Festive TV

From real-life courtroom dramas to Dickens reinvented, those small screens in your home will have plenty reasons to be overheating during the Christmas chill. Brian Donaldson unwraps the upcoming telly treats and finds two seasonal slices of Nish Kumar

This festive TV year will be partly unrecognisable from smallscreen Christmases past. We’ve long since given up on a new Sherlock batch being launched over the holiday period, but also not happening this year are a Doctor Who special and, for obvious reasons, a televised Queen’s Speech. No doubt a big audience will be tuning in, once the sprouts have been peeled, to see how the new guy does with his inaugural address to the nation. For Yuletide nostalgics everywhere, there’s no doubt a Bond movie or Elf or Vicar Of Dibley Xmas edition on a streaming service near you.

Most of the reliable big-hitters around Christmas now come in the form of children’s story adaptations. So, there’s a film of David Walliams’ Gangsta Granny Strikes Again (CBBC, Saturday 10 December) starring Sheridan Smith, Flavio and Walliams himself, while Julia Donaldson is coming as close to a festive staple these days, with The Smeds And The Smoos landing on BBC One. The Amazing Maurice (Sky Cinema, Friday 16 December) by the late Terry Pratchett features voices from the likes of Emilia Clarke, Hugh Laurie, Himesh Patel and Gemma Arterton. Another animated BBC treat to look out for is The Boy, The Mole, The Fox And The Horse, featuring the drawings of its original author, Charlie Mackesy. Actors lending their voice boxes for this include Idris Elba, Tom Hollander and Gabriel Byrne.

Other festive-focused delights include Miriam’s Dickensian Christmas (Channel 4, Thursday 22 December) as the sweary Margoyles explores all things Charles-shaped, Celebrity Lego Masters At Christmas (Channel 4, Friday 23 December) featuring Nish Kumar, Alex Horne, Sophie-Ellis Bextor and Sophie Duker, and Stacey Solomon’s Crafty Christmas (BBC One, Thursday 15 December). There’s also an inevitable raft of seasonal comedy specials, including Bad Education (BBC Three, Thursday 15 December), The Last Leg (Channel 4, Friday 23 December) and BBC One’s Ghosts. Turning Dickens on his head is Christmas Carole on Sky Max starring Suranne Jones as an outspoken, Scrooge-like entrepreneur being haunted by various spectres across time played by the likes of Jo Brand, ‘Morecambe & Wise’, and (yes, he’s getting everywhere) Nish Kumar.

The festive TV schedules don’t always twinkle with fairy lights and bristle with tinsel so there are some hard-hitting dramas afoot too, headed up by Litvinenko (ITVX, Thursday 15 December) as David Tennant plays the Russian dissident who was poisoned in London in 2006, while Netflix goes spy-drama crazy with both Treason (Netflix, Monday 26 December) and The Recruit (Netflix, Friday 16 December). But, let’s face it, the real draw of this coming holiday season is Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama (Channel 4, Tuesday 20 & Wednesday 21 December) with Michael Sheen as Coleen Rooney’s barrister David Sherborne and Natalia Tena playing Rebekah Vardy. A fun Christmas game is to guess in which minute someone first mentions ‘Wagatha Christie’.