TV satellite week december 19, 2015

The action is set just before World War Two on Soldier Island, a remote rock off the NEW CRIME DRAMA And Then There Were None Boxing Day, Sunday 27 December, 9pm & Holiday Monday 28 De

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BEST FOR SKY & VIRGIN

2 TV&Satellite Week

A dramatised documentary recreates

the extraordinary story of the celebrated

Russian ballet dancer’s defection to the

West at the height of the Cold War.

The Apprentice

BUSINESS BBC1 HD, 9pm

LAST ONE!

The full bevvy of contenders return to help the finalists try to launch their businesses and win Lord Sugar’s vote in an extended finale

Includes You’re Hired with Jack Dee.

From Andy Pandy to Zebedee: The Golden Age of Children’s TV

DOCUMENTARY BBC4 HD, 9pm

An evening of classic shows including

Grange Hill culminates in this tribute to the pioneers of television for young viewers.

Take That On Tour

MUSIC BBC1 HD, 10.35pm (Scot, 11.35pm)

Footage from on and off stage as Mark, Gary and Howard performed their first tour as a trio, including candid reflections

on their 25 years in the industry.

Keep It in the Family

Christmas Special

ENTERTAINMENT ITV HD, 5.35pm/

ITV+1, 6.35pm

Louie Spence joins stars of The Chase and

Coronation Street to help feuding families

in a festive edition of the quiz show.

Sports Personality of the Year 2015

AWARDS CEREMONY BBC1 HD, 6.50pm

Jessica Ennis-Hill is one of this year’s heroes in the running for the title, announced at the ceremony at the SSE

Arena in Belfast See feature, page 44

an eventful road-trip See review, page 33

Murdoch Mysteries –

A Christmas Caper

CRIME DRAMA Alibi HD, 9pm/

Alibi+1, 10pm Downton Abbey ’s Brendan Coyle guest stars in a feature-length episode, as the team investigate a philanthropist’s death.

The Jonathan Ross Show

CHAT SHOW ITV HD, 9.45pm/

ITV+1, 10.45pm

Harrison Ford drops in to discuss the

latest Star Wars movie, and Jamie Oliver

and David Walliams talk about their new

projects on television this Christmas.

The River , and performs tracks Live From

The River Tour 1980 follows at 11.55pm.

Gorilla Family and Me

Luther

CRIME DRAMA BBC1 HD, 9pm

With the cannibalistic serial killer still

on the loose, Benny deduces a list of potential victims, but Luther is struggling

to maintain his grip as a ghost from his past haunts his every move…

Strictly Come Dancing

Grand Final

DANCE CONTEST BBC1 HD, 6.35pm

LAST

ONE!

The final four couples take

to the dance floor in a bid to

snag the coveted glitterball

trophy The winner is revealed at 9pm

The Sound of Music Live!

MUSICAL ITV HD, 7.30pm/

ITV+1, 8.30pm

Ex-EastEnders actress Kara Tointon plays

the all-singing, all-dancing Maria in the stage version of the classic by Rodgers

and Hammerstein See feature, page 24

Cue the Queen:

Celebrating the Christmas Speech

DOCUMENTARY BBC1 HD, 7pm

Kirsty Young presents a fascinating look at the history of the monarch’s annual televised address to the nation.

and David Croft See feature, page 13

■ Full listings start on p49 ■ Full listings start on p59 ■ Full listings start on p69 ■ Full listings start on p79

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PREMIERE

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Christmas Day

Exodus: Gods and Kings

Sky Premiere HD, 9.30am & 8pm/+1, 10.30am & 9pm

Ridley Scott’s spectacular take on the story of Moses, with a cast of heavy hitters including Christian Bale and

Sigourney Weaver See review, page 37

Stick Man

BBC1 HD, 4.45pm

Julia Donaldson’s tale of a woody hero bravely trying to find his way home is brought to life with the voice talents of Martin Freeman, Rob Brydon and

Jennifer Saunders See feature, page 18

Call the Midwife

BBC1 HD, 7.30pm

The nuns and midwives of Nonnatus House face an anxious time when Sister Monica Joan goes missing, but there’s light relief when the BBC opts to film a

local carol concert See feature, page 14

Downton Abbey – The Finale

ITV HD, 8.45pm/ITV+1, 9.45pm

The last-ever episode sees the family celebrating an unforgettable New Year’s Eve, with Patricia Hodge as Bertie’s

formidable mother See feature, page 10

Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song

BBC1 HD, 5.15pm

An end-of-season treat sees the Time Lord lurching into a hazardous expedition to the 54th Century, where he is shocked to encounter Alex Kingston’s River Song, now rather confusingly married to a nine-foot cyborg with serious anger management issues, and wary of the Doctor’s latest incarnation The episode also features guest appearances by

Matt Lucas and Greg Davies See feature, page 8

TV&Satellite Week 3

to absorb revelations about

Alison, and the trial takes a shocking turn.

Boomers

COMEDY BBC1 HD, 9.30pm

(Wales, 11.25pm; NI, 11.35pm)

The pensioner pals visit a festive German

market, but the return journey is fraught

as Carol takes too many travel pills, and

Trevor is accused of smuggling.

Snow Chick:

A Penguin’s Tale

WILDLIFE BBC1 HD, 8.30pm

Kate Winslet narrates the heart-warming

story of an emperor penguin chick in the

coldest place on Earth in the middle of the

Antarctic Winter See feature, page 26

mounts a plan to retrieve a stash of cash

House of Fools ’ Morgana Robinson and

Mike Wozniak of Man Down fame

Not Going Out

BBC1 HD, 10.45pm

The sitcom returns with a themed one-off special, as Lee and

Christmas-a heChristmas-avily pregnChristmas-ant Lucy get cChristmas-aught up

in a robbery in a department store, with predictable mayhem ensuing

Harry Hill in Professor Branestawm Returns

BBC1 HD, 5.20pm

Harry Hill returns as the madcap inventor, facing a new nemesis in the shape of Steve Pemberton’s villainous Professor

Algebrain See feature, page 16

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our favourite shows!

■ Full listings start on p119 ■ Full listings start on p139

4 TV&Satellite Week

A starry adaptation of the Agatha Christie

whodunnit, as 10 strangers holed up on

an island are targeted by a killer Continues

Sunday and Monday See feature, page 10

U2: Innocence and Experience Live in Paris

MUSIC BBC2 HD, 10pm (Scot, 10.55pm)

Footage from the rock band’s current tour, with a setlist spanning their entire

career, from their 1980 debut album Boy

to their most recent Songs of Innocence.

A Life on Screen – Stephen Fry

PROFILE BBC2 HD, 9pm

Celebrating the comedian, actor and presenter’s career, from his early years in the Cambridge Footlights to his worldwide fame through television and film.

Dickensian

BBC1 HD, 7pm & 8.30pm

Charles Dickens’ cast of characters are

brought to life in a vivid reimagining of

their Victorian world Continues tomorrow

and Friday See feature, page 14

Fungus the Bogeyman

FAMILY DRAMA Sky1 HD, 6pm/

Sky1+1, 7pm

Timothy Spall heads the cast in a delightful three-parter based on the Raymond Briggs story Continues tomorrow

and Tuesday See feature, page 18

Gareth Malone’s Great Choir Reunion

DOCUMENTARY BBC2 HD, 8pm

The choirmaster marks 10 years of getting people singing by trying to unite the members of all his groups for one super sing Concludes on Thursday.

A Gert Lush Christmas

BBC2 HD, 9pm

Russell Howard makes his acting debut

alongside his sister Kerry in a gentle

comedy about a young man reluctantly

introducing his girlfriend to his rather

eccentric family See feature, page 22

Miranda Hart – My What

I Call Live Show

COMEDY BBC1 HD, 11pm

Footage from the queen of comedy’s stand-up tour, recorded at London’s O2 Arena, featuring anecdotes laced with whimsy and social awkwardness.

John Bishop’s Gorilla Adventure

ITV HD, 9pm/

ITV+1, 10pm

The comedian learns about Rwanda’s endangered mountain gorillas, and the vets who work tirelessly to protect them.

Stanley Tucci and Paloma Faith star in a

reworking of Peter Pan, as a young girl

awaiting surgery falls asleep and finds

herself in Neverland See feature, page 16

Behind the Candelabra

BBC2 HD, 9pm (NI, 10pm)

Michael Douglas and Matt Damon camp

it up in Steven Soderberg’s drama about flamboyant pianist Liberace, exploring the dark side of his love affair with

Scott Thorson See review, page 41

David Beckham: For the Love of the Game

DOCUMENTARY BBC1 HD, 9pm

David sets out to discover how football can help communities as he plays seven matches all over the world, from Papua New Guinea to Antarctica

Don’t miss yo

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■ Full listings start on p179

Home

Sky Premiere HD, 10.50am &

6.15pm/+1, 11.50am & 7.15pm The Big Bang Theory ’s Jim Parsons and popster Rihanna star in this upbeat comedy about a clumsy alien stranded

on earth See review, page 43

Kingsman:

The Secret Service

Sky Premiere HD, 4pm & 8pm/+1, 5pm & 9pm

Colin Firth and Samuel L Jackson spoof the James Bond franchise in the pacy

espionage comedy See review, page 43

Billionaire Boy

BBC1 HD, 7pm

Newcomer Elliot Sprakes stars as the lonely 12-year-old boy thrust into an unfamiliar world when his father makes

a fortune, in an adaptation of David

Walliams’ bestseller See feature, page 17

Matt Berry Does…

Happy New You

in a spooky mystery involving a vengeful ghost Una Stubbs, Amanda Abbington and Louise Brealey are also along for the historic ride as

series regulars Mrs Hudson, Mary and Molly See feature, page 6

(NI & Wales, 10pm)

Brooker takes a perfectly cynical look

back over the year’s big news events and

most-discussed film and telly stories.

The Millionaire

Party Planner

DOCUMENTARY Channel 4 HD, 10pm/

Channel 4+1, 11pm

There’s drama as party planner Liz Taylor

deals with demanding clients for events

from fundraising balls to lavish weddings.

Moby Dick

PERIOD DRAMA Drama, 11am

The combined talents of William Hurt,

Ethan Hawke, Gillian Anderson, Eddie

Marsan and Donald Sutherland make

this an unmissable reworking of the

classic novel Concludes tomorrow

New filming methods and research shed

light on the secrets of the earth’s largest

living structure See feature, page 26

The Graham Norton Show

Bryan Adams Rocks Big Ben Live

BBC1 HD, 11.30pm (not Scot)

London’s parliamentary landmark sets the scene for an unforgettable concert, including the annual fireworks over the River Thames at 12m’t.

The Sapphires

BBC2 HD, 9pm

Chris O’Dowd stars as a music promoter who takes on an Aboriginal girl group and transforms them into a slick soul-singing quartet in this infectiously

upbeat comedy See review, page 42

New Year’s Eve

Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie

BBC1 HD, 9.15pm (NI & Wales, 10pm)

Brendan O’Carroll’s Irish matriarch puts her stubborn streak to good use when she battles developers taking over their

Dublin street market See review, page 29

■ Full listings start on p169

■ Full listings start on p159

our favourite shows!

LIVE

Miracle

‘It’s the same show!’

6 TV&Satellite Week

admiring friend But in Victorian times a gentleman was a gentleman,

so Watson can’t swear at him.

Did you enjoy the costumes?

Cumberbatch I was really excited about getting to change my hair,

I immediately asked if I could get

it cut I’ve absolutely loved it

It’s going to be a bit of a wrench going back to be honest

Freeman I get a good moustache!

Of course, to us it’s a bit of a joke, but Victorian men did look like that

Fans flocked to see you filming in London – was that off-putting?

Cumberbatch It’s surreal because the fans aren’t intrusive, but you’re very aware of a thousand people standing on the opposite pavement

Freeman It can be difficult when people are very close, when they’re literally clapping you, cheering, taking pictures – it’s not easy, but we’re very glad that people love it

Cumberbatch The show means a lot to a lot of people and they travel across time zones to see us I’m not

on social media, so I try to say hello

People still get over-excited, which makes it difficult

to have a normal conversation, but I try

I do sympathise, though – if I’d

been near Star Wars when it was

made and I had met Han Solo I’d have been unable to speak Also, it’s possibly the easiest audience you’ll ever have You say something vaguely funny and they laugh for half an hour.

Martin, what’s it like working with your partner Amanda Abbington, who plays Mary?

I’ve always been her biggest cheerleader since we met; she’s a fantastic actor Before they cast her, Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat asked me if I’d had any thoughts

on who Mary might be, and I said they wouldn’t get anyone better than Amanda Luckily, that’s what they were thinking, too.

Benedict, have you started to take on any of Sherlock’s traits?

My mum says I’m a bit more impatient I’m more alert to detail, yes, but hopefully nothing on the sociopathic scale like him

Sometimes I feel a bit sharper, but sadly I don’t get more brilliant because I’m playing someone brilliant If only that were true.

surprise you and make you gasp – not many shows do that.

How did you feel when you heard about it being a Victorian special?

Cumberbatch I thought they were truly crazy When I first heard that the BBC were doing an updated version of Sherlock Holmes, I thought, ‘What need is there?’, but then it was love at first read It was the same with this idea At first

I thought,

‘Whaaaat?’, but the minute they pitched it in more detail it was clear

to me it was fantastic

I’ve very much enjoyed scaling Sherlock back to who he is in the books

Freeman It’s a really good idea, but our characters are still the same Sherlock’s still a genius and I’m still a slightly exasperated but

The New Year gets off to a spectacular

start as Sherlock finally returns to our

screens, two long years after the

previous instalment

The darkly dramatic finale

to series three saw Watson’s

wife Mary (Amanda

Abbington) exposed as

a dangerous assassin

and Moriarty

threatening a return,

but this one-off

special doesn’t pick

up from those

exciting events

Instead, Holmes and

Watson are jumping back

in time to Victorian London,

where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s

stories were originally set In the

90-minute drama, intriguingly

entitled The Abominable Bride,

the pair find themselves in 1895

and embroiled in a ghost story

alongside favourites including

Mary, Mrs Hudson (Una Stubbs)

and Molly Hooper (Louise Brealey)

We spoke to Benedict

Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman

about their latest adventure

Are you excited to be back in

the new-look Sherlock?

Cumberbatch Yes, there’s

something very comforting

about playing Sherlock

Freeman It is special to us

We are very aware of how good it

is, and it’s so exciting every time

we get a new script They can

Writers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss on why Victorian Sherlock isn’t so strange

So why are Holmes and Watson suddenly wearing bowler hats and pocket watches in Victorian London?

The simple answer is that Moffat and Gatiss just thought it would be fun

‘We had an opportunity to

do a special and going back

to 1895 was irresistible to us,’ says Gatiss ‘But it’s

definitely the same show

It’s not a Comic Relief sketch, where we put some period costumes on and say, ‘Look

at my sideburns’ It’s a strong mystery, a full-blooded Gothic horror with the same humour and drama.’

Both writers are amused

by the reaction on fan sites, considering the sleuths have

always been Victorian characters

‘When we did the first series of modern

Sherlock everyone was asking the opposite questions,’ recalls Moffat ‘They asked how Holmes could survive in a world with iPhones, and now

they’re questioning how he can cope without them.’

But even the golden boys

of British drama had a tough time getting the idea signed off ‘There was a bit of resistance from the BBC,’ admits Gatiss ‘They wondered if we were going mad.’

Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat

NEW DRAMA

Sherlock

New Year’s Day, BBC1 HD, 9pm

Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin

Freeman play a Victorian Holmes and

Watson in a spooky new one-off special

Sherlock goes back in time

Drama

TV&Satellite Week 7

‘I’ve very much

Matt Lucas guests as a futuristic messenger

As 2015 draws to a close, spare a

thought for the universe’s weary

Time Lord From a hoedown with

Davros and a Zygon invasion to the

loss of companion Clara, it’s been

quite a year for Peter Capaldi’s

Doctor Time for a well-earned

eggnog by the Tardis log fire? Don’t

be ridiculous We haven’t had the

Christmas Special yet

The Doctor returns to action

with an end-of-season treat that

features a hazardous new mission

to the 54th Century, star

cameos, and the

rollicking Doctor Who adventure

with a festive and comic edge.’

The Doctor is in a crotchety mood as the special opens ‘No carol singers,’ says the sign on the Tardis door His plans soon change, however, when he gets a knock from Nardole (Matt Lucas), a curious messenger from the year 5343.

Nardole leads him to the monstrous King Hydroflax, a tyrannical nine-foot cyborg with some serious anger management issues (see panel, right).

When the Doctor arrives

in the future to take up Nardole’s mission, he’s surprised to find that Hydroflax’s wife is none other than his old flame River Song, not seen since the days

of Matt Smith.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE!

Surprised to see her returning

to the show? You’re not alone

‘I didn’t expect to be back either,’

says Kingston ‘Enough time had passed since the last episode for

me to think that was that.

‘But then I heard through fans

that [current and former Who

bosses] Steven Moffat and Russell T Davies had said what fun it would be

to explore River with Peter’s Doctor

And I thought, “Well, they’re both men who keep everything close

to their chests They wouldn’t entertain the idea unless some seeds were germinating”.’

Davies apparently felt that a meeting between the flirtatious River and Capaldi’s Doctor would

be hormonally supercharged if it were ever to happen So was it? She guffaws ‘Well, it’s a family show, but there have been moments where

we’ve started to call it “Doctor Blue”.’

In truth, the flirt factor is pretty low when the pair first reunite, since River doesn’t actually realise the Doctor has regenerated to begin with ‘She doesn’t really know it’s him,’ says Capaldi ‘So he’s

a bit appalled at all her flirting with other creatures, and none of it pointed in his direction.’

8 TV&Satellite Week

A nine-foot cybor g and the return of River

Song – Christmas is

Drama

fore Christmas

How would you describe Hydroflax? He’s a petrifying nine-foot cyborg Hydroflax

is the real deal, he’s a baddie, and it’s really exciting He’s my first out-and-out baddie – unless you count Mr Gilbert from

The Inbetweeners.

Apparently he has a sort of detachable head? Yeah, they made a couple

of replica heads for me, which are horrible It’s

so unsettling to walk into a room and see two of your own heads, one of them with a horribly surprised expression.

How long did it take to get you made-up? A couple of hours They also did a face mould which was actually quite

claustrophobic and frightening.

What does he make of Christmas? I can’t imagine Hydroflax celebrates Christmas, unless he’s eating someone’s face.

Did you draw on any past villains when playing him?

I don’t know whether I did It’s not hard, when you’re in the body of

a nine-foot cyborg, to feel evil It helps you tap into your inner evil

(I can’t wait to see that in print.)

What else brings out your inner evil? Children: I just remember

my teaching years and that’s it Please don’t write that down

Or at least say, ‘Davies joked ’

I don’t really have an inner evil.

How did you cope with the secrecy? I’ve just been told I mustn’t talk about it And

I haven’t – outside my mum So if it gets out into the press, you’ll know where to go

I can tell you where she lives.

Best Christmas present ever? A wind-up Evel Knievel toy from the 1970s I found it again in my mum’s garage and it’s actually pretty rubbish

And worst? A Laura Ashley calendar that my father bought when I was in my 30s I said,

‘Why on Earth have you bought

me this?!’ He went, ‘Well, you haven’t got one, have you?’

Will you be watching on Christmas Day with the family?

Definitely Though I’ll spend a lot

of it hating myself But I’m expecting some good feedback from relatives Seeing me as an evil robot will be another level

of amusement for them.

TV&Satellite Week 9

NO DALLYING, PLEASE!

What River is doing with the

dreadful Hydroflax will become

clear during the episode; suffice to

say, she has an ulterior motive for

being married to him One other

person definitely wasn’t keen on

her meeting the new Doctor,

however: Matt Smith Last year the

ex-Time Lord admitted – tongue

partly in cheek – that he was ‘really

possessive’ over the character and

wouldn’t want her dallying with

Capaldi ‘Anyone else, but don’t

give him River,’ he said at the time.

Kingston says she met Smith

earlier this year (confusingly, at her

own real-life wedding, to the TV producer Jonathan Stamp) and

he was indeed disgruntled ‘He was very cross with me,’ she laughs

‘He was at my wedding and he found out I don’t want to say what

he said, but he was very cross I just had to remind him that he and Peter and David [Tennant] are really the same man.’

So what price on River for the next companion? Kingston isn’t sure ‘The beauty of River is that she can come in for an adventure and then go off again She’s an established character, so why not keep her like that and bring in a new companion to interact with?’

For his part, Capaldi claims he’s just as in the dark about Clara’s replacement as the rest of us

‘I wouldn’t necessarily know anything about it,’ he smiles

‘That doesn’t mean I haven’t met the new companion

It just means I don’t yet know what the outcome

of it all is…’

Greg Davies as the nine-foot baddie

GREG DAVIES

IS KING HYDROFLAX

Back in 2010 , nobody could have

predicted the global phenomenon

that Downton Abbey would become – but

now it’s hard to imagine TV without it

So it will be a bittersweet moment this

Christmas as viewers bid farewell to

the Crawleys and their staff

The special follows on from

the final series, which saw

Edith (Laura Carmichael)

dumped by fiancé Bertie

(Harry Hadden-Paton)

after her sister Mary

(Michelle Dockery)

revealed that Edith was

little Marigold’s mother

It appears, however, that he

hasn’t left for good Will Edith be

able to win him, and his feisty mum

(guest star Patricia Hodge), round?

‘Edith is resilient but heartbroken,’ says

Carmichael ‘She doesn’t push it, she’s

not going to beg – that’s all I can say.’

By contrast, things look better for Mary and her new husband, Henry (Matthew Goode), who makes a big decision about his future The question is: can Mary reconcile with Edith after their monumental row in the finale?

MAGICAL MOMENT

‘It’s such a fascinating dynamic,’ says Carmichael ‘They come back together in a way and you see how

it has affected them.’

Downstairs, Thomas (Rob James-Collier) is making plans after his suicide attempt, while Carson (Jim Carter) is troubled by ill health.

Fittingly, the episode culminates at the very end of 1925 with a New Year’s Eve celebration that sees Lady Rose (Lily James) return with her husband Atticus (Matt Barber) and father Shrimpy (Peter Egan) And as

1926 beckons, each character has their turn in the spotlight in the final scenes.

‘It’s not necessarily going

to be happy for everyone, but there are no cataclysms or drownings or suicide pacts,’

explains Carter ‘People’s stories are gently wound up in a way that people will be satisfied and pleased with, but they will definitely be crying.’

For the cast, shooting the last ever scene was poignant ‘Every location we wrapped in we were crying, but the last one was so special,’ says Carmichael

‘It was a night shoot and all of the crew were in costume

It was really magical and when they shouted, “It’s a wrap!”, we all had champagne.’

Jonathan Ross

hosts Bafta Celebrates Downton Abbey

on Monday 21 December on ITV HD, 9pm.

Agatha Christie is best known for compelling whodunnits featuring Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, but neither sleuth features in her

famous 1939 thriller And Then

There Were None – the best-selling

crime novel of all time.

A star-studded BBC1 three-parter brings the sinister tale to life, and it’s the first time the novel has been adapted for British TV The action

is set just before World War Two on Soldier Island, a remote rock off the

NEW CRIME DRAMA

And Then There Were None

Boxing Day, Sunday 27 December, 9pm & Holiday Monday 28 December, BBC1 HD, 9.05pm

NEW PERIOD DRAMA

Downton Abbey

Christmas Day, ITV HD, 8.45pm

A starry cast features in Agatha Christie’s thriller

to all that

It really is the end of an

Will Laura Carmichael’s unlucky Edith finally find happiness?

Harry Hadden-Paton and Patricia Hodge

Michelle Dockery and Hugh Bonneville

Drama

TV&Satellite Week 11

The Christmas soaps at a glance

SOAP DIARY

ALSO IN THE SOAPS THIS CHRISTMAS…

BIG XMAS STORY

❯❯ The day that Mick and Linda have dreamed of since they were teenagers finally arrives, as they head

to a country hotel

to get married

The bride wants everything

to be perfect but,

of course, it’s not going to be, especially when Dean turns up, looking unhinged.

The reason for his ferocious mood? He’s been ousted by his family after Shirley has caught him attacking Roxy The glamorous blonde bears the brunt of her boyfriend’s anger when he finds out that Shirl, Buster and little Jade have

Will Dean meet a watery end at Mick and Linda’s wedding?

CORONATION STREET

❯❯ Tyrone proposes to Fiz, Robert and Carla sleep together after

he discovers the truth about Tracy and she learns Johnny is her dad, David and Kylie reunite, and Roy discovers

a secret about Cathy’s late husband

EMMERDALE

❯❯ Debbie leaves the village, Robert discovers that Ross shot him, Chas gets involved with Gordon, Laurel vows to stand by Ashley, Belle clocks Zak with Joanie, and Pollard faces his past, present and future.

EASTENDERS

ruined his ‘perfect’ Christmas dinner by eating with Mick and Linda at the Vic.

Fuelled by rage, Dean confronts Shirley at the side of the hotel’s icy lake, and Mick soon arrives

on the scene We know that the soap has filmed a water-based stunt – is Dean set to plunge to his death?

❯❯ PLUS Stacey gives birth to her son, but does Shabnam know her secret? A dispute between Bobby and Dennis has devastating consequences, Kat and Alfie return, Billy proposes to Honey and Phil aims to destroy Vincent.

Dean confronts Shirley by the icy lake of a country hotel

Devon coast where 10 strangers –

from a nervy doctor to a suspicious

butler – have been invited for a

break by the mysterious and oddly

absent Mr and Mrs UN Owen

As the house party gets

underway, a gramophone blasts

into life and a voice on the record

accuses each of those present of

being responsible for various

deaths in the past Amid the

confusion, one of the 10 drops

down dead and it’s not long

before the remaining nine start

to meet their Maker in ways

that chillingly echo the nursery

rhyme Ten Little Soldier Boys,

a copy of which is placed in

each of the rooms.

‘It’s bleak, grim and quite

terrifying,’ says Poldark’s Aidan

Turner, who portrays gung-ho mercenary soldier Philip Lombard

‘I don’t think that anybody will guess who is behind the murders – it’s really clever.’

As the drama progresses, it becomes a tense psychological thriller as all those on Soldier Island feel increasingly frantic about who the killer might be, especially as there is little hope of rescue when they are cut off from the mainland

as the weather closes in.

‘People have described this as

being like Cluedo, but it’s more

subtle than that,’ says Miranda Richardson, who plays spinster Emily Brent ‘It’s about what’s beneath the surface and how they are all dealing with what they have done.’

TV&Satellite Week 13

Nearly half a decade after it first

aired, it’s almost impossible to

imagine British TV without Dad’s

Army The sitcom is arguably the

nation’s all-time favourite

comedy, with its 80 much-loved

episodes constantly repeated and

even a star-studded movie remake

on the way in February.

But, as new BBC2 comedy

drama We’re Doomed! The Dad’s

Army Story reveals, the show’s

start to life was shakier than a

drill session led by

Perry, played in the film by

Friday Night Dinner star Paul

Ritter, was a struggling actor when

he took the concept of Dad’s Army

to producer David Croft (played

by Game of Thrones’ Richard

Dormer), who loved it.

But there were issues from the get-go Though the cast would end

up like a band of brothers, to begin with the creators were terrified they wouldn’t gel Former

Coronation Street star Arthur Lowe

struggled to nail his lines in early scenes He was also apparently disgruntled when it emerged that Clive Dunn and John Le Mesurier were being paid more than him.

Tensions erupted between Croft and Perry, too, over Perry’s insistence that he play Private Walker himself – a role that eventually went to James Beck.

‘It could have been disastrous,’ explains Dormer ‘Croft basically said to Perry, “Look, you’re a good actor but you’re a great writer If

we have a writer in the

company, it’ll be divisive; they’ll think you’re giving yourself the best lines” At the time Jimmy was gutted, because his life’s ambition was to be a character actor.’

If Perry and Croft’s relationship was under strain, however, they faced even bigger issues with BBC bosses BBC1 Controller Paul Fox, played by Keith Allen, feared veterans would find a World War Two comedy in poor taste.

When the pilot episode was shown to a test audience – who hated it – Croft took drastic action ‘He hid the test results in a drawer,’ Dormer laughs ‘The BBC bosses would have cancelled it if they’d read them They were

uniformly bad.’ Luckily, viewers disagreed When the show went live, it was a huge hit.

For the We’re Doomed! cast,

there was a double challenge – playing both the real-life actors

and their Dad’s Army characters

when the drama recreates scenes from the series For John Sessions that meant playing Arthur Lowe and Captain Mainwaring.

‘Seeing myself on the monitor, looking like Arthur, was quite spooky,’ says Sessions ‘The tough thing was getting my head shaved because all the bald wigs look awful

Gather round now… A new BBC2 comedy drama explores

Paul Ritter and Richard Dormer as Perry and Croft

John Sessions

as Arthur Lowe

The original cast members

‘The BBC would have cancelled it

if they’d read the test results’

RICHARD DORMER

Kevin Bishop, Ralph Riach, Kieran Hodgson and Mark Heap as James Beck, John Laurie, Ian Lavender and Clive Dunn

Drama

Outside a west London studio,

TV&Satellite Week is sweltering as

the British summer makes a rare

cameo appearance for the hottest

day in a decade So it’s rather surreal

to step inside the studio and on to a

snow-covered Victorian street.

‘Watch out for horse poo!’ shouts

writer Tony Jordan as a horse and

carriage traps straight past the Old

Curiosity Shop, Scrooge’s rundown house and the Three Cripples pub.

It could be a worrying case of heatstroke – but fortunately we are

on the set of Dickensian, BBC1’s

bold new 20-part drama set in the world of Charles Dickens

‘The idea is to revisit those most iconic Dickens characters, the ones everyone knows from his different books – Scrooge, Fagin, Jacob Marley, Bill and Nancy, Mr and Mrs Bumble – all those people we know and love,’ explains Jordan, who created the ambitious series

‘We’ve taken them out of the novels, put them all in one place

and built a world which we have

called Dickensian.’

And what a world it is The set

is one of the biggest and most elaborate ever constructed for British television, featuring

a 100m-long high street, working shops and pubs, a dockside and numerous alleys for shady dealings

‘We’re not really doing an adaptation, because we’re not following any of the books,’ explains Jordan, the creator of

shows including EastEnders, Hustle and Life on Mars ‘Instead, we’re

inside the world of Dickens Some

of the storylines are prequels to his novels, some are sequels, some is just new stuff I’ve made up

‘The idea is that because we are in the world of Dickens’s imagination, we’ll see these characters do something different from what we’ve seen them

do before It’s about taking the characters, taking the world and doing what youngsters call a mash-up.’

NEW PERIOD DRAMA

Dickensian

Boxing Day, 7pm & 8.30pm, Sunday

27 December, 7.30pm & 8.30pm,

New Year’s Day, BBC1 HD, 8.30pm

Charles Dickens’ most famous characters embark on some brand new adventures

‘The idea is to revisit those most iconic Dickens characters’

TONY JORDAN, WRITER

Call the Midwife Christmas specials can always be relied upon to offer

a blend of the heartbreaking and the heart-warming – and this year’s

offering of BBC1’s popular period drama is no exception.

Set during Christmas 1960, the nuns and midwives of Nonnatus House face an agonising time when

a confused Sister Monica Joan (Judy Parfitt) goes missing and her anxious colleagues desperately try to find her before it’s too late.

to solve in Dickensian

NEW PERIOD DRAMA

Call the Midwife

Christmas Day, BBC1 HD, 7.30pm

A difficult birth disrupts the celebrations

at Nonnatus House this Christmas…

The gift of

Drama

As an example,

viewers will see

Great Expectations’

Miss Havisham not

as the vengeful older

woman who was jilted

at the altar, but as a beautiful

young woman seen before her

life took such a tragic turn.

The all-star cast of Dickensian

includes Caroline Quentin as

Mrs Bumble from Oliver Twist,

Peter Firth as Jacob Marley,

Ebeneezer Scrooge’s

partner-in-crime, and Pauline Collins as the

formidable Mrs Gamp from

Martin Chuzzlewit.

Meanwhile, Stephen Rea plays Inspector Bucket, one

of the very first fictional detectives ‘Bucket is

from Bleak House,’ says

Rea ‘His role here is to look into the murder of a character from another Dickens novel So I meet characters from different books as

I try to solve the murder.

‘Writers like Dickens changed the world and altered our landscape Whether we’ve read the books or not we all seem

to know the characters and the stories.’

TV&Satellite Week 15

Peter Firth as Jacob Marley

There’s also angst for Patsy

(Emerald Fennell), who is shocked

to encounter her girlfriend Delia

(Kate Lamb) again, after she was

last seen heading home to Wales

after suffering a head injury

FESTIVE HIGHS AND LOWS

FOR THE MIDWIVES

There’s still time for some birthing

drama when a young woman has

twins, which causes woe for the

girl’s aunt, church cleaner Iris

Willens (Victoria Hamilton), who

is still grieving for her own baby

daughter, who died years before

‘The twins’ birth was my first

breech,’ says Strictly star Helen

George, who plays Trixie ‘I found

it fascinating learning the anatomy

of it all and how a breech works.’

Amid the anxiety, there’s light relief when the BBC films carols

in the church and flamboyant producer Barrington Swann (Adrian Scarborough) ruffles the feathers of some of the nuns, who are less than keen on televising a sacred service.

For Charlotte Ritchie, who plays midwife Barbara Gilbert, the carol concert echoed her family history

‘My grandad, who I never met, used to be a TV producer, he even worked on the Queen’s coronation,

so it was really strange seeing all the old BBC cameras on set It was cool to be acting in a time that he would have known.’

Harry Price:

Ghost Hunter

Sunday 27 December, ITV HD, 8.30pm

Everyone loves a cracking ghost story over the Christmas period and this spooky tale of Britain’s most famous ghost hunter, Harry Price, played

by Rafe Spall, mixes historical fact with fiction in a period thriller that will make you sleep with the lights on.

Set in 1920s London and based on Neil Spring’s novel The Ghost Hunters , the one-off drama follows paranormal investigator Harry, who’s resorted to faking séances to make a living

When he’s called out to the home of Edward Goodwin, MP, where ghostly goings-on threaten to expose a scandal, the maid, Sarah Grey (Cara Theobold), offers to help him solve the mystery

‘It’s a genuinely gripping story,’ says Spall, who starred in Charlie

Brooker’s eerie Black Mirror last Christmas ‘Harry spent his life debunking

the supernatural, then it weighed heavily on him that he was disappointing people, so he started making it up – but with severe consequences.’

Moby Dick

Wednesday 30 December

& New Year’s Eve, Drama, 11am

Get set for a whale of

a time as Herman Melville’s classic seafaring tale comes to Drama this Christmas in

a two-part mini-series featuring an all-star cast.

Set off the east coast of America in

1850, Moby Dick

follows the vengeful Captain Ahab (William Hurt)

as he descends into madness

by obsessively hunting the whale that destroyed his ship and bit

Get set for a ghostly tale and a classic adventure at sea this fortnight

off his leg during a past encounter

on the high seas.

Among the cast is Ethan Hawke

as Ahab’s first mate Starbuck, Gillian Anderson as Ahab’s wife Elizabeth, Donald Sutherland as preacher Father Mapple, as well

as British actors Eddie Marsan and Charlie Cox as sailors Stubb and Ishmael.

‘The story

is incredibly relevant,’ says Hawke ‘It’s all about greed, and trying to have power over nature, and the arrogance of that I was really moved by the story.’

William Hurt’s Captain Ahab

16 TV&Satellite Week

Pirates, fairies and a tick-tocking

crocodile take over ITV on Boxing Day, but according to former

Breaking Bad star Laura Fraser,

this brand-new Peter Pan tale comes with a twist.

‘Peter & Wendy is a more

unusual Neverland story, as it mixes the traditional elements

of the tale with a modern-day setting,’ says the Glasgow-born actress ‘Bringing the story up to date makes for a really interesting retelling, and hopefully

children will be able to relate

to it more.’

The drama follows single mum Julie, played by Fraser, and her 12-year-old daughter Lucy at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, where Lucy is being treated for a serious heart condition by

top surgeon Mr Wylie, played by Stanley Tucci.

‘Lucy has been in and out of hospital her whole life,’ explains Fraser ‘Julie is facing every mother’s worst nightmare – the possibility of losing her child.’

Lucy distracts herself from her impending surgery by reading aloud a dusty, dog-eared copy of

Peter Pan to her fellow patients

That night, she dreams of Peter whisking her off to a magical land where Lost Boys battle dastardly Captain Hook, and a teeny-tiny fairy called Tinker Bell keeps flying off the handle…

‘Tinker Bell is a bit bossy, and definitely not a girlie-girl,’ says singer Paloma Faith, who plays her ‘She’s a bit more like me than the original

‘It was so much fun to fly, but it was painful being in a harness for several days

I’m supposed to look agile and floaty, but I really wasn’t like that at all.’

Faith also has

a cameo in the

NEW FAMILY DRAMA

Peter & Wendy

Boxing Day, ITV HD, 8pm

Return

to

of the boffins!

It’s not easy being a nutty

scientist, as Harry Hill discovers

this Christmas when he returns

as mad inventor Professor

Branestawm in a new BBC1

one-hour special inspired by

Norman Hunter’s classic stories.

This time round, the professor

finds himself facing money

worries when his bills literally

get out of control.

‘He gets attacked by his bills and

he invents a machine which is

meant to make his bills smaller

and his cheques bigger, but he gets

them mixed up,’ explains Hill.

‘He’s got no money so he might

have to sell up and move out of

Great Pagwell It’s just an excuse

for lots of funny things to happen.’

Connie (Madeline Holliday)

the science-mad niece of the

professor’s long-suffering

housekeeper Mrs Flittersnoop

(Vicki Pepperdine), suggests that

the professor enter the town’s best

inventing competition to win a cash prize of £1854 and a thruppeny bit – exactly enough money to pay off all his bills

But standing in his way is rival inventor Professor Algebrain, played by Steve Pemberton.

‘Algebrain is described as coming from an unspecified European country and it’s been great fun marauding around as a sort of melodramatic villain with a dodgy accent,’ smiles Pemberton.

‘Algebrain steals the professor’s inventions, and also steals Connie

by making her his assistant.’

Pemberton is part of a fabulous supporting cast that includes Matt Berry and Diana Rigg

‘It’s been fun and we’ve had a lot of laughs together,’ smiles Hill, whose own teenage experiments included trying winemaking.

‘My friend Adam and I got into making wine when I was 13 or 14,’

he chuckles ‘Wine was expensive

in the 1970s so we made it from blackberries, potatoes and rice.

‘Our parents encouraged it and thought we were young gentlemen with a nose for wine In

fact, we just wanted to make alcohol ’

Harry Hill’s Professor has a lot to think about

takes on a dastardly new rival…

to a magical land as Wendy

What would you do if you were a billionaire? Buy new clothes or a set

of gnashers? Perhaps hire Warwick Davis to be your celebrity butler?

That’s exactly what John Thomson’s character does in

Billionaire Boy, BBC1’s adaptation

of David Walliams’ children’s story.

Thomson plays Len Spud, who splashes the cash when he becomes rich by inventing a new toilet paper.

‘I felt like a pantomime dame because Len gets to wear so many different outfits,’ laughs Thomson

‘I’ve even got a belt with Len on it in diamonds – it’s full on.’

But while Len lavishes money and attention on his gold-digging hand model girlfriend (Catherine Tate), his 12-year-old son Joe (Elliot Sprakes) is lonely in their mansion.

The youngster realises he needs a friend, and leaves his posh public school for the local

comprehensive.

The cast includes Walliams as Joe’s dinner lady, and Warwick Davis playing himself as Len’s celebrity butler.

A stinking rich schoolboy just wants a friend in Billionaire Boy NEW COMEDY

Billionaire Boy

New Year’s Day, BBC1 HD, 7pm

Harry Potter star is our new butler?”

explains Davis ‘So, Joe goes through everyone and I’m bottom of his list – even behind Lord Voldemort!’ Davis makes for a useless butler, but he does help the family ‘He’s looking out for Joe and Len and the moral of the story is that money can’t buy you happiness.’

So, did Davis enjoy being a butler?

‘It’s great I missed out on Downton Abbey but this is like a taste of it.’

present-day scenes, and

viewers should look out for

the cast playing different

characters in both London

and Neverland

‘It’s a tradition to have dual

roles,’ says Fraser, who also plays

Mrs Darling ‘For example, Stanley

Tucci plays the surgeon Mr Wylie,

Captain Hook, and Mr Darling

I wish I had three parts, too I’d

loved to have been a pirate.’

In 1929, JM Barrie gifted all

the rights to Peter Pan to Great

Ormond Street Hospital, so

filming there felt extra-special for

the Peter & Wendy cast.

‘We felt so much compassion

for the parents who were passing

through with their child on a stretcher or in a wheelchair,’ says Fraser ‘It makes you feel grateful for your own child’s health.’

Every book, film and TV adaptation has contributed money towards what is now one of the world’s leading children’s hospitals,

and with the 3D movie Pan recently

released in cinemas, it seems Peter Pan’s adventures will never grow old.

‘The story taps into all generations,’ says Fraser ‘I think Peter Pan is almost living a Buddhist-like philosophy and his story is about how to be truly free and enlightened I don’t

know how to do that, but Peter Pan does…’

TV&Satellite Week 17

A world of adventure for Laura Fraser as Mrs Darling, Stanley Tucci as Captain Hook, Zac Sutcliffe as Peter Pan, Hazel Doupe as Wendy, and Paloma Faith as Tinker Bell

David Walliams with Elliot Sprakes, who plays the Billionaire Boy

Loaded but

David Walliams counts down

Britain’s Favourite Children’s Books

(Boxing Day, Channel 4 HD, 6.30pm) Here are three of his favourites

The Cat in the Hat (1957)

‘Dr Seuss wrote nightmarish stories

as they’re about things getting out

of control, like in this book.’

Stig of the Dump (1963)

‘This Clive King story is a great adventure It taps into something exciting for kids.’

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)

‘I’ve re-read this Roald Dahl story a few times over the years and it’s just breathtaking.’

Warwick Davis plays the butler

modern-day Peter Pan

Laura Fraser and Paloma Faith tell us why we’ll

18

Martin Freeman is a busy man

this Christmas As well as dressing

up in Victorian clothes for a

time-jumping Sherlock special,

he’s also voicing much-loved

children’s character Stick Man

in a BBC1 adaptation of Julia

Donaldson’s popular book.

Freeman was attracted to the

magical one-off film after reading

the original story to his own little

ones ‘We enjoyed the book as a

family for a number of years and

my children always loved the epic

scale of Stick Man’s journey,’ he

says ‘It’s a really special adaptation,

filled with festive charm.’

Joining Freeman is a glitzy

supporting cast including

narrator Jennifer Saunders, Hugh

Bonneville, Rob Brydon and

Russell Tovey Author Donaldson is

delighted with the talented line-up.

‘The narration is terrific –

Jennifer Saunders just got it If that

had been clunky it wouldn’t have

worked at all,’ she says ‘And I do

think Martin Freeman is brilliant

I have to admit I don’t think, “I’m Stick Man, I’m Stick Man” is my best line, but watching him you’d think it was, because he delivered

it differently every time.’

Donaldson was inspired to write her charming story, about a lost stick trying to get home for Christmas, after watching her children enjoying the countryside.

‘We used to drag our children off for walks and they loved playing with sticks and fir cones – to them a stick could be

an olde-worlde English high street

In front of us, Victoria Wood is filming a scene with a jolly green giant – or Bogeyboy – called Mould, who has shown up on her doorstep.

‘I’m an inventor,’ Wood’s character, Eve, explains ‘I invented Superduperglue, it’s like Superglue, only more duper It’s distilled Bogey bogeys Wonderful stuff.’

NEW COMEDY DRAMA

Fungus the Bogeyman

Sunday 27 December, 6pm, Holiday Monday 28 December, 6.30pm & Tuesday 29 December, Sky1 HD, 6.30pm

anything,’ she says ‘One of my sons used to play with bits of cardboard, which he would tell me were violins

and ice cream cones Stick Man is

a celebration of the imagination.’

But while Donaldson couldn’t

be happier with the film, don’t expect her to sit down and watch

it on Christmas Day

‘I never watch TV at Christmas

I was brought up to just play charades,’ she laughs ‘I like spending the day eating and drinking, though, and

I do enjoy The Snowman.’

Desperately seeking

Father Christmas

is voiced by Hugh Bonneville

Look out, the Bogeys are coming…

Julia Donaldson’s classic children’s tale

about a lost stick heads to TV this Christmas

The Ab Fab

comedienne brings Julia Donaldson’s words to life

as the narrator

Rob Brydon

Listen out for the comic actor voicing a snail, park-keeper, frog, cat, crab, swan and a dad.

Martin Freeman

The Sherlock star

plays the lost Stick Man trying

to make it back to his family in time for Christmas.

Hugh Bonneville

The Downton Abbey star swaps

stately homes for Santa’s sleigh to play a very jolly Father Christmas.

Russell Tovey

The Him & Her

star plays an enthusiastic dog encountered

by our hero on his travels

Family

Christmas Day, Channel 4 HD, 8pm

We know what the grown-ups think about the current crop of TV shows, now it’s time to hear the views of groups of children, aged up to 13,

on this year’s talking

points, from the cakes on Bake Off to the killing of Cecil the lion

From Andy Pandy

to Zebedee

Monday 21 December, BBC4 HD, 9pm

Bernard Cribbins, Derek Griffiths, Janet Ellis and John Craven are among those looking back to a golden age of children’s

TV in a special that takes the shape of a daily

TV schedule, beginning with pre-school shows and ending

just before the Six O’Clock News.

TV&Satellite Week 19

The Farmer’s Llamas

Boxing Day, BBC1 HD, 6.10pm

It’s a case of ‘Baa humbug’ this Christmas as Shaun the Sheep and co get lumbered with three annoying llamas, Eduardo, Hector and Raul ‘They’re like a bunch of unruly Asbo teenagers,’ explains producer Paul Kewley

‘They love life but they don’t think very much’ The troublesome trio wreak havoc on the farm, making Shaun’s life a misery And they caused a few problems for the animators, too ‘One of the challenges was that the llamas are big and the sheep are small, so we had to figure out how to get them all

in one shot,’ says Kewley ‘Luckily, our puppet-makers can build anything.’ The Nation’s

Favourite Disney Song

Boxing Day, ITV HD, 6pm

Stephen Mulhern narrates this countdown of classic tracks from popular Disney films Expect

to hear songs from

The Jungle Book , Mary Poppins , The Lion King and,

of course, Frozen, while the

songwriters and those who performed them share their memories.

The Muppets

Monday 21 December, Sky1 HD, 8pm

Kermit and pals prepare for the Yuletide special of

Up Late with Miss Piggy

with her guest, comedy actress Mindy Kaling It’s also time for the crew’s Christmas party, while Miss Piggy re-evaluates her relationship with Kermit

More top shows from comedy to countdowns

to look out for over the festive season

Shaun the Sheep and the three troublesome llamas

Tony Hart and Pat Keysell’s Vision On

Welcome to the world of Fungus

the Bogeyman, Sky1’s adaptation

of Raymond Briggs’ popular story

This version follows the

adventures of Mould, the kindly

young Bogey, who yearns to leave

his slimy, subterranean Bogeydom

home and find out more about the

cleaner, human life on the surface

When Mould makes a bolt for

freedom, he is pursued by his

parents, Fungus (Timothy Spall)

and Mildew (Joanna Scanlan)

Unfortunately, all three Bogeys

become trapped in Daventry and

have to attempt to blend in with

the human world – with disastrous and hilarious consequences

‘Eve lives in Daventry and rescues Mould, who comes to stay with her.

But she has hidden agendas and is not what she seems,’ reveals Wood.

As every child knows, the Bogeys prize flatulence above all else Their motto is: ‘I stink, therefore I am’.

‘When they start living in the human world, Mildew can’t stand her lovely clean kitchen So she spreads dog poo over the floor,’ says Wood ‘That was a painful scene to film in a hot kitchen for two days It absolutely stank It was not terribly glamorous, but hopefully viewers will find it very funny.’

‘My children used to love playing with sticks and fir cones – to them

a stick could be anything’

JULIA DONALDSON

Brendan O’Carroll

presides over more

domestic disorder in

two festive specials

Will Agnes throw in the tinsel this Christmas?

NEW COMEDY

Mrs Brown’s Boys

Christmas Day, BBC1 HD, 9.45pm

& New Year’s Day, BBC1 HD, 10.30pm

When you ask Brendan O’Carroll for

his Christmas wish, he doesn’t hesitate

for a moment ‘I want to make people

feel good,’ he smiles ‘I love the movie It’s

a Wonderful Life, and I want a sense of

that with Mrs Brown’s Boys – with lots of

jokes in my stories Because my life has

been full of incredible happenings that’s

the story I want to tell continually.’

His loud-mouthed Irish matriarch

Agnes Brown is back this Christmas for

two festive specials on BBC1, plus there’s

a screening of Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie

(New Year’s Eve, 9.15pm, not Scot).

In the first special, Agnes is

determined to have a quiet

Christmas for once But with

eldest son Mark and his

wife Betty arguing over

the return of his first

love, Bubbles, and the

constant presence of

carol singers, there’s

not much hope of that.

In the second

episode, Agnes is

preparing to mark the

25th anniversary of her

husband’s death when she finds

herself with an amorous admirer.

Both episodes are full of the usual

family chaos, but with unashamedly

sentimental storylines and what

O’Carroll calls elements of magic.

In fact, ‘magical’ is a word that crops

up frequently in conversation with

O’Carroll, who grew up on a Dublin

council estate, the youngest of 11

children Times were tough, but

O’Carroll has an enviable ability to

turn every negative into a positive.

His first ‘truly magical moment’ came about when he created the character of Agnes Brown – at first spelt Agnes Browne – for a radio series in the early 1990s

O’Carroll’s appearance as Agnes was all down to chance ‘The actress who was supposed to play Agnes was sick on the day of recording,’ recalls the 60-year-old

‘I stepped in and somehow it worked.

‘Then after I wrote my first Agnes

Brown novel, The Mammy, it was spotted

by a bored film producer looking for something to read on the plane home What are the chances?’

The result was 1999’s Agnes Browne,

starring Anjelica Huston Following the success of the film, O’Carroll

wrote five Mrs Brown stage

plays and performed them for 10 years in Ireland and the UK

But in 2009, O’Carroll faced bankruptcy and informed his cast – many

of whom were family and friends – that the curtain would be coming down for good.

Remarkably, Rab C Nesbitt writer

Ian Pattison saw the show and recommended it as a sitcom idea

to the BBC The rest is history and O’Carroll is now worth millions.

‘It really has been a miracle,’

he beams ‘I have got my family and my friends working and travelling with me And I get

to entertain people at Christmas time Now that’s magical.’

TV&Satellite Week 21

Buster and Dermot get jiggy in lederhosen

Mark’s first love Bubbles is a Christmas surprise

22 TV&Satellite Week

NEW COMEDY

A Gert Lush

Christmas

Boxing Day, BBC2 HD, 9pm

Spending Christmas with the

family can be a testing

experience, but it’s perfect sitcom

material for Russell Howard,

writer and star of brand new

BBC2 comedy A Gert Lush

Christmas (‘Gert Lush’ being

Bristolian slang for ‘brilliant’).

Howard makes his acting

debut alongside his sister, Him

& Her star Kerry, as well as

Greg Davies, Neil Morrissey

and Sophie Thompson.

The 35-year-old comedian

plays Dan, who brings his

girlfriend Lisa (Hannah Britland)

home to meet his exuberant

parents and embarrassing

siblings, including his sister,

Julie, played by Kerry.

The Howards joined

TV&Satellite Week for an

exclusive photo shoot, and told

us about their family traditions…

What can we expect from

your new sitcom A Gert

Lush Christmas?

Kerry It’s very like Gavin

& Stacey, that kind of

heart-warming show.

Russell The idea of me writing

a comedy drama seemed so

absurd, but me and my mate

Steve [Williams, his co-writer

on BBC3’s Russell Howard’s

Good News] thought, ‘Oh sod

it, let’s try’ I wanted to write

something about family and

Christmas seemed a cool theme

Did you like working together?

Kerry It sounds sickening but we had a lovely time I’d do it again.

Russell I wanted Kerry to be in

it from the get-go and she gave

me a lot of help It’s an odd thing when you realise just how brilliant your little sister is

This is Russell’s acting debut

Is he any good, Kerry?

Kerry Yeah, I want him to do more His natural trick is to improvise and that’s where he gets his comic flair, but I kept telling him to trust his script and commit to what he’d written, because it’s amazing I don’t think anyone else would have had the balls to say that to him because he’s the boss.

Russell On the first day of filming, I walked past Kerry and clicked my fingers at her to make

a cup of tea, which is a joke we

do in our house Sophie didn’t know we were related so she spent the first two days just thinking I was really rude.

Was Kerry’s character, Julie, based on her?

Russell Julie is an amalgamation

of loads of my cousins They’re into spiritualism – we had a party at my house a few years ago and they had an exorcism because there was a bad man who lived in the hall

Kerry They’re all really giddy about the show They can’t wait to tell their friends the character is based on them – they’re fighting over it.

Russell Oddly, the closest character is Dan’s dad Our actual

Dad is really upset because he wanted someone ripped like Bruce Willis to play him, but it’s Neil Morrissey.

Kerry The mother character, played by Sophie Thompson,

is definitely a love letter to our mum

Did you consider letting your parents appear in the show?

Russell No, but I’m doing a travelogue with our mum for Comedy Central next year She’s far more entertaining than I could be.

Kerry She’s losing her mind about it She’s already working out whether she’s got time to

do Loose Women.

Russell I’m slightly worried about what I’m going to unleash.

Kerry It’s like Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington.

What happens at a Howard family Christmas?

Kerry We all play Balderdash and have a competition to buy the best presents Russell’s unbeatable – one year I bought him a clock and he got me

a car My mum and dad have the clock now –

he didn’t even like it

the

sister Kerry for a cracking festive family sitcom

Comedy

TV&Satellite Week 23

‘I wanted Kerry

David Walliams will be harder to avoid than Santa Claus over the

Christmas period As well as appearing in his children’s story Billionaire Boy (see page 17), he’ll also be teaming up with Joanna Lumley for this sketch show pilot Highlights include the pair playing mother-and- daughter owners of a tanning shop – where tan colours include Oompa

Loompa and Cheesy Wotsit – and a brilliantly saucy mickey-take of Bake Off ’s Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry ‘I know we’ve seen Joanna do comedy shows, but we’ve not seen her do comedy sketches before and actually she’s got a really great range as a comedy actress,’ says Walliams ‘It was wonderful writing for her.’

Peter Kay:

20 Years

of Funny

Christmas Eve, BBC1 HD, 9.05pm

A celebration of the Bolton-born comedian’s two decades in comedy, looking at the people and places that have influenced him and his rise from an unknown on the comedy circuit to a household name

Catherine Tate’s Nan

Sunday 27 December &

Wednesday

30 December, BBC1 HD, 10.25pm

Catherine Tate’s Nan is back for two specials In the first, she’s ordered to attend anger-management classes, while in the second she finds herself in a powerful position when property developers acquire the freehold to her block of flats

More of our favourite comedians are back this festive fortnight…

Hot new looks for Joanna Lumley and David Walliams

Not Going Out:

Christmas Special

Christmas Eve, BBC1 HD, 10.45pm

This festive edition

of the popular sitcom finds the now married Lee (Lee Mack) and Lucy (Sally Bretton) awaiting the arrival of their first baby, only to get caught up in a robbery at a local department store on Christmas Eve.

Michael McIntyre’s Big Christmas Show

Christmas Day, BBC1

HD, 10.25pm

The comedian presents a night

of entertainment from London’s Theatre Royal with an array of star guests

There will also be Christmas treats and surprises as McIntyre gives his own inimitable take on the festive season

Catherine Tate’s Nan is back

24 TV&Satellite Week

A Christmas rarely goes by without

The Sound of Music being shown

on our TV screens But, this

year, fans of the much-loved

musical will receive an extra

treat when ITV broadcasts

a stage version of the

Three Mills Studio in

London and stars

ex-EastEnders actress

and Strictly winner Kara

Tointon as novice

nun-turned-governess Maria in the role made

famous in 1965 by Julie Andrews.

‘The Sound of Music is all about

happy memories of my childhood,’

says Tointon ‘It was my family’s go-to film and I grew up knowing every word of every song.

‘Then, in my first amateur dramatic production, I was one

of the children, Louisa, and later,

I was Maria in a school play In fact,

it was those roles that made

me realise I wanted to be an actress in the first place So the emotional connection here is huge.’

The show also stars Julian Ovenden as the widowed Captain von Trapp Like Tointon, the story

is significant to him.

‘My grandparents were huge fans of the movie,’ he reveals ‘At the end of her life, my grandmother had Alzheimer’s and

it seemed to comfort her to watch

The Sound of Music on a daily basis

At her funeral, I tried to sing

Edelweiss, but I didn’t get very far.’

To prepare for the performance, which also stars Alexander Armstrong and Katherine Kelly, the actors visited Salzburg in Austria where the von Trapps lived before fleeing the country from the Nazis

The actors visited the real-life locations, including the von Trapps’ former home ‘It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,’ says Tointon ‘Visiting Salzburg,

in the footsteps of the von Trapps, reminds you the story is about real people, facing real jeopardy.’

Both stars have backgrounds

in musical theatre, and Tointon wowed critics when she played Eliza Doolittle in a recent West End

production of Pygmalion ‘I was

delighted – and terrified – when I

got the part of Maria,’

she laughs ‘But now I’m really looking forward to the big night ‘It does feel a bit like leaping out

of an aeroplane But being scared is

no bad thing As a performer that’s often where the magic happens.’

● Go behind the scenes with The Making of the Sound of Music Live!

on Monday 21 December

on ITV HD, 8pm.

Kara Tointon climbs

every mountain in a special live performance of The Sound of Music

Last Christmas saw Imelda Staunton show off her impressive song and dance prowess alongside Michael Ball in Victoria Wood’s period

musical That Day We Sang This

year, she’s dazzling us once again

as BBC4 airs her award-winning

performance in Gypsy, which

recently finished a sell-out run

at London’s Savoy Theatre.

Based on the memoirs of real-life burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee, the 1920s-set Broadway classic sees Staunton play Momma Rose, who is determined

Imelda Staunton

as Momma Rose

Julian Ovenden and Kara Tointon

Imelda Staunton plays a pushy stage mother

in Stephen Sondheim’s classic musical NEW MUSICAL

Gypsy: Live from the Savoy Theatre

Sunday 27 December, BBC4 HD, 9pm

It’s

Entertainment

TV&Satellite Week 25

Strictly Come Dancing

Christmas Day, BBC1 HD, 6.15pm

Following the grand final of this year’s series on Saturday 19 December, Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly host as a new set of celebs head to the dance floor for a festive special Other returning faces include former winners Harry Judd, Tom Chambers and Abbey Clancy, plus runner-up Lisa Snowdon and 2014 contestant Alison Hammond They’ll compete for the Silver Star trophy, along with former Royal Marine medic Cassidy

Little, who won The People’s Strictly earlier this year Bruce Forsyth had

been planning to host, but has had to pull out after surgery Instead, the ever-popular presenter will record a special video message for the show Carols from King’s

Christmas Eve, BBC2 HD, 5.15pm

The annual service from the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, gets the festivities underway with traditional favourites including

Once in Royal David’s City and O Come All Ye Faithful, plus

poems by Elizabeth Jennings, Christina Rossetti and Thomas Merton.

From carols and classical to salsa and swing…

Sinatra 100 – An All Star Grammy Concert

Christmas Day, Channel 5

HD, 11.05pm

As part

of a night celebrating the centenary of Ol’ Blue Eyes’ birth,

a concert from Las Vegas sees artists including John Legend, Usher, Tony Bennett, Alicia Keys and Carrie Underwood pay tribute to the legendary crooner.

Jools’ Annual Hootenanny

New Year’s Eve, BBC2 HD, 11.10pm

The jamboree welcomes in the new year with guests including Tom Jones, Paul Weller, Jess Glynne and James Bay performing alongside Jools Holland and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra.

New Year’s Day Vienna Concert

New Year’s Day, BBC2

HD, 11.15am

It’s the 75th anniversary

of the traditional concert that this year features the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Boys’ Choir and the Vienna State Ballet performing

in the Austrian capital.

Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman add some sparkle

that her

daughters June

(Gemma Sutton) and

Louise (Sherlock’s Lara Pulver)

will be stars However, with

old-fashioned vaudeville dying

out and racy burlesque on its

way up, her daughters are

desperate to forge their own path.

‘Momma Rose is a fighter, and

people like someone who, against all

the odds, keeps going,’ explains

Staunton ‘But they also find her

toughness shocking because she is a

woman I had to dig in every night

as it’s a disturbing, dark piece.’

The Stephen Sondheim musical,

which also stars Peter Davison as

Rose’s boyfriend Herbie, features

songs Everything’s Coming Up Roses

and You Gotta Get a Gimmick.

‘It’s a tough show on the voice so I was disciplined about doing the exercises, warm-ups and cool downs,’ says Staunton

‘You wouldn’t climb Everest without preparing and practising, and this is the same.’

For the 59-year-old, a well-deserved festive break now beckons, but there’s one appointment she has to keep on Christmas Day – watching husband Jim Carter say goodbye to his role as

butler Carson in Downton Abbey.

‘Of course I’ll be watching as my life wouldn’t be worth living if I didn’t,’ she laughs ‘It will be lovely to sit down and watch with friends.’

‘I was delighted

– and terrified –

when I got the

part of Maria’

KARA TOINTON

26 TV&Satellite Week

If you think it’s nippy in Britain over

the festive period, spare a thought

for emperor penguin chicks

growing up in the coldest place

on Earth – the Antarctic, where in

the middle of winter temperatures

can drop to minus 60˚C.

In BBC1’s enchanting film, Snow

Chick – A Penguin’s Tale, narrated

by Kate Winslet, cameras follow a

chick as he struggles for survival

Life is equally perilous for his

parents, who take turns walking

across 60 miles of ice to the sea in

order to catch fish to keep their

precious youngster alive

‘It is an incredible story,’ says

executive producer John Downer

‘And it’s a story I was dying to tell

because it has never been told

before The nearest has been

March of the Penguins, but they

took a much bigger overview.’

The idea to focus on one

chick came about when making

one of Downer’s earlier

productions, Penguins – Spy in the Huddle, filmed two years ago.

‘The camera crew had spent

a year on the ice for Spy in the Huddle and they noticed the

smallest chick in the emperor colony because he was the cutest

So they started filming him.’

Although there wasn’t room to

include the chick’s story in Spy in the Huddle, Downer knew that he

had the basis of another film.

‘It is probably the most intense study of an animal, certainly that I’ve done,’ he says ‘Some of the behaviour is so extraordinary, you couldn’t make it up.’

That includes the adult penguins holding identity parades when their partners return after weeks at sea

‘It may seem humorous, but it’s real,’ says Downer ‘Penguins can’t tell each other apart, they can only identify each other by their unique calls So the female has to march along a line of other penguins calling out and hoping that her partner calls back.’

There is also the unexpected sight

of penguins that haven’t managed

to breed trying to snatch someone else’s chick More amusing is the sight of a lone Adélie penguin (the

breed featured in last year’s John Lewis ad) turning up at the colony and picking fights with the much bigger emperor chicks.

‘It was bonkers,’

says Downer ‘He made himself at home and took pleasure in trying

to beat everyone

up It was priceless.’

When the snow chick

is five months old, his parents go to the sea, leaving him forever

He, like all the other youngsters, then makes his own long trek to the sea in search of food which means plunging into the Antarctic Ocean for the first time

‘It is quite emotional as you know what he’s been through

to get there,’ says Downer

‘Two adult penguins create this bundle of cuteness and are dedicated to him Then they leave him and walk away without turning around

Their job is done I think it’s remarkable.’

An emperor penguin chick struggles to survive

against the odds in the coldest place on the planet

encounter

In 1957, David Attenborough visited Australia’s Great Barrier Reef for the first time It left a

lasting impression on the legendary broadcaster and naturalist.

‘People ask me, “What was the most magical thing you ever saw?’ And I always say, “The first time I scuba dived on the Great Barrier Reef” I suddenly saw these amazing multi- coloured species of astounding beauty.’ Now Attenborough is returning for a new BBC1 series – though the

David Attenborough goes underwater to

explore one of the world’s natural wonders

Gareth Malone’s Great Choir Reunion

New Year’s Eve, BBC2 HD, 8pm

Gareth Malone has spent the past 10 years working with community choirs

To mark the anniversary, the perky choirmaster tracks down some of the groups he’s worked with for a grand reunion party.

David Beckham: For the Love

of the Game

Tuesday 29 December, BBC1 HD, 9pm

The former England captain sets out to play a football match

on each of Earth’s seven continents, visiting Djibouti, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Buenos Aires, Miami, Antarctica and Old Trafford Bear Goes

Wild with Barack Obama

Sunday 20 December, Channel 4, 8pm

In a special edition of his survival skills show, which has previously featured Ben Stiller and Kate Winslet, adventurer Bear Grylls takes US President Barack Obama on an outward bound trip

to northern Alaska and the Arctic Circle

A Life on Screen:

Stephen Fry

Tuesday 29 December, BBC2 HD, 9pm

The author, actor and broadcaster

is the subject of

a special Bafta tribute, which looks back on his 30-year career in the world

of showbusiness.

Walking the Himalayas

Sunday 27 December, Channel 4 HD, 8pm

After Walking the Nile

drew an impressive 2.6 million viewers, adventurer Levison Wood does another gruelling journey by foot, this time walking

1700 miles across the length of the world’s highest mountain range All Aboard!

The Sleigh Ride

Christmas Eve, BBC4

HD, 8pm

BBC4’s unusual and fascinating film sees cameras rigged to a traditional sleigh as a Sami reindeer herder travels across the frozen wilderness of the Arctic.

Big Cats:

An Amazing Animal Family

Holiday Monday 28 December Sky1 HD, 8pm

Zoologist Patrick Aryee traces the history of feline evolution, which has produced a diverse range of cats from the king

of the jungle to the pet tabby.

Big beasts, superchoirs and David Beckham are all in the line-up this fortnight…

Bear Grylls and Barack Obama

Adventure

Holiday Monday 28 December, ITV HD, 9pm

Comic John Bishop goes to the forests of Rwanda to track down the endangered mountain gorilla, and meets the ‘gorilla doctors’, a group of vets who are helping the population of great apes recover from a 1998 low

of around 600.

‘They leave him and

walk away without

turning around.

Their job is done’

PRODUCER JOHN DOWNER

experience will be somewhat

different nearly 60 years on.

‘Back then I just went down with

an Aqua-lung and the footage was

in black and white,’ recalls the

veteran presenter, 89 ‘So I was excited

to return with the latest technology.’

This time, he went 1000ft

below the waves in a state-of-the-art

Triton submersible

‘Nobody has gone down

that deep before But it was

like sitting in an armchair at

home The temperature is

the same as it is above

the surface, the air

pressure is the same

and you don’t have

However, unlike on Attenborough’s first visit, the reef is now under threat and the final programme looks at the ways scientists are trying to help the coral cope with rapid climate change

‘It is the severity and swiftness of the changes which are going to be catastrophic,’ says Attenborough

‘They will affect the oceans and have a powerful impact on the nations who depend upon the sea for food.’

A snow chick will leave his parents aged five months

David Attenborough

28 TV&Satellite Week

See what movie goodies Santa has left under the tree this Christmas

Exodus: Gods and Kings

Christian Bale’s Moses and Joel Edgerton’s decadent Egyptian pharaoh Ramses are nowhere near as hammy as Charlton Heston and Yul

Brynner in the 1956 classic The Ten Commandments, though Ridley

Scott’s CGI-driven biblical extravaganza will probably seem even more dated than Cecil B DeMille’s

Hitman: Agent 47

With Rupert Friend’s elite assassin slickly laying waste to hordes of foes, this intellect- free sci-fi action thriller’s video-game origins are all

is hugely endearing, whether exhibiting a tipsy wobble when his battery runs low, patching his punctures with sticky tape or giving the film’s emotionally bruised

The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey

Tom Berenger’s reclusive woodworker shakes off his curmudgeonly ways as

he carves a set of Nativity figures for Joely Richardson’s widow and her young son (Luke Ward-Wilkinson) in this

Diana

Naomi Watts tries royally in the lead, but this would-be romantic drama

about Princess Diana’s secret love affair with Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews) is toe-curlingly bad 1

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Brace yourselves for superhero

smackdowns galore as the Avengers

strive to bring a rogue peacekeeping

robot to heel in this comic-book

adventure sequel The film is at its

most entertaining, though, when it

finds the gang indulging in jokey

banter, kicking back rather than

Behind the Candelabra

The casting of Michael Douglas

and Matt Damon as flamboyant

pianist Liberace and his

much-younger lover Scott Thorson in this

biopic took many by surprise, but

the pair pull off their roles with

Big Hero 6

An animated comedy adventure

based on a lesser-known Marvel

Comics series Looking like an

ultra-smooth Michelin Man,

inflatable healthcare robot Baymax

Home

A bumbling misfit alien (voiced by Jim Parsons) hooks up with a plucky teenager (singer Rihanna) in this goofily charming animated sci-fi

I Origins

Science meets spirituality when Michael Pitt’s ultra-rationalist scientist falls for mystically minded fashion model Astrid Bergès-Frisbey

Mindscape

Mark Strong’s memory detective goes head to head, quite literally, with Taissa Farmiga’s troubled teenager in this psychological sci-fi thriller, as he has to enter her mind in order to

It’s time to take the wrapping off Exodus: Gods and Kings, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, Home, Avengers: Age

of Ultron and Big Hero 6

Kingsman:

The Secret Service

Premieres

TV&Satellite Week 29

Mrs

Brown’s

Boys D’Movie

As crude and rude as ever, Irish

comedian Brendan O’Carroll’s

hugely popular sitcom character,

blowsy Dublin market trader Agnes

Brown, makes her feature film

debut She is unlikely to sway the

unconverted, but fans of earthy,

boisterous old-school comedy

Nativity 2: Danger in the

Manger!

Marc Wootton’s hopelessly naive

classroom assistant persuades David

Tennant’s supply teacher to help

him enter their pupils in a national

Christmas song competition in this

Night at the Museum:

Secret of the Tomb

Dan Stevens’ Sir Lancelot gets

in on the act when the

magical museum exhibits

head from New York to

London with Ben

WolfCop

Here come the fuzz takes on a whole new meaning when a boozy, good-for-nothing deputy sheriff (Leo Fafard) gets transformed into

a werewolf in this scuzzy B-movie horror comedy The action lacks bite, but the cheap and cheerful, old- school creature effects and grisly tongue-in-cheek splatter scenes will tickle fans of

scary horror sequel – and his gang of ghostly children has another batch of gruesome Super 8mm snuff movies with which

Top Five

Chris Rock lays himself bare with

a semi-autobiographical comedy about a Hollywood comedian in the throes of a career crisis Rosario Dawson is the flirtatious journalist who offers him a potential lifeline, while Rock’s celebrity pals Adam Sandler and Jerry Seinfeld pitch in

The Transporter Refuelled

Producer Luc Besson and his team may have topped up the tank, but this action thriller reboot struggles to get

Julianne Hough’s wife on the run falls in love with a widowed father (Josh Duhamel), but there

is a remorseless cop on her trail

in this formulaic but enjoyable romance based on Nicholas

The Sapphires Chris O’Dowd’s expat Irish music promoter in 1960s Australia signs

up four feisty country music-singing Aboriginal women and launches the scrappy Outback quartet as a slick soul group in an enjoyable feelgood movie

Sinister 2

The demon from

2012’s Sinister

targets yet another unsuspecting family in this

The Sapphires

Tuesday 22 December, Sky Premiere

HD, 4.30pm & 8pm/Sky Premiere+1,

5.30pm & 9pm

Lily James dazzles and Richard Madden

is dashing in a swooshingly romantic take

on the classic fairy tale 2014, U, 113MIN

Blackhat 4

Christmas Eve, Sky Crime &

Thriller HD, 9pm

steers a surging tale of cyberterrorism, which stars Chris Hemsworth as a computer hacker 2015, 15, 133MIN

Alan Partridge:

Alpha Papa 4

Tuesday 22 December, BBC2 HD, 10.30pm

Steve Coogan’s naff Radio Norwich DJ-cum-TV host is called upon to be

a hostage negotiator 2013, 15, 90MIN

Behind the Candelabra 4

Holiday Monday 28 December, BBC2

The winner of a Best Animated Film

Oscar, this splendid adventure from

Pixar features a feisty Scottish heroine

(voiced by Kelly Macdonald) and an

enchanting story 2012, PG, 100MIN

Gone Girl 4

Christmas Day, Sky Crime &

Thriller HD, 9pm

Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike star

in a searing mystery that is both a crime story and a chilling dissection of a marriage on the rocks 2014, 18, 149MIN

Pride 4

Christmas Eve, Sky Select HD, 5.30pm

Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton star

in a warm-hearted tale, set during the 1980s miners’ strike, about a group of gay and lesbian activists descending on

a Welsh mining village 2014, 15, 120MIN

I Origins 4

Boxing Day, Sky Premiere HD, 1am/

Sky Premiere+1, 2am

The eyes have it in this semi-mystical romance about a scientist (Michael Pitt) who believes that the human eye is the key to evolution 2014, 15, 106MIN

The Croods 4

Boxing Day, BBC1 HD, 4.45pm

A hugely funny and enjoyable prehistoric

saga about a protective Neanderthal

father and his family, featuring the

voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone

Kingsman:

The Secret Service 4

New Year’s Day, Sky Premiere HD, 4pm

& 8pm/Sky Premiere+1, 5pm & 9pm

Colin Firth and Taron Egerton are the chalk-and-cheese protagonists of this irreverent spy caper 2015, 15, 129MIN

Frankenweenie 4

Christmas Day, BBC2 HD, 1.45pm

Director Tim Burton’s affectionate stop-motion animated homage to

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein story is a

captivating delight from start to finish for kids and adults alike 2012, PG, 87MIN

Sunshine on Leith 4

Wednesday 30 December, Channel 4

HD, 4.35pm/Channel 4+1, 5.35pm

Doing for The Proclaimers what

Mamma Mia! did for ABBA, this Edinburgh-set musical is a relentlessly feelgood experience 2013, PG, 100MIN

Wreck-It Ralph 4

New Year’s Day, BBC1 HD, 4.30pm

John C Reilly and Sarah Silverman lend

their voices to Disney’s splendid fantasy

comedy, about a character from a

1980s arcade game who breaks out of

his gaming machine 2012, PG, 108MIN

Skyfall 4

New Year’s Day, ITV2 HD, 8pm/

ITV2+1, 9pm

James Bond marked his 50th year

on the screen with this scorching adventure, which again stars Daniel Craig as agent 007 2012, 12, 143MIN

Top Five 4

New Year’s Day, Sky Premiere HD, 12.30pm & 12.45am/Sky Premiere+1, 1.30pm & 1.45am

As well as writing and directing, Chris Rock also stars in this witty story about

a stand-up comedian 2014, 15, 102MIN

Scrooge:

A Christmas Carol 5

Christmas Eve, Channel 5 HD, 5.25pm/ Channel 5+1, 6.25pm

The inimitable Alastair Sim seems born

to play Charles Dickens’ supernaturally reformed miser 1951, U, 86MIN

The Nightmare Before Christmas 4

Christmas Eve, ITV2 HD, 7.25pm/

ITV2+1, 8.25pm

A scary festive treat from producer Tim Burton, composer Danny Elfman and director Henry Selick 1993, PG, 76MIN

Home Alone 4

Sunday 20 December, Channel 4 HD, 6pm/Channel 4+1, 7pm

Young Macaulay Culkin proves a force

to be reckoned with when two would-be burglars (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern)

in a single night 2011, U, 97MIN

Men in Black 3 4

Sunday 20 December, Film4 HD,

6.50pm/Film4+1, 7.50pm

With the fate of the Earth at stake, Will

Smith and Tommy Lee Jones return as

wisecracking agents J and K in a great

time-travel adventure 2012, PG, 106MIN

Big Hero 6 4

Christmas Day, Sky Premiere HD,

12.15pm & 6.15pm/Sky Premiere+1,

1.15pm & 7.15pm

The surprising star of this engaging

superhero movie is an inflatable robot

called Baymax 2014, PG, 108MIN

It’s a Wonderful Life 5

Christmas Eve, Channel 4 HD, 2.15pm/Channel 4+1, 3.315pm

James Stewart is at his best as a man with a guardian angel watching over him But it is in the amazing depth of character and incident, all immaculately conceived and executed, that the film scores most heavily Director Frank Capra’s Yuletide fantasy has some surprisingly bleak moments for a heart-warmer, but it now lays claim to being one of the best loved movies of all time 1946, U, 125MIN

Avatar 4

Christmas Day, Film4 HD, 3.40pm/

Film4+1, 4.40pm

Humans wage war against the

peace-loving inhabitants of an alien planet in

director James Cameron’s exhilarating

futuristic spectacular 2009, 12, 161MIN

Guardians of

the Galaxy 4

New Year’s Eve, Sky Showcase HD,

2pm & 8pm

Chris Pratt leads a group of heroic

misfits in Marvel Comics’ off-the-wall

space war adventure 2014, 12, 121MIN

Pinocchio 5

Sunday 20 December, Channel 5 HD, 5.05pm/Channel 5+1, 6.05pm

A real gem from the golden age

of Disney animation, featuring the

immortal, Oscar-winning song When

You Wish Upon a Star 1940, U, 88MIN

L Frank Baum’s novel 1939, U, 98MIN

New Year’s Eve, ITV3 HD, 3.35pm/

ITV3+1, 4.35pm

A ghoulish treat, this stupendous spoof

of Hammer horrors and Sherlock Holmes mysteries stars Kenneth Williams and Fenella Fielding 1966, PG, 96MIN

The Sound of Music 5

New Year’s Day, BBC1 HD, 1.15pm

Those hills are just as alive as they ever were and Julie Andrews sings once more in an all-time family favourite that, 50 years on, has lost none of its enduring appeal 1965, U, 174MIN

A fascinating conjecture on events behind the scenes at Buckingham Palace and Downing Street in the days immediately following the death of Princess Diana in

1997 In a performance that won her an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Bafta, Helen Mirren immerses herself entirely as the embattled Elizabeth II, who is trying to uphold archaic traditions in a country

that no longer understands them Also on

Tuesday 29 December 2006, 12, 103MIN

FANTASY ADVENTURE

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Sky Family HD, 8pm 5 Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ●●●

It is spellbinding business as usual at Hogwarts in what is one of the most enjoyable films in the series Michael Gambon is the star of the show with

a subtle, appealing performance as Dumbledore The plot sees Harry preparing for the showdown with the forces of evil as Voldemort’s supporters gain strength at Hogwarts The film is relentlessly exciting and stunning to look

at Also on Boxing Day 2009, 12, 153MIN

SCI-FI ADVENTURE

Star Trek

Channel 4 HD, 8pm/

Channel 4+1, 9pm 5 Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ●●●

Star Trek makes a triumphant return with a gorgeously gleaming prequel directed by JJ Abrams Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are perfectly cast as the young space adventurers Kirk and Spock, true to their esteemed forebears while making the parts their own The film has plenty of action, a serious baddie in the shape of Eric Bana’s Nero and a fabulous turn by Leonard Nimoy

as an elderly Spock 2009, 12, 127MIN

■ Full listings start on 49

The show must go on.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Sky Disney HD, 6.10pm & 1.25am 3

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Angelina Jolie gives a spellbinding performance as the wicked fairy in Disney’s

re-imagining of their 1959 cartoon Sleeping Beauty This time around, though,

the malevolent fairy is more misunderstood than evil when she puts a curse on the king’s baby daughter The action sequences are well-handled, there are some cute slapstick interludes, and this good-looking fable splendidly turns

the original tale’s denouement on its head Also on Monday 21 December,

Christmas Day, Tuesday 29 December & New Year’s Eve 2014, PG, 97MIN

Angelina was living in a fantasy world

Pay-Per-View

Ant-Man

★★★

Possessing a special suit that

enables the wearer to shrink to

the size of an ant seems a

comically puny superpower to

give a hero, yet Paul Rudd’s

miniscule Ant-Man punches well

above his weight This engaging

Marvel Comics adventure makes

the most of the humour inherent

in the scenario (12, 117min)

Inside Out

★★★★★

Pixar’s best film since Toy Story

3 and Up finds five personified

emotions living inside an

11-year-old girl’s head, guiding

her feelings The film works as

an engaging adventure, packed

with colour and incident, while

also cleverly and humorously

mapping out the workings of

the brain (U, 102min)

The Man from

U.N.C.L.E.

★★★★

Guy Ritchie gives the iconic

1960s TV series a slick and

stylish reboot Set in 1963

against a backdrop of Cold War

suspicion and jet-set cool, the

film finds the mismatched spy

duo – suave CIA operative

Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill)

and scowling KGB agent Illya

Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) –

joining forces to thwart a gang

of nuclear-bomb wielding

baddies (12, 116min)

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

★★★★

Tom Cruise’s fifth outing as daredevil spy Ethan Hunt delivers another entertaining round of white-knuckle thrills teetering on the edge of absurdity With Alec Baldwin’s CIA chief striving to disband the IMF, Hunt is on the trail of a shadowy organisation of spies, aided by Simon Pegg’s bungling sidekick Benji and by Rebecca Ferguson’s mysterious femme fatale (12, 131min)

Sinister 2

★★★

PREMIERE (Sky Store & Virgin

Movies from Hol Mon 28 Dec) See review, above (15, 97min)

Paper Towns

★★★

Cara Delevingne transfers her quirky cool from the catwalk to the screen for her first leading film role, playing the free-spirited Florida teenager whose mysterious disappearance sends her dorky neighbour (Nat Wolff) and friends on a road trip across the States to find her The mystery is engaging, although the mood is safe rather than edgy (12, 116min)

Southpaw

★★★

Jake Gyllenhaal, pumped up and fighting fit, oozes blood,

sweat and tears with conviction

as a boxing champion whose life is left in ruins following a shock incident This timeworn melodrama of loss and redemption pummels us into submission with brutal action inside the ring and, unfortunately, relentless clichés everywhere else (15, 124min)

Ted 2

★★★

The inevitable sequel to 2012’s shamelessly rude buddy comedy about a Boston slacker and his living teddy bear chum has enough puerile fun to keep fans of the first film satisfied

Mark Wahlberg is back as stoner John and Seth MacFarlane again voices stuffed bear Ted, who finds himself caught up in a legal wrangle (15, 116min)

Trainwreck

★★★

As writer and star of this raunchy romcom, American comedian Amy Schumer unleashes the drunken slut persona – a hard-partying New York singleton – from her cable

TV comedy sketch series Inside

Amy Schumer Director Judd Apatow steers the film into familiar territory, but Schumer’s taboo-busting japes still create quite a frisson (15, 125min)

The Transporter Refuelled

★★

PREMIERE (Sky Store & Virgin

Movies from Hol Mon 28 Dec) Rapper-turned-actor Ed Skrein takes the wheel from Jason Statham’s underworld driver for this relaunch of the action thriller franchise, but there is not much gas left in the tank The story is desperately lame and the car chases unexciting, with pursuing vehicles flipping end over end with tiresome regularity, and Skrein can’t match Statham’s muscular heft and tongue-in-cheek charisma (15, 96min)

Hitman: Agent 47

★★

PREMIERE (Sky Store & Virgin

Movies from Mon 21 Dec) Rupert Friend plays an assassin

even deadlier than Homeland’s

Peter Quinn in this sci-fi action thriller A genetically engineered killer – complete with a barcode

on the back of his shaven head and a number for a name – he is predictably unstoppable

However, his indestructibility means the story’s formulaic action never gets particularly gripping, while the slick sheen gives the film the look of a luxury car advert (15, 96min)

HORROR THRILLER

Sinister 2

Sky Store & Virgin Movies from Hol Mon 28 Dec 3

Sex●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

The demonic entity from 2012’s frightening

Sinister returns with his gang of ghostly

children to corrupt and consume more

innocent souls James Ransone’s dopey

deputy is also back, now playing protector to

a runaway wife (Shannyn Sossamon) and her

twin sons, and they face enough scares to keep

your nerves on edge 2015, 15, 97MIN

Monday 21 December

As always, David was left holding the baby

■ Full listings start on p69

ALSO ON Monday

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Monday, Film4 HD, 3.25pm 4

Sid’s on an egg-citing adventure.

Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows Pt 2

Sky Family HD, 8pm 5

Only one can live.

Mission: Impossible III

Sky Greats HD, 8pm 4

Tom Cruise is back in the Hunt.

Shrek 2

Syfy HD, 9pm 5

Shrek meets the parents.

Music and Lyrics

ITV HD, 10.40pm 3

Hugh and Drew are on song.

layed the title character of which 2005 TV mini-series? Answer at bottom of page

TV&Satellite Week 33

Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger!

BBC2 HD, 6.15pm 3

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Revolving around a Christmas song competition, writer-director Debbie

Isitt’s follow-up to her 2009 festive hit comedy Nativity! is similarly

over-the-top and silly, but gets buoyed along by amusing spoofs of seasonal songs Previous stars Martin Freeman and Ashley Jensen have departed, but Marc Wootton’s delightfully daffy teaching assistant Mr Poppy is back, joined by cast new boy David Tennant in the dual roles of a likeable supply teacher and his celebrity choirmaster twin 2012, U, 105MIN

FESTIVE COMEDY

CRIME THRILLER

Sin City

Syfy HD, 9pm/Syfy+1, 10pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Total sensory overload is the order of the day in this jaw-dropping adaptation

of Frank Miller’s comic-book noir Filmed almost entirely by digitally superimposing the actors onto black-and-white CGI backdrops, it interweaves three stories, involving Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen and Jessica Alba among others, into one relentless thrill-ride through the festering hellhole of vice

that is Basin City Also on Wednesday

23 December 2005, 18, 124MIN

COMEDY DRAMA

Million Dollar Arm

Sky Disney HD, 9.50pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Jon Hamm scores a home run in a highly enjoyable comedy drama based on a true story about US sports agent JB Bernstein, who goes looking for budding baseball pitchers in India Even if we do see every plot turn coming as JB returns to LA with his two fish-out-of-water protégés

(played by Life of Pi’s Suraj Sharma and

Slumdog Millionaire ’s Madhur Mittal), this heart-warming underdog tale is still a

winner Also on Tuesday 29 December

& New Year’s Day 2014, PG, 124MIN

What it takes to be a man’s best friend.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Channel 5 HD, 6.50pm 4

Ron Perlman takes on the underworld.

Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows Pt 1

Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ●●●

Ten years after their last screen outing, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones

return as Men in Black agents J and K, and are once again tasked with

protecting Earth from the scum of the universe The new story finds Smith’s

J being sent back in time to 1969, where he has to save the life of the young

K (played by Josh Brolin) Once again, it is the bickering byplay between

Smith and Jones and the fleeting visual jokes going on at the edges of the

action that hold your interest 2012, PG, 106MIN

THRILLER

Cold in July

Sky Crime & Thriller HD, 3pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Dexter ’s Michael C Hall plays a jittery

everyman hero in this tense, twisty crime

thriller The setting is 1989 small-town

Texas, where Hall’s meek family man

accidentally shoots dead a would-be

burglar Then the dead man’s vengeful

ex-con father (Sam Shepard) turns up in

town, as does Don Johnson’s strutting

private detective The plot that ties them

all together is totally gripping, but it is this

trio of richly drawn characters that makes

ANIMATED COMEDY

Toy Story 3

BBC1 HD, 3.05pm 5

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

With all the fun, thrills and laughs we

have grown to expect, and yet at the

same time surprisingly thoughtful and

poignant, this third entry in the flawless

Toy Story saga really is magnificent

Woody has to come to the rescue when

Buzz, Jessie and the other toys are

accidentally donated to the sinister

Sunnyside daycare centre A delicious

mix of wistfulness, excitement, laughs

and charm, the film builds to an

emotional climax 2010, U, 108MIN

ROMANTIC MYSTERY

Safe Haven

BBC2 HD, 8.20pm 3

Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ● ●●

PREMIERE Based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, this glossy romance finds Julianne Hough’s fugitive with a remorseless cop

on her trail, which means that when she fetches up in the picturesque North Carolina resort of Southport and starts falling for Josh Duhamel’s widowed father, you know it will only be a matter

of time before he catches up with her

The film is a tad formulaic, but director Lasse Hallström puts in a couple of twists before the end 2013, 12, 115MIN

Josh and Will

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Disney gives the Brothers Grimm fairy

tale of Rapunzel a makeover with a

delightful comedy that tweaks and teases the original story just enough for

a modern audience Heroine Rapunzel (voiced by Mandy Moore), here transformed into a princess, is locked in

a tower by a wicked enchantress (Donna Murphy), until a rascally thief (Zachary

Levi) turns up Also on Christmas Eve,

Boxing Day, Tuesday 29 December and New Year’s Day 2010, PG, 100MIN

Sunday 20 December

■ Full listings start on p59 SCI-FI COMEDY

34 TV&Satellite Week

22 December

Lily and Richard were having a ball

■ Full listings start on p79

ALSO ON Tuesday

Five Children and It

Channel 4 HD, 12.25pm 4

Eddie Izzard has his head in the sand.

Shrek the Third

BBC1 HD, 3.50pm 4

Is Mike Myers just splitting heirs?

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith

Sky Star Wars HD, 5.30pm 4

A fight to the Darth.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Mike Myers’ curmudgeonly green ogre is tricked into signing a pact with the cunning Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn) that erases his former life and turns the kingdom of Far Far Away into a hideous tyranny Worse still, Fiona (Cameron Diaz)

is now a rebel warrior and doesn’t know who he is It’s all great fun, and even if the franchise’s inspired spoofing of the world

of fairy tales is now yielding diminishing returns, it is still a good deal wittier than most of its rivals 2010, U, 93MIN

MYSTERY THRILLER

Hollywoodland

AMC, 9pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

A lavishly mounted detective story that delves into the sordid death in 1959 of actor George Reeves, famous for playing Superman on television Adrien Brody plays a seedy private eye who becomes obsessed with discovering what really happened Meanwhile, Ben Affleck delivers what is arguably the best performance of his career to date in a succession of flashbacks as the bitter, insecure Reeves in a vanity-free depiction

of fading stardom 2006, 15, 126MIN

1970 California, is wilfully bewildering as Joaquin Phoenix’s private eye investigates

a case involving his hippie ex-girlfriend (Katherine Waterston), a missing tycoon, Nazi bikers, tax-dodging dentists, drug smugglers and a government agent (Owen Wilson) You might not have

a clue what is going on, but the film is

completely captivating Also on Tuesday

29 December 2014, 15, 149MIN

Suraj had been told that worse things happen at sea

■ Full listings start on p89

Putting Yann Martel’s best-selling novel on screen would seem an impossible task, but it is one that Oscar-winning director Ang Lee pulls off spectacularly with this terrific adventure tale of shipwreck and survival filled with images of beguiling beauty Newcomer Suraj Sharma is remarkably convincing as the story’s resilient 16-year-old hero, Pi Patel, who finds himself stranded on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean with only a fearsome Bengal tiger for company 2012, PG, 127MIN

Cinderella

Sky Premiere HD, 4.30pm & 8pm/Sky Premiere+1, 5.30pm & 9pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

All the fondly familiar elements of Cinderella are here in director Kenneth

Branagh’s live-action adaptation of the story Lily James’s radiant

Cinderella sparkles – even under a coating of soot – Richard Madden

charms as the prince, and Cate Blanchett’s cruel stepmother is

magnificently haughty Branagh tweaks the story for today’s audience,

but doesn’t stint on the spectacle Also on Wednesday 23 December-Boxing

Day & Sunday 27 December-New Year’s Eve 2014, U, 113MIN

ROMANTIC FANTASY

CRIME THRILLER

The Drop

Sky Select HD, 8pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●● ● Language ●●●

With terrific performances by Tom Hardy,

Noomi Rapace, James Gandolfini and

Matthias Schoenaerts, this gripping crime

thriller blends urban noir with a tale of sin

and redemption The plot revolves around

a Brooklyn bar that serves as an

underworld money drop, where Hardy’s

lonely bartender works for his bitter

cousin (Gandolfini) But his rescue of a

battered puppy fatefully draws him into

the life of Rapace’s waitress… Also on

Sunday 27 December 2014, 15, 106MIN

ACTION CARTOON/ANIMATION

The Lego Movie

Sky Family HD, 8pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

A beguilingly bonkers animated

adventure that slots together childhood

innocence, adult irreverence and some

brazen product placement to construct a

work of joyous entertainment - made

entirely out of virtual plastic bricks The

delightfully loopy save-the-world plot has

Chris Pratt’s Lego everyman careering

through different Lego universes while

battling Will Ferrell’s evil tyrant Also on

Holiday Monday 28 December & New

Year’s Day 2014, U, 100MIN

COMEDY

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

BBC2 HD, 10.30pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ●●●

Steve Coogan’s cringe-inducing comic creation Alan Partridge makes his movie debut and he is as hopeless, hapless and tragically naff as ever The film, however, gives him the chance to be

a hero when a sacked radio DJ takes

a dozen of the station’s staff hostage

at shotgun-point and asks for ‘trusted’

colleague Alan to be his negotiator An occasional farcical episode aside, the film mostly strikes the right balance of plot and character 2013, 15, 90MIN

FILM TEASER Cinderella star Lily James played which character in

FAMILY CHOICE

Films

Sky Premiere HD, 4.15pm & 8pm/

Sky Premiere+1, 5.15pm & 9pm 3

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

The museum exhibits spring into

action for more crazy nocturnal

adventures in the third and final

instalment of the breezy, bonkers

fantasy comedy series But the

ancient Egyptian relic that has been

bringing the exhibits in New York’s

Museum of Natural History to life

is losing power and only a trip to

London and the British Museum

can keep the magic going Ben

Stiller’s nightwatchman hero Larry

is back, as are Steve Coogan’s snooty

Roman centurion, Ricky Gervais’s

pompous museum director and

Robin Williams’ President Teddy

Roosevelt Look out, though, for

scene-stealing new addition Dan

Stevens, showing his silly side as a

hilariously confused Sir Lancelot

Also on Christmas Day-New Year’s

Day 2014, PG, 98MIN

DRAMA

Boyhood

Sky Select HD, 1pm 5

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●● ●

Director Richard Linklater’s remarkable

coming-of-age tale gains extraordinary

richness and depth from having filmed

the same actors for a few days each

year over a period of 12 years From the

age of six to his first day of college,

Mason (Ellar Coltrane) grows up before

our eyes, accompanied on his journey

by Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke and

Lorelei Linklater as the members of his

family Also on Wednesday 30

December 2014, 15, 166MIN

ANIMATED FANTASY

A Christmas Carol

BBC1 HD, 2.20pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Charles Dickens’ ghostly fable of change

and redemption gets a CGI makeover

from Disney and director Robert

Zemeckis, with a motion-captured

Jim Carrey pulling out all the stops as

Ebenezer Scrooge, and many other

characters besides For all the technology

on show, the film sticks closely to the

original story and there is a Dickensian

mix of eye-boggling spectacle,

supernatural chills and heart-warming

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Fans of ABBA’s fabulous stage musical will need no introduction to this glitzy adaptation, which sails along on the sheer exuberance of the cast Meryl Streep kicks up a storm as an old hippy, now running a hotel on a Greek island, whose daughter (Amanda Seyfried) invites her mother’s old lovers (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård) to her

wedding to find out who her father is Also

on New Year’s Day 2008, PG, 109MIN

COMEDY DRAMA

Pride

Sky Select HD, 5.30pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●● ●

A funny, touching and entertaining comedy drama that tells the true story

of the unlikely alliance forged between a group of gay and lesbian activists and the inhabitants of a Welsh mining village at the height of the 1984-1985 miners’

strike There is all the culture-clash humour you would expect, but there is heart and soul here, too, not least in the performances from the likes of Bill Nighy,

Imelda Staunton and Dominic West Also

on New Year’s Day 2014, 15, 120MIN

ANIMATED ADVENTURE

The Boxtrolls

Sky Showcase HD, 6.15pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

This delightful animated fantasy from the

makers of Coraline and ParaNorman is

stuffed full of quirky details, bizarre characters and cockeyed humour

The setting is the comically grotesque Victorian town of Cheesebridge, where villain Archibald Snatcher (voiced by Ben Kingsley) has persuaded the locals that the weird but harmless underground- dwelling Boxtrolls are dangerous child

stealers Also on Sunday 27 December &

New Year’s Day 2014, PG, 97MIN

COMEDY THRILLER

Sherlock Holmes

Sky Crime & Thriller HD, 6.50pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●● ● Language ●●●

Director Guy Ritchie’s slick and seamless take on the Baker Street characters turns Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s subtle, gently seductive material into an edgy modern action comedy As Holmes and Watson, Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law may sometimes come across as detective versions of Laurel and Hardy, but there is plenty of excitement, lots of big laughs, and some top-notch sets and

eye-catching CGI Also on Wednesday

30 December 2009, 12, 128MIN

ACTION THRILLER

Blackhat

Sky Crime & Thriller HD, 9pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ● ●●

Once you have accepted Thor star Chris

Hemsworth as a computer hacker rather than a superhero, director Michael Mann’s stylish cyber thriller will soon have you gripped and intrigued Hemsworth’s convicted hacker becomes a player in the film’s labyrinthine plot after being temporarily sprung from prison to join

a task force that is striving to catch the computer terrorist who has sabotaged

a nuclear reactor in Hong Kong Also on

Sunday 27 December 2015, 15, 133MIN

ALSO ON Christmas Eve

The Spiderwick Chronicles

of British

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Gods and Kings

Sky Premiere HD, 9.30am & 8pm/

Sky Premiere+1, 10.30am & 9pm 3

Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ●●●

Retelling the story of Moses for this

biblical epic, Ridley Scott doesn’t

stint on the spectacle, depicting the

10 plagues of Egypt and the parting

of the Red Sea with entertaining

gusto The Nile here doesn’t simply

run red; it has ferocious crocodiles

snapping up the locals, too The

stuff in between the set-piece scenes

isn’t half so energetic, though The

rivalry between Christian Bale’s

ardent Moses and Joel Edgerton’s

decadent Ramses, his jealous

adoptive brother-turned-bitter foe,

is more turgid than gripping The

story picks up, fortunately, when

Moses accepts his divine mission

to free the Hebrew slaves from

bondage and the flight from Egypt is

stirring stuff, although Scott relies a

little too much on the CGI special

effects Also on Boxing Day-New

Year’s Day 2014, 12, 150MIN

ANIMATED ADVENTURE

Big Hero 6

Sky Premiere HD, 12.15pm & 6.15pm/Sky

Premiere+1, 1.15pm & 7.15pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

PREMIERE Looking like a marshmallow

and moving with a dainty waddle,

loveble robot Baymax is the best

thing about this family-friendly Disney

animation The inflatable automaton

gives the film its heart and humour as

a ‘personal health care companion’ who

gets pushed into a more heroic role by a

teenage geek when a supervillain starts

running amok Also on Boxing Day-New

Year’s Day 2014, PG, 108MIN

ANIMATED FANTASY

Madagascar 3:

Europe’s Most Wanted

BBC1 HD, 12.25pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

The New York zoo animals return for

their zaniest escapade yet Stranded in

Africa last time around, the old gang –

narcissistic lion Alex (voiced by Ben

Stiller), irrepressibly curious zebra Marty

(Chris Rock), neurotic giraffe Melman

(David Schwimmer) and flirty hippo

Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith) – splash

down in Monte Carlo and hide out with a

travelling circus as they desperately try

to get back home 2012, PG, 93MIN

ANIMATED ADVENTURE

Brave

BBC1 HD, 3.10pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Set in a mythic medieval Scotland, this splendid, Oscar-winning animated adventure is the first Pixar film to feature

a female protagonist Flame-haired Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdonald) is the tomboy daughter of bluff, big- hearted King Fergus (Billy Connolly) and regal, decorous Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), whose attempt to choose her own destiny after her parents declare that it is her duty to marry provokes a

ANIMATED COMEDY

Frankenweenie

BBC2 HD, 1.45pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ●●●

Tim Burton’s enchanting white animated version of his 1984 live-action short is a quirky-jerky joy It is

black-and-a loving homblack-and-age to old-school horror films which tells the tale of 10-year-old Victor Frankenstein, who brings his beloved pet bull terrier back to life using his mother’s domestic appliances and the power of lightning after it is run over

by a car The film will delight horror movie fans with its clever jokes and allusions 2012, PG, 87MIN

SCI-FI ADVENTURE

Avatar

Film4 HD, 3.40pm/

Film4+1, 4.40pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ● ●●

Sam Worthington stars as a paraplegic Marine sent to the planet Pandora, where scientists (led by Sigourney Weaver) and the gung-ho military (Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi et al) argue about the exploitation of the mineral-rich world populated by the tall blue Na’vi people

Director James Cameron’s blockbuster

is a little wanting in plot, but still a

marvellous spectacle Also on Wednesday

30 December 2009, 12, 161MIN

MYSTERY THRILLER

Gone Girl

Sky Crime & Thriller HD, 9pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

A warring married couple’s dark secrets spill forth in this enjoyably slippery suspense thriller based on Gillian Flynn’s best-selling page-turner of a novel Ben Affleck plays a husband who becomes a murder suspect when his wife (Oscar- nominated Rosamund Pike) goes missing

As the cunning mystery unfolds, director David Fincher springs narrative twists and turns with stomach-lurching suddenness, and its pleasures are double-edged and disquieting 2014, 18, 149MIN

MUSIC DRAMA

Whiplash

Sky Select HD, 11.05pm 5 Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ●●●

An electrifying battle of wills unfolds as Miles Teller’s ambitious jazz drummer clashes with JK Simmons’ demanding teacher at an elite New York conservatory in this exhilarating rites-of-passage drama The film conveys the rigours and perils of the pursuit of excellence with sizzling immediacy and the result is a compelling, cautionary tale driven by percussive editing and tightly

wound performances Also on Tuesday

29 December 2014, 15, 106MIN

ALSO ON Christmas Day

The Simpsons Movie

Sky Comedy HD, 6.25pm 5

There’s no place like Homer’s.

How to Train Your Dragon

BBC3 HD, 8.30pm 4

Why can’t Hiccup and Toothless be friends?

The Dark Knight

TCM HD, 9pm 4

Heath Ledger plays the Joker.

The 40 Year Old Virgin

Sky Premiere HD, 2pm & 8pm/

Sky Premiere+1, 3pm & 9pm 3

Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ●●●

With so many characters jostling

for attention, and so many

sequel-friendly storylines left dangling, the

second joint adventure for the

Marvel Comics Avengers may leave

all but dedicated comic-book nerds

feeling a little befuddled rather than

dazzled You certainly need your

wits about you to cope with the

plot, which finds Robert Downey Jr’s

Iron Man inadvertently creating a

rogue peacekeeping robot whose

aim is to destroy rather than preserve

humanity As the Avengers rush

about the globe to save the day, the

ensuing battles have all the

CGI-boosted heft the huge budget could

buy The film’s most affecting

moments arise from the tender

rapport between Scarlett Johansson’s

Black Widow and Mark Ruffalo’s

Hulk Also on Sunday 27

December-New Year’s Day 2015, 12, 141MIN

ANIMATED COMEDY

Puss in Boots

BBC1 HD, 3.25pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Puss in Boots, the swashbuckling feline

sidekick from the Shrek films, gets his

own spin-off adventure With his Latin

suavity and swagger, there is something

irresistibly funny about Antonio

Banderas’s Puss and it is a delight to see

him strut his stuff through a witty mash-

up of fairy tales and spaghetti Westerns,

even if the story itself is a little clunky

There are some rattling chases and

sword fights, plus lots of visual gags and

mischievous verbal jokes 2011, U, 90MIN

SCI-FI ADVENTURE

Dawn of the Planet

of the Apes

Sky Showcase HD, 4pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ● ●●

Both an exciting action movie and a moral

fable, this sequel to 2011’s Rise of the

Planet of the Apes is set 10 years after the

events of the earlier film The story sees

a band of human survivors in a

post-apocalyptic San Francisco coming into

conflict with a genetically enhanced tribe

of intelligent apes led by prime primate

Caesar (Andy Serkis) Once again, you

are more likely to be rooting for the apes

Also on New Year’s Eve 2014, 12, 130MIN

COMEDY DRAMA

The Boat That Rocked

ITV4 HD, 11pm/ITV4+1, 12m’t 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●● ●

This nostalgic 1960s-set comedy from writer-director Richard Curtis (the man

behind Four Weddings and a Funeral,

Notting Hill and Love Actually) is set in a

pirate radio station aboard a ramshackle boat in the North Sea It is all good- natured stuff as the film follows the antics

of the station’s owner (Bill Nighy) and his motley crew of DJs, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ifans, Rhys Darby, Chris O’Dowd and Nick Frost

Also on New Year’s Eve 2009, 15, 135MIN

ANIMATED ADVENTURE

The Croods

BBC1 HD, 4.45pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Nicolas Cage provides the voice of prehistoric caveman father Grug, who fears for the future of his rebellious teenage daughter Eep (Emma Stone),

in this boisterous but warm-hearted animated comedy adventure Inevitably, sparks fly when Eep falls for savvy outsider Guy (Ryan Reynolds), who has alarming news of an impending disaster

The film delights with its energetic action scenes, knockabout slapstick humour and lush visuals 2013, U, 99MIN

COMEDY

Kinky Boots

BBC2 HD, 11.15pm (not N Ireland) 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Currently playing as a West End stage

musical, this enjoyable romp finds Dirty

Pretty Things star Chiwetel Ejiofor utterly transforming himself to play a glamorous drag artist who joins forces with an ailing shoe factory to pioneer

a new line in fetish footwear Ejiofor,

Oscar-nominated for 2013’s 12 Years

a Slave , never lets his flamboyant character lapse into simple caricature, even if the film develops along fairly predictable lines 2005, 12, 107MIN

ACTION THRILLER

The Bourne Ultimatum

ITV2 HD, 11.20pm/

ITV2+1, 12.20am 4

Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ●●●

The labyrinthine plot of this third outing for undercover agent Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) has him finally uncovering the truth about his identity with the help

of familiar faces (Joan Allen and Julia Stiles as CIA agents), as well as some intriguing new characters (David Strathairn as a spymaster and Paddy Considine as a journalist) The story flits from Moscow to London to Paris to Tangier to New York 2007, 12, 115MIN

SCI-FI DRAMA

I Origins

Sky Premiere HD, 1am Sky Premiere+1, 2am 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●● ● Language ●● ●

PREMIERE Michael Pitt’s sceptical scientist falls in love with a spacey model (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) in this intriguing sci-fi drama He is attracted by her dazzling eyes, which for him are an evolutionary puzzle to be solved Boosted

by engaging performances and luminous photography, the film works both as an intellectual mystery and a beguiling

romance Also on Sunday 27

December-New Year’s Day 2014, 15, 106MIN

Pride & Prejudice

Whose bright idea was this?

Mr Peabody & Sherman

Sky Family HD, 6.20pm 4

The beagle has landed.

You could depend on these characters to work marvels

Films

PREMIERE

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

A gutsy Reese Witherspoon goes the

distance as a troubled woman hitting

the wilderness trail in a bid to conquer

personal demons This compelling

adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s

best-selling memoir is sympathetically

directed by Jean-Marc Vallée from

Nick Hornby’s well-structured script,

and Witherspoon admirably captures

Strayed’s volatile mix of naivety and

stubbornness, vulnerability and resilience

Also on New Year’s Day 2014, 15, 115MIN

ANIMATED COMEDY

Wallace & Gromit: The

Curse of the Were-Rabbit

BBC3 HD, 7.10pm 5

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Oscar-winning animator Nick Park

remains true to his British roots with

this delightful feature-length comedy

adventure for the nutty inventor and his

long-suffering canine sidekick Here the

undynamic duo set themselves up as a

humane vermin eradication service

– their loopy rabbit vacuum is one of

the film’s comic highlights – only to

inadvertently unleash a monster bunny

on the world 2005, U, 85MIN

COMEDY DRAMA

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Sky Comedy HD, 8pm 5 Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ●●●

Set in a deluxe spa hotel occupying an imaginary corner of Central Europe between the wars, this sumptuous crime caper is filled with visual delights, sparkling dialogue and enjoyable comic intrigue It also offers an exquisite performance from Ralph Fiennes as the dapper concierge who is thrust into a perilous caper involving murder, art theft, a large family fortune and a charming rogues gallery of familiar faces 2014, 15, 100MIN

James had

the feeling this

wasn’t the Yellow

Dustin Hoffman is minding the store.

Frozen (Sing-A-Long Version)

More>Movies (Movie Mix), 9pm 4

Life is no beach for Colin and Jamie.

Ghost Town

BBC1 HD, 12m’t 4

Ricky Gervais gets in the spirits.

Oz the Great and Powerful

BBC1 HD, 4.05pm 3

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Director Sam Raimi brings dash and dazzle to a tale that shows how the

Land of Oz originally gained its wizard, with James Franco as the rascally

circus magician who gets whisked in a hot-air balloon from 20th-century

Kansas to the wondrous and colourful Oz With its rather clunky story

Raimi’s fantasy can’t match the original’s magic, but its CGI wizardry

provides its own enchantments, including a delightful recreation of the

1939 film’s vibrant Technicolor 2013, PG, 130MIN

FILM TEASER How many times has Albert

The Hobbit:

An Unexpected Journey

ITV2 HD, 5.45pm/ITV2+1, 6.45pm 3

Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ●●●

Nine years after bringing his epic

The Lord of the Rings trilogy to a

triumphant close, Peter Jackson returns to Middle-earth to spin Tolkien’s slender children’s book

The Hobbit into another three-part

adventure fantasy This first instalment finds home-loving hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) drafted by the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) into a company of dwarves seeking to reclaim their lost kingdom After taking the best part of an hour to get beyond Bilbo’s front door, the journey pitches Bilbo into perilous encounters with trolls, goblins, orcs and, scariest of all, the treacherous Gollum Freeman is perfectly cast

as Bilbo and McKellen once more gives Gandalf a wry, whimsical

twinkle Also on Wednesday 30

December 2012, 12, 169MIN

COMEDY

Little Miss Sunshine

Sky Comedy HD, 12.15pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

This genial road movie comedy about a dysfunctional family is often laugh-out- loud funny Parents Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette take their daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) to a beauty pageant in a clapped-out camper van, along with their son (Paul Dano), a neurotic gay uncle (Steve Carell) and junkie grandfather (Alan Arkin, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar) The film is really a schmaltzy feelgood movie coated in a

COMIC-BOOK ADVENTURE

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Sky Showcase HD, 4pm & 10pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ● ●●

Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine goes back in time to 1973 in a bid to alter the course

of history and thereby stop the X-Men of the future from being wiped out in this superior superhero adventure, whose cunningly constructed time-travel story unites the Marvel Comics mutants’ older and younger selves The plot gets overly knotty, but the acting has an emotional clarity that cuts through the tangles and makes the film unexpectedly affecting

Also on New Year’s Eve 2014, 12, 131MIN

FANTASY ADVENTURE

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Sky Family HD, 8.35pm 4

Sex ●●● Violence ● ●● Language ●●●

Given the success of the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies, it was inevitable

that Hollywood would get round to reimagining CS Lewis’s beloved Narnia chronicles for the big screen While a little

of the story’s whimsical magic has been sacrificed in favour of swashbuckling action sequences the film otherwise

remains true to its source material Also

on New Year’s Eve 2005, PG, 140MIN

ANIMATED ADVENTURE

The Incredibles

Sky Disney HD, 6pm 5 Sex ●●● Violence ●●● Language ●●●

Even by their own exacting standards, Pixar’s Oscar-winning action comedy adventure set a new benchmark for animated movies The film supplies all the requisite thrills and humour demanded by its genre, as its undercover superheroes, masquerading as a typical suburban family, set out to save the world Director Brad Bird went on to make

Ratatouille in 2007 and 2011’s fourth

Mission: Impossible film, Ghost Protocol

Also on New Year’s Eve 2004, U, 120MIN

Films