the 21st century cock up their come-back. But then I watched it and everything was OK. (Not everything obvs. There was a problematic use of a problematic word in a song I like apart from that word's inclusion. Weird that the creative choice was to leave it in, but there we are.) When I say, everything was OK, I don't mean 'adequate' or 'satisfactory'. I mean all my worries were unfounded. Ten years on in the lives of fictional characters is hard to get right. They aren't the same people they were then, but they have to be the essence of who they were. They have to convince the audience that this is the way their lives and their circumstances have changed and aged. I think Ruth Jones and James Corden nailed it. Plus, there were lots of lovely nods to the previous series, that made me remember how much I'd enjoyed it back then. Tidy.
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| Photo from the BBC iPlayer |
About three years ago, in the post-Christmas relax, I got flu. Proper can't-lift-my-head-off-the-pillow flu. I managed to stir myself every few hours to take a bunch of painkillers and fever-busters, and then lie back down again. It wasn't fun. In that very hazy week before New Year, I discovered Neil Brand's music programmes. Back then it was about musicals in general. I could concentrate on nothing for long, but watching him very technically and brilliantly explain in a very accessible and enjoyable way how particular notes in particular broadway numbers take the audience to different places, was fascinating. I was incapable of anything that required real concentration but his three part series was spot on. Fast forward to this year, and he's at it again. This three-parter is about Movie Musicals. Watch him discuss the choreography of Busby Berkeley, the opening shot of The Sound of Music, or the rise of Russian musical movies, whilst pinning them to social and political events of the time. It's another historical commentary, packaged up as a bit of musical fun. I can't recommend it highly enough. And it was so nice to watch this year, without being stricken with lurgy.
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| Photo from BBC iPlayer |
Evil Under the Sun (BBC iPlayer)
This is exactly what Christmas telly's about, for me. The 27th came around. I waved off my house guests and sprinted (lol. As if. Shuffled, lumbered or crawled is more accurate) to the kettle and then to the sofa. Peter Ustinov was on my telly and I was ready to devour him. Ustinov is my favourite Poirot. I have a real soft spot for johnny-come-lately Branagh, and some of the others are perfectly fine, but Ustinov was my first. You never forget your first. And, I am pretty sure, I encountered my first Poirot on a New Year's Eve in the eighties, whilst being baby-sat by my Grandma. It wasn't Ustinov's Evil Under the Sun that I watched that first time, but it doesn't matter. He didn't do that many of them and they are all brilliant. So when I saw that this was on TV just as my viewing schedule had opened up, I was absolutely going to watch it. There's something beautiful about saying goodbye to house guests. I love the frenzied banter and multi-conversational hubbub of a roomful of siblings, partners and kids. It's hilarious chaos. But when they've all gone, and the house is more or less back to normal, and there's a big mug of tea next to you, and you're lying under a fluffy blanket on the sofa, and Peter Ustinov is Poiroting all over your telly? Well. I can't even put into words how sweet that moment is. So I'll stop.
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| Photo from Netflix |
Right then, back on track. This was dropped by Netflix on Christmas Eve. It's hard to have fourteen years of Catholic education under your belt without being the slightest bit intrigued by the comings and goings in the Vatican, even if you don't share a world view with the key players these days. Besides that, a couple of years ago I read Robert Harris' Conclave which was a fabulously gossipy thriller of a book set behind the closed doors as the cardinals came together to choose a new fictional pope. All intriguing and dramatic stuff. So, Two Popes. Any good? Hell yeah. Anthony Hopkins plays Benedict XVI, and Jonathan Pryce is Joseph, the current pope. This film lays out the kind of thing that might have happened during the election and subsequent resignation of Benedict. It feels authentic even though I assume it's based on what could have happened rather than what did. The head to head scenes between the two men are dramatic, powerful, full of pathos as well as humour. Regardless of your stance on the Catholic church, it drags you in and shows you the men behind the titles. Truly riveting stuff.
My plan had been to do a cinema trip between Christmas and New Year to see Knives Out for a third time. It was quite the kick in the teeth when I found all my local cinemas had stopped showing it. Slightly disappointedly, I went with my backup plan, Little Women. Here's some context. I first read the novel in my thirties which I've realised is far too old for a newby reader. I just never got it. I didn't care enough about the lives of the characters like I would have done had I been at a similar age. I've watched a few screen versions since, but I was still a bit meh. This new attempt didn't give me any reason to think it would be better, except one of my favourite directors was at the helm. Greta Gerwig is brilliant and I was willing to see what she did with it to make me care. And here's the thing. I massively cared! Greta Gerwig worked some magic, I can tell you. Properly absorbing, emotional, funny, and the exact thing I would have liked to have circled in my Radio Times and watched on the sofa instead. It was everything a big budget Christmas adaptation should be, except in the cinema. For anyone else unconvinced, let me explain that the film comprises of both parts of Little Women (I did not know there was a second part) and is shown in a split-timeline narrative. This immediately raises its game considerably. Then there are the brilliant directorial choices and flourishes that litter the film. From the family walking straight past the pious churchgoers on Christmas day, as they donate their breakfast to a family in need, to the way we see Jo March represent Loiusa May Alcott in scenes with her editor. It was a great. Finally, the lingering camera work that takes place during the printing, binding, and creating of Jo's book, contrasts massively with her blink-and-you-miss-it romantic denouement. It's simply delicious. I loved this film a lot and I really thought it would bore me. So there we have it.
Official Christmas festivities may be over, but it's all going to be OK. I've still got half a planner of stuff to catch up on, and my fridge of bits is hanging in there. Resolutions and worthy thoughts will start to dominate soon enough, but for now, if you are able, enjoy the down time. Happy New Year everybody, and remember...
...have a lovely week, folks.
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