Christmas 2024 Favourites – Part 2

A collage of 4 photos, showing a realistic model of a plate of spaghetti in tomato sauce with a floating fork lifting some of it into the air, George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley from Wham wearing festive outfits and holding presents, Wallace and Gromit also dressed in Christmas outfits and bearing gifts, and finally Chris McCausland and Lee Mack playing characters who have been tied up using a long string of colourful Christmas lights in the snow by a stern looking woman.

Happy New Year! I hope you had a lovely time over Christmas!

Following on from Part 1 of my festive Favourites that I posted on Christmas Day, I’m now going to talk about a free exhibition I was given a tour of, give an update on events at home, and trawl through the many things I’ve been watching and listening to. And while the tour was courtesy of a PR invite, there have been no other incentives for anything to appear here, and all opinions are my own regardless.

So let’s dive into this bumper post, with an accompanying video that also features everything I mentioned in Part 1. I hope you enjoy!

Contents

Food

Looks Delicious! (PR Invite)

We’ve all eaten far too much this Christmas, but I found a way to enjoy lots of nice food without taking a single bite or putting on any calories – although it did make me feel rather peckish, granted!

I was very kindly invited to Japan House, a venue close to High Street Kensington station that I’d never been aware of before. It’s a lovely building offering a range of facilities, including exhibitions and events, a library, a shop, a snack bar and a restaurant, and the staff I met were very friendly and welcoming.

The large Japan House building on Kensington High Street.
The entrance to Japan House on Kensington High Street, consisting of 3 pairs of doors with full-length windows below a black canopy that stretches out over the pavement.

I was there for a personal tour of the Looks Delicious! exhibition, which runs until 16 February and is free for the public to visit, although booking a time slot is recommended. It’s all about the phenomenon of realistic food replicas in Japan, where artists produce mouth-watering models of different cuisines from their home country and beyond.

It’s really impressive, because there’s so much attention to detail. The dishes look incredibly realistic, right down to the way they glisten under the lighting, and some are designed in very creative ways, such as a floating fork carrying spaghetti, a crab drinking beer and a towering so-called “earthquake-proof” burger.

A realistic model of a plate of spaghetti mixed with sausages, onions and green peppers in a tomato sauce. Some of the spaghetti is being lifted up by a fork that is floating in mid-air.
A realistic model of Katsu-don, a Japanese dish with deep-fried pork cutlets (tonkatsu) served over white rice. The model shows a floating metal pan on its side as it empties the pork cutlets onto the plate, with some glistening streaks of meat juices left behind in the pan.
A realistic model of a very tall burger, stacked with many layers of meat, bacon, eggs, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and various other ingredients.
A realistic model of a crab, in an unrealistic situation, as it's holding a glass of beer to its mouth and drinking from it.
A realistic model showing bacon and eggs in a frying pan, alongside a plate of cheese on toast cut in half, with one half levitating in mid air to show how the stringy cheese is still connected with the other half on the plate.
A realistic model of a honeycomb, including a small bee moving across it.

There’s also an interactive area where you can handle small models of foods and create your own bento box of ingredients that you can be photographed with. So it was fun to be able to handle lots of items there.

A table covered with a red and white checked tablecloth, laid out with various items of Japanese food. A couple of small signs encourage people to fill small bento boxes with some of the food replica items and so they can be photographed with them.
A small hand-sized model of an oval-shaped item of Japanese food, which looks like a clump of rice with a cherry-like fruit in the middle.
A realistic model of a small plate of cooked pieces of chicken and green vegetables.
Several realistic models of Japanese food laid out on a table covered in a red and white checked tablecloth.

It was interesting to learn a bit about the history and production processes behind the replicas too, and there are a few videos and animations around the gallery providing further detail on that. It was also enlightening to hear about the various uses that the replicas can be put to, not just for restaurants to promote their menus, but also for quality control so that people like chefs and carers can see examples of when food is in the best condition to be eaten, and for educational purposes to illustrate how much sugar or other harmful ingredients they contain.

3 realistic models of food, each of which sits alongside an indicator of how much they contain of a particular ingredient. The small croissant on the left has a small tube of liquid to show much fat is in it, while on the right a pot of instant noodles has a small tube showing how much salt is in it. In the centre, a large glass of orange juice is accompanied by 8 blocks of sugar.
Realistic models of food used for quality control purposes, showing 1 straight cucumber with 2 curved cucumbers, along with 7 rice crackers at different stages of the process from under-cooked to burnt,

So I really enjoyed it, and many thanks to Zoe for the tour, which lasted about an hour as we took our time looking at the various displays. She was very good at describing things to me, but I did also to talk to her about the possibility of official audio described tours for groups of visually impaired people, which I gather they are considering. So it could be worth keeping an eye out for those, be it for this exhibition or future displays.

3 tall glass cabinets, each containing 3 shelves, on which are realistic models of different types of food, from ice creams to Chinese dishes.
3 small but realistic-looking models of ice cream sundaes packed with colourful ingredients, plus a bowl containing a round yellow dessert with a swirl of cream and a cherry on top.
Realistic models of 5 plates of Chinese food.

In any case, there is a very useful large print guide available online and at the entrance to the gallery itself. Plus you can take a virtual tour of the exhibition on their website, including the videos and animations that are in the gallery, as well as browse an interactive map of dishes from different regions of Japan and see a few short clips on their Youtube channel, so they’re cool features.

I highly recommend visiting in person though, to fully appreciate the artistic skill and detail inherent in the various models, and if you want to handle the items in the bento box workshop area. Just don’t be tempted to try and eat any of it! You’re better off heading to the snack bar or restaurant if you want to see how Japanese food actually tastes!

A large group of tables, laid out like the map of Japan to represent the different regions of the country. Each region is represented with a realistic model of a plate of food from the area.
A realistic model of a large squid on a wooden tray.
A round bowl containing an orange-coloured sushi dish, surrounded by 8 large dark green bamboo leaves that fan out around the edge of the bowl.

Cooker Update

I mentioned in Part 1 that our cooker had died on Christmas Eve of all days, meaning we’ve had to manage without one for the festive period. We could have looked at getting it repaired on the insurance that we pay for it, but it was rather old anyway, so we had already been considering getting a new one to go with our newly refurbished kitchen. The fact that on this occasion it had actually sprung a gas leak, which made Mum ill for a short period (she’s fine now), made the decision for us. We clearly couldn’t take any risks with it.

So we ordered a new one from Currys, which wasn’t immediately in stock, but within less than a week they had given us a delivery date for early January. And that was quicker than we’d expected, considering the website had warned we could have to wait for up to a month. They kept to their promise as well, and I’m happy to say that the new cooker has now been installed. We’ve only just started using it but, touch wood, it’s working well so far. I’ll give a more considered opinion in my next post when we’ve had a chance to test it more thoroughly.

Anyway, we just had to manage in the meantime, and we did very well in that regard. My aunt cooked our turkey crown for us, and I was able to prepare potatoes, vegetables and gravy on an electric hot plate we had been given once by the gas company to tide us over when they had to turn off their supply for repair work. It’s much slower and less powerful than a gas hob, but it does the job well enough, so we used it every day.

But I also bought a new microwave as well, replacing our old 700 watt machine with a Russell Hobbs combination unit, which features a 900 watt microwave, 1000 watt grill and 1700 watt convection oven. You have to be able to see to use it, but thankfully I can, and I do like the display and button labels, as they’re all white on black, which is the colour contrast I like most.

A black Russell Hobbs combination microwave oven, with reflective glass on the door. The control panel on the right has a display and then 8 buttons arranged in pairs below, with white text on the black background above each one. The buttons are for Microwave, Grill, Convection, Clock, Weight Defrost, Time Defrost, Stop or Clear, and Start or Confirm. Below the last pair of buttons is a dial with white text around the edge that says you can use it to set the time, weight or a preset from the auto menu list.

It also cooks everything really well. The microwave side of things is much quicker than our old one, given the higher power level from 700 to 900 watts. But it’s the oven that’s really impressed us. We had never looked into convection ovens before, so hadn’t really known what they were until now, but the way it uses a fan to distribute the heat really does cook everything nice and evenly. And it’s not any noisier than a normal microwave either.

Using the baking tray provided with the appliance, and some baking paper to ensure nothing sticks to it, we’ve cooked roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings from the freezer, along with things like steak pies, chicken thighs, pigs in blankets and stuffing balls, and they’ve all come out perfectly. It’s just been a case of using common sense to adjust the timings slightly – for instance, the roasties in a fan oven would normally require 200 degrees Celsius for 25-30 minutes, but as this small oven only has a maximum setting of 190 degrees, we just leave them in for 35 minutes on that temperature and they’re fine.

So while we’re delighted and relieved to have a proper gas cooker again, enabling us to get back into a normal routine, having this new combi oven has given us a lot more flexibility as well, so it was worth the upgrade.

Music

Band Aid 40th Anniversary

Incredibly, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the Band Aid charity single Do They Know It’s Christmas?, and therefore the occasion has been marked in some special ways.

Firstly, a new Ultimate Mix has been released to stream and download, bringing together the vocals from the original song with the Band Aid 20 and Band Aid 30 versions. It doesn’t include Band Aid II though, which caused a bit of controversy alongside other disagreements, and it also reignited the debate over some of its content.

It builds nicely and sounds quite epic, but it also illustrates the superior nature of the first version, perhaps evidenced by the fact that this new mix only got to number 12 in the charts. Nothing will ever come close to the original, and in fairness I don’t think the later ones have ever tried to. After all, you simply cannot compete with the likes of Boy George, Bono, George Michael, Paul Young, Status Quo, etc. It’s a good enough mashup to mark the past 40 years though.

The BBC then marked the 40th anniversary with a special 75-minute TV documentary called The Making Of Do They Know It’s Christmas, which is also on the official Live Aid channel on Youtube. Apart from brief clips that top and tail the documentary to put things into context, the entire programme consists of fly-on-the-wall footage from the day of the recording, a lot of it rarely seen or never previously released, without any narration over the top. The only visual additions are occasional credits to say who people are. And there’s audio description available on iPlayer of course.

So you do feel like you’re right there with them, as Bob Geldof, Midge Ure and the many other participants discuss how the song will take shape, the performers record their lines and harmonies (including retakes), Bob and a few of the artists perform an impromptu acoustic version, the late Paula Yates interviews various people, Nigel Planer hangs around in character as Neil from The Young Ones, and so on. It’s really fascinating, showing that people were enjoying the experience whilst also taking it seriously, and everyone involved gave their time and talents for free.

In addition, there was a great companion documentary on BBC Radio 2 as well, called Do They Know It’s Christmas? The Song That Changed The World. Hosted by Zoe Ball, who has just left the Breakfast Show, it looked at the impact and legacy of the original song, and in particular focused on how the later versions were created, from Band Aid II up to this year’s Ultimate Mix. It included recollections from many of the stars involved, through both archive chats and newly recorded interviews, and was very enlightening. So even though I’m not a huge fan of the later iterations, it was still worth listening to.

Wham! & George Michael

You have to feel a bit sorry for Wham! really. George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley were having an incredibly successful year in 1984, and were well placed to have a Christmas number 1 at the end of it. And the timeless classic Last Christmas would have topped the charts if it hadn’t had to respectfully give way for Band Aid’s charity single. So they had to settle for a 5-week run in the number 2 spot – which is still very good, but it was never what the song truly deserved.

Thankfully justice has since been done, albeit far too late for George, as it’s hit the Number 1 spot three times in recent years. It first climbed to the top in January 2021, before finally scooping the coveted Christmas number 1 spot in 2023, which it’s just done again for the second year in a row. That itself is a special achievement, as it’s the first ever song to be Christmas number 1 in consecutive years. Only two other tracks have topped the festive chart twice – Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and different versions of Do They Know It’s Christmas? – but they weren’t in consecutive years.

The BBC celebrated the 40th anniversary of this fabulous Christmas hit with a couple of special programmes.

In particular, there was a lovely hour-long documentary called Wham!: Last Christmas Unwrapped, in which George’s bandmate Andrew Ridgeley, backing singers Pepsi & Shirlie and other relevant people were interviewed about their days in Wham!, reflecting on how the band formed and reminiscing about all the good times they shared. They also returned to the original location in Switzerland where the music video for Last Christmas was filmed, and there was a close look at the song itself of course, with a breakdown of the individual parts, including George’s sublime vocals in isolation, along with discussion about its enduring popularity and legacy. So it was really uplifting and interesting to watch.

Andrew, Pepsi and Shirley also then hosted Wham! At The BBC, a 70-minute programme showing complete performances by the band from the BBC’s archives, mostly from Top Of The Pops but with the occasional chat show appearance thrown in as well. The three stars spoke with great fondness and shared nice anecdotes in between the performances, while there were occasional archive clips of George being interviewed as well, and during the tracks there were interesting trivia notes that appeared on screen. All of the performances are mimed of course, but are still worth watching because the band are clearly having fun, George is exuding his wonderful charisma as always, there are all the 80s fashions to admire or cringe at depending on your tastes, and ultimately they’re just brilliant pop songs.

In a similar vein I also watched George Michael At The BBC, a 90-minute compilation which naturally included some Wham! tracks but was mainly focused on his solo output, mixing BBC appearances with music videos and live concert performances. And again there were nice extracts from archive interviews with him as well as trivia notes. Most of the songs I knew, but there were a few I wasn’t familiar with, which was good, and they were all fantastic in any case.

Finally, I also watched George Michael: Live In London, a programme lasting 2 hours and 10 minutes that was recorded during the final UK concerts of his 25 Live tour at Earls Court Arena on 24 & 25 August 2008. It contains a wealth of hits from across his career performed superbly, with beautifully responsive lighting and visuals accompanying them, and he has the ecstatic crowd in the palm of his hand and joining in throughout. The atmosphere really comes across well, and a lot of the songs are just so catchy or iconic that it’s impossible not to find yourself moving or singing along to them. So I might get the Blu-ray to add to my collection at some point, as it is very good. And it further reminds you of what a tragic loss it was when he passed away aged just 53 on Christmas Day 2016, though it seems impossible that it’s 8 years ago already.

Strictly Come Dancing

I don’t watch Strictly Come Dancing, but I have to give huge congratulations to blind comedian Chris McCausland and dance partner Dianne Buswell for winning this year’s series! Over the last few months I’ve enjoyed looking at some of their brilliant routines on Youtube (which you can see among many other videos on my Chris McCausland playlist), as well as their amusing social media clips, and they have such wonderful chemistry together.

The way that Dianne has adapted to get so much out of Chris despite his inexperience at dancing and complete absence of visual cues is astonishing, and is testament to her teaching ability, his determination to make it work, and the trust they’ve placed in each other from the outset. They’ve clearly loved training together despite how much hard work they’ve had to put in week after week, and he’s been on quite the journey to get to this point.

When giving his initial reaction to the award, Chris stated that it was “for everyone out there who’s got told they couldn’t do something or thought they couldn’t do it, and it just shows with opportunity and support and determination, anything can happen.” Wise and true words indeed. It’s fantastic representation for the visually impaired community, and let’s hope it’s given a boost to the perception of disabled people in general, as we certainly need it given some of the ill-informed media and political coverage of late.

You can hear Chris talking about his experience and more in a half hour interview on the BBC Access All podcast that’s worth a listen, as well as his appearance on BBC Radio 4’s In Touch.

He also spoke about music that means a lot to him on RNIB Connect Radio’s Tracks Of My Life, where my favourite choices of his, and also the only songs I knew, were The Power Of Love by Huey Lewis & The News, Poison by Alice Cooper and This Is Me by Keala Settle from The Greatest Showman. He also selected All Apologies by Nirvana, Black by Pearl Jam, Too Much by Dave Mathews Band and A Steady Hand by I Like Trains.

In addition, he had the honour of delivering Channel 4’s Alternative Christmas Message, where he called on the government and employers to end the discrimination of disabled people in the workplace. And he’s just started writing his autobiography, which will be interesting to read when it comes out in October.

And on top of all that, he’s also appeared in several comedy programmes over Christmas, as you’ll see during the next big section of this post. But his Strictly win had to be mentioned first of course. Having previously seen his stand-up comedy live, and hope to again in the future, I’m delighted that he’s having so much well-earned success at the moment.

Comedy

As usual I watched some classic Christmas specials from my favourite sitcoms over the festive period, either on DVD or TV, as the mood struck me. I’m not going to go through them as there’s no need to, but I will quickly say that I enjoyed the insights and recollections about Porridge by its writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who got together for a special chat on BBC Four to mark its 50th anniversary.

Apart from that, there are a lot of new comedies I’ve been watching over Christmas, including some that have made a long-awaited return.

Wallace & Gromit

This Christmas a fabulous new feature-length Wallace & Gromit story called Vengeance Most Fowl graced our screens, marking the 35th anniversary of their very first short film in 1989, and a full 16 years since their last one. So in advance of that I also rewatched their previous adventures as well, which have won several BAFTAs, Oscars and other awards between them. The stop-motion animations by creator Nick Park and the team at Aardman are such a joy to watch, as the characters are so expressive and feel so real. And the stories are very funny and heartwarming, as well as dramatic and tense in parts.

So in November I bought the new 2-disc Blu-ray edition of their short films, and watched it during December, along with my 2-disc special edition DVD of Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, and a repeat of their Prom concert on BBC iPlayer, and it was fun to revisit all of those.

And then I saw this year’s new adventure on TV (also available on Netflix outside the UK), which was very funny, they still haven’t lost their touch. It also proved to be very popular with the audience at large, as it was the second most watched programme in the UK on Christmas Day with 9.38 million viewers, and since then that’s shot up to 16.3 million in the consolidated figures, making it the most watched film on British TV for 25 years!

It was only beaten by the Gavin & Stacey finale, which had 12.3 million on the night and has since risen to 19.3 million, making it the UK’s highest rated scripted show since records began in 2002.

January 23 Update: After 28 days, Wallace & Gromit has overtaken Gavin & Stacey in the ratings, with both having passed the 20 million milestone! Our animated heroes got 21.6 million while the sitcom finale racked up 20.9 million. That’s an incredible achievement for two separate shows on the same day on the same channel. And on top of that, Vengeance Most Fowl has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature as well, plus Aardman have posted a lovely behind the scenes video to show how the film was made.

Obviously there were much higher rated shows in the past, but there wasn’t competition from streaming services and hundreds of digital channels in those days either. I didn’t watch that finale in any case, as I’ve never seen the series. I tried it many years ago and evidently didn’t get into it, but I don’t remember it now so maybe one day I’ll give it another go. After all, I have a greater appreciation for James Corden’s acting skills these days, after seeing him in the theatre earlier this year.

But anyway, I digress. If you want to see my reviews of all of the Wallace & Gromit films, do check out my special blog post about them for all the details.

Bad Tidings

Blind comedian Chris McCausland and fellow comic Lee Mack have become an unintentional but brilliant double act of sorts since their hilarious routine presenting an award at the BAFTAs 2 years ago. Chris later appeared in an episode of Lee’s sitcom Not Going Out, and has also been a guest on Would I Lie To You? several times, on which Lee is a team captain.

And now this Christmas they’ve had the lead roles in Bad Tidings, an enjoyable new feature-length comedy film on Sky. Chris had pitched the idea to the broadcaster a couple of years ago, and after being given the green light he co-wrote it with Laurence Rickard and Martha Howe-Douglas from Ghosts and Horrible Histories.

Chris plays Scott, a cheerful guy who is popular with everyone in the community except for struggling businessman Neil, played by Lee, who has become rather vindictive and grumpy towards him. He keeps spying on Scott and getting into arguments with him over various things, which has become such an unhealthy obsession that he’s been neglecting his wife and daughter.

It all comes to a head when they compete for the role of Neighbourhood Watch Coordinator at the group’s local meeting, only to end up having to share the position. And when Neil unwittingly wipes out the power in the entire street with his overly extravagant Christmas lights, forcing everyone to move out for a few days, he and Scott are left behind to keep an eye and an ear on things.

Unfortunately for them, news of the power outage and empty properties has captured the attention of the Brennans, a local crime gang whose leader has just been released from prison. So they set out to rob the entire street. And with the police proving to be no help whatsoever, Neil and Scott are forced to work together to stop them instead. They come up with some very inventive ways of doing so that have an enjoyable Home Alone vibe to them, and the experience also brings them closer together, especially in one scene where they learn a lot more about each other’s lives.

It’s very funny throughout, with lots of great banter and visual gags, plus there are a few sweet moments too. And the audio description was really helpful, especially in the nighttime scenes. There’s a great soundtrack to it as well, including some nice cover versions of familiar festive hits. I know not everyone agrees, as the film has had some unfairly harsh reviews online, but that seems to be from people who were expecting too much or taking it too seriously. It’s not trying to compete with the big Christmas classics, it’s just a daft bit of fun that’s perfect for the holidays, and you can tell they’ve put a lot of money and effort into it.

So I loved it, and I hope that Chris and Lee do more things like this together in the future, as they’re a wonderful comedy pairing. You can find out more about the film and their partnership from Chris and Lee’s amusing on set tour, their half hour interview with Chris Evans on Virgin Radio, and further chats on Radio X Chris Moyles and Magic Radio with Harriet Scott & Harry Judd.

Cunk On Life

The latest spoof documentary presented by Diane Morgan as her uneducated character Philomena Cunk – who had first appeared in Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe – sees her expanding her remit further still. Having previously investigated subjects like Christmas, Shakespeare, Britain and Earth, this new 70-minute special sees her questioning the point of life and existence itself. And it’s hilarious, as she attempts to cover a wealth of topics including God, evolution, reproduction, mindfulness, death, morality, existentialism, art, work, science, AI and more.

It’s filmed and edited like a proper cinematic production, where she visits beautiful and significant locations, talks to lots of actual experts, and illustrates the various topics with artworks, photos and archive footage. But it’s juxtaposed with her complete stupidity, from her misuse of words and bizarre misunderstandings to the nonsensical questions she asks the professionals – who are such great sports for being involved, the bewildered looks on their faces are so funny.

Time and time again it sounds like she’s about to say something profound, only for it to go in completely the opposite direction – although often the humour is actually taking a thoughtful swipe at real subjects, as tends to be the case with Charlie Brooker’s excellent writing, so there are deeper meanings in there sometimes. There are also lots of visual gags accompanying the dialogue as well.

Some of my favourite moments therefore include her tactful mocking of religion, hymns and questions about our souls, a sequence about meditation, a commercial for a Cunk action figure, a blunt question to an art expert about one particular painting, the return of the running gag about the song Pump Up The Jam by Technotronic with funny captions, an interview with a man on Death Row, her withering assessment of the boom operator, a promotion for a streaming service with an anti-suicide song for children, and her chats with Professor Brian Cox. So I thoroughly enjoyed it, it’s better than a lot of the proper documentaries out there!

January 24 Update: The BBC have shared some deleted scenes as well, which are also very funny.

Outnumbered

Outnumbered was an enjoyable sitcom about family life that ran for 5 series and 4 specials between 2007 and 2016, and was notable for being partly improvised, as the children had quite a bit of freedom to say what they wanted. It showcased the difficulties of bringing up a family and dealt with some dark topics, so it was very relatable, but it struck a careful balance that ensured it was funny overall.

So the return of the Brockmans after 8 years was an interesting addition to the schedule. It was hopefully going to be nice to catch up with the family again as they get together to celebrate Christmas, and the cast were interviewed to help publicise it. Obviously the dynamics were going to be a bit different, as the children are grown up and have moved out, so there’s no longer the improvisation aspect to it. But Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin are great writers, so they can adapt accordingly, and indeed they did.

Unfortunately, however, this year’s Christmas special ended up being rather flat and underwhelming due to the storyline. Nobody’s disputing that cancer is all too common, and it doesn’t go on holiday at Christmas, so there will be plenty of families dealing with the impact of that or other illnesses at this time of year, and having that portrayed on TV is good and important. It was also dealt with realistically and with sensitivity, just as they had done with dementia in the past. So that in itself isn’t an issue.

But to make it the central premise for a one-off long-awaited special of a comedy show at Christmas time does dampen the mood somewhat, when you’re expecting and hoping to have a good laugh. If the cancer story had been a central thread through a full series, it would have had more room to breathe and develop, so it might have worked better and been quite interesting, raising a lot more awareness and understanding along the way.

So for the show to pop up briefly after 8 years off the air purely to say that Pete has cancer, while also adding difficulties in the lives of the children and family friend Jane, and then disappear again without resolving any of it, feels unfair on the characters and makes you feel sad about how they’re all getting on, no matter how realistic it may be. I didn’t expect everything to be rosy, but there wasn’t much in the way of nice news in general, apart from Jake having a daughter and Karen being comfortable with her sexuality, and even then they were each having a rocky ride.

It therefore detracted from the humour too much really. There were still occasional funny lines and amusing moments, especially the running gag about wrongly delivered parcels, but that’s the only bit that really stood out well in terms of the comedy. The rest of it all felt rather overshadowed.

I’m not saying you can’t incorporate serious issues and darker topics into Christmas sitcom specials. After all, writer John Sullivan was a master at it with Only Fools And Horses, as was David Renwick with One Foot In The Grave, to name just two examples of many. It can be done very effectively. But here it just felt a bit too bleak, and leaves the future of the family up in the air, making you wonder why they brought it back just to do that, especially as we don’t know if they’re going to return or not. So while it was good to see the cast back together again, it felt like a special too far. The show seems to have lost the magic it once had, which isn’t surprising now that the children have grown up, but it’s still a shame.

The Last Leg

As usual, there were 2 special episodes of The Last Leg over the holiday period, hosted by Adam Hills, Alex Brooker and Josh Widdicombe.

They always dress up in an unusual way for their Christmas specials, and this year’s was no exception, as they chose the film Die Hard as their theme, with Adam as hero John McClane and Alex as villain Hans Gruber. But they couldn’t think of a sufficiently interesting third character, so Josh ended up dressed as the Nakatomi Plaza instead, meaning he was literally inside a tower block for the whole show, with his head looking through a hole in the middle! Their guests, however – One Show presenter Alex Jones and musically-talented priest Reverend Richard Coles – were dressed normally.

As ever, they covered a variety of topics during the show, including a Home Alone 2 experience for Alex at The Plaza in New York, Prince Andrew and the alleged Chinese Spy, Keir Starmer, Chris McCausland’s victory on Strictly Come Dancing, and a professional Santa who’s been fitted with a bionic arm in America. There was also music from Reverend & The Makers, who performed their new single Late Night Phone Call, which isn’t particularly interesting, but it’s been released in support of the Samaritans, so it’s for an excellent cause.

Their 2-hour New Year’s Eve special then had a great variety of guests, with Chris McCausland naturally being my favourite. However, this edition had been pre-recorded earlier in the month, while Chris was still preparing to be in the Strictly final, so they didn’t yet know if he’d won or not, though they joked about the possibility. But it still gave him a chance to talk about what an incredible experience it had been.

Likewise, Josh’s one-off appearance in the Strictly Christmas special hadn’t been broadcast at the time of filming either, so they couldn’t talk about that. As with Chris, I looked up his routines on Youtube rather than watching the entire show, and he did a fun Charleston routine with dance partner Karen Hauer, and seemed to enjoy himself in the big group dance as well. So it’ll be interesting to see if they look at it and tease him about it when The Last Leg returns on 24 January.

Anyway, other guests on The Last Leg Of The Year included comedians Sandi Toksvig, Guz Khan and Josh Pugh (who’s partially sighted), along with TV presenter AJ Odudu and actor Natalie Cassidy. And between them they had a good time reminiscing about 2024, as well as playing games including Josh’s Pub Quiz and a world record attempt involving party hats. It was all light-hearted without dwelling on the heavier stories of the last 12 months.

Along the way there were special appearances by several Paralympians (to celebrate their success in Paris over the summer), Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey (who talked about his silly stunts during the election among other things), Fury from Gladiators (who easily beat them when they tried to fight her), Scott Whitehouse (known as the ‘Chesterfield Maradona’ after going viral for expertly kicking a can into a bin), and even Alex’s mother Elaine, to his surprise!

And behind the bar was Kirsty Paterson, famous for being the Sad Scottish Oompa Loompa at the hilariously awful Willy Wonka experience, who has since starred in a successful Edinburgh Fringe show. Then finally it all concluded with a parody of Hot To Go! by Chappell Roan, one of the biggest songs of the year. So altogether it was a fun way to wrap up 2024.

Maisie Adam

Maisie Adam has quickly become one of my favourite stand-up comedians in recent years, and in December her latest stand-up special, Appraisal, was broadcast on Sky Comedy, lasting for 90 minutes (with adverts of course). Filmed in her home town of Harrogate, the loose over-arching theme of the show is that it’s an appraisal of her work and home life, now that she’s been a fully-fledged stand-up comedian for 5 years.

From my own experience of seeing her live, I know that she likes talking to audience members before she gets into the flow of her set. And while there isn’t much of that here, as this special is designed to focus on her scripted routine, she does talk to the people in the box seats first of all, only to discover they have a surprising connection to her!

She then gets into her set, and it’s really well put together, flowing nicely with lots of laughs all the way through. She talks about the perils of gigging in Sweden, being pressured by other people to have children now that she’s married, why baby photos are like dick pics, why she doesn’t like hearing about birth weights, being on the coil, living in Brighton, how her parents and school friends have changed as they’ve got older, meeting the friends of her friends, having a stripper at her hen do, being on quiz shows (either as an answer or in person), and being safe when walking home alone at night (with a guest appearance by Danny Dyer).

It’s a great mixture of material with very amusing stories and accurate observations, so I really enjoyed it. I think she’s safely passed her 5-year appraisal with flying colours, and I look forward to seeing how her career continues.

Incidentally, I did also try out a couple of other stand-up shows on Sky Comedy, but I didn’t get into them. I’ve enjoyed some of James Acaster’s stand-up in the past, but his new Hecklers Welcome show, where he allows people to interrupt him (which they didn’t do much anyway), just felt a bit disjointed and strangely edited, and it didn’t raise many laughs. And as I’ve enjoyed Rose Matafeo on both the adult and junior versions of Taskmaster, I tried her show On And On And On, but while it is well written and delivered and has some amusing moments, I just didn’t find it relatable or of huge interest. But that’s fine, they were both worth a go.

Michael McIntyre

Over on the BBC, meanwhile, Michael McIntyre celebrated 25 years since his first stand-up gig by performing a show from his Macnificent tour at the London Palladium. And while it’s only 50 minutes long unfortunately, it is really funny, with routines about drinking wine too quickly with his wife, the pointless use of silent letters in the English language, his worst attempt to start a diet in America, having a kidney stone removed, a misunderstanding in a public toilet, problems with a new mattress, pitch darkness and noisy stomachs.

Several moments were absolutely hilarious, he had me laughing out loud quite a lot. So while I know he’s having great success with things like The Wheel (which I’ve never got into), it’s wonderful to see him back on stage doing what he does best. I’ll have to rewatch his previous DVDs at some point.

Game Shows

There were several game and panel shows that I enjoyed over the festive period as usual:

  • QI XL – Gyles Brandreth, Lulu and Emmanuel Sonubi were the guests for this year’s festive episode, called Variety, talking about Santa’s crimes, violent variety acts, the first ever music video from 1925, Leonardo da Vinci, the stress caused by in-laws, unusual mousetrap patents, cleaning carpets, ice cream flavours, ancestors, hangover cures, pet safety at Christmas, and tricks involving balloons and tablecloths. Gyles also had rather interesting stories and funny jokes to tell as usual, he’s always good value. Then the next episode on New Year’s Eve, entitled Vulgar, featured Chris McCausland, Neil Delamere and Cariad Lloyd and was also a good laugh, talking about things like violinists, a Roman emperor, vaginas, vultures, wasps, fraudulent election victories, tracing calls, deaths of birds and pigeons.
  • Would I Lie To You? – Ahead of the new series starting in January, my favourite guests on this year’s Christmas special were comedian Jimmy Carr and child actor Lenny Rush, though I already knew whether Jimmy’s claim about a test drive was true or not from interviews I’ve seen. I’m vaguely familiar with who comedian Laura Smyth and chef Rusty Lee are, but I’m not a big fan of either particularly. Laura was alright, but I found Rusty a bit irritating with her incessant laughter. Nevertheless, the show overall was funny, with stories about Christmas dinner, a toenail, a snowman and Father Christmas, among other things.
  • Taskmaster – The show’s 5th New Year Treat, where they invite non-comedians to take part for a change, was fun as usual, with tasks involving gloves, regrets, water and drawing. I particularly enjoyed academic Hannah Fry and finance expert Martin Lewis, while footballer David James, All Saints singer Melanie Blatt and actress Sue Johnston were good too. Meanwhile the children’s spin-off Junior Taskmaster had an enjoyable grand final, with the tasks involving tents, balloons, an observation test and shoe throwing, among other things. The children have all been great sports with fun personalities, and have shown excellent creativity, so well done to them. Rose Matafeo and Mike Wozniak are the perfect co-hosts too, challenging them and being gently teasing whilst ultimately making sure they’re enjoying themselves. So here’s hoping that gets a second series, while we also look forward to Taskmaster’s 19th.
  • The Big Fat Quiz Of Everything – In this second Big Fat Quiz, about more wide-ranging general knowledge, my favourite guests were Harry Hill and David Mitchell, while the others were Sophie Willan (who was paired with David as she starred in the great comedy-drama series Ludwig with him), Josh Pugh, Roisin Conaty and Fatiha El-Ghorri, and it was only the latter I wasn’t a big fan of (not because of her religion, she just didn’t make me laugh as much as the others). Highlights this time included Jimmy’s face in a few music videos, some adorable dogs that he found hard to control, a couple of ladies who played Peppa Pig (a children’s show in which David Mitchell plays a police panda), and a horror-themed finale. So again it was a fun couple of hours.

Radio Shows

As I said earlier in the year, I regularly listen to music on BBC Radio 2 while I’m working or blogging, alongside my own collection of course, and they’ve had a sad year with the sudden passing of Steve Wright in February, then the retirement of Johnnie Walker in October followed by the news of his death on New Year’s Eve. But beyond that I haven’t listened to a huge amount of other stuff on the radio this past month.

However, there are a few comedy programmes I’ve heard on Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra over Christmas that I’ll give a quick mention to:

  • I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue – This show full of silly games, currently hosted by Jack Dee, never fails to make me laugh. It’s just such delightful nonsense, and I was particularly pleased that the first 2 shows in the current series came from Exeter, a city I know very well from my years living in Devon.
  • …And Yet Another Partridge In A Pear Tree – I’ve heard this before, given that it’s from 1977 and has been repeated many times, but it is very funny and I haven’t mentioned it before. It’s a 20-minute look at what it might actually be like to receive all of the gifts in The Twelve Days Of Christmas, including the fact that on each new day you get duplicates of the presents from the previous days, just as you sing in the song. So by the end you have 12 partridges in pear trees for instance. It’s told in the form of letters written by the unfortunate recipient Miss Cynthia Bracegirdle, played by the wonderful Penelope Keith, who becomes increasingly exasperated as the days go on.
  • Ceefax Strikes Back – This was a nostalgic look back at Ceefax, the world’s first teletext service made by the BBC, to mark its 50th anniversary. It was our equivalent of the internet when I was a kid, being the fastest way to get breaking news and other information, and it also made it easier to broadcast subtitles. It basically made use of empty bands in the analogue TV signal to encode text and rudimentary graphics, which were accessed by pressing the relevant button on your remote and typing in 3-digit page numbers for the information you required. It was slow but very effective. So in this half-hour programme, intergalactic political candidate Count Binface (aka comedian Jon Harvey) fulfilled his manifesto promise of resurrecting Ceefax, but in audio form, with the aid of impressionist Rory Bremner, voiceover artist and London Underground announcer Emma Clarke, and actor Leah Marks. It was both amusing and interesting, with some notes about the history of the service, recollections from various people including Josh Widdicombe, and the rightful inclusion of the teletext services from ITV and Channel 4.

Doctor Who

Joy To The World

This year’s 55-minute Christmas special, Joy To The World, is the second featuring Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, and the 9th to be written by Steven Moffat. And it’s pretty good. Not exceptional, but a decent way to spend an hour.

The title refers to the character of Joy, played by Nicola Coughlan. She’s best known for her roles in Derry Girls and Bridgerton, two shows I’ve never seen, so I didn’t know her prior to this, but she’s good here. Being alone for Christmas, Joy decides to check into a hotel, only to discover what’s behind the mysterious locked door that’s present in so many hotel rooms, when the Doctor bursts through it. He’s been investigating strange behaviour at a Time Hotel from the future, where guests check into vacant rooms in different periods of history through time portals.

A mysterious briefcase has been changing hands at the hotel, forcing each new owner to say an ominous phrase, and disintegrating the previous handler each time. And inevitably it ends up on Joy’s wrist at one point. The Doctor is able to relieve her of it and save her life, and he discovers that it’s a case belonging to the Villengard arms company, who were previously mentioned in Season 1’s Boom. It contains the seed of a star that will allow the organisation to harness an immense amount of energy when it explodes, but it will take an incredibly long time to grow first, hence using the portals in the Time Hotel to speed things up. But when it does explode, it’ll destroy everything on Earth as well, so the Doctor has to get rid of it – which is made rather difficult when a dinosaur swallows it!

They do eventually get it back and save the planet, obviously, but Joy is at the heart of the solution. By deliberately making her angry, the Doctor forces her to reveal a tragic story about her mother that she’s felt guilty about, and that leads to a touching resolution at the end, which will resonate with many people who have lost a loved one. And then there’s a revelation about where Joy ultimately ends up, which you can see coming if you pay attention, but it still feels very apt, both for her and for Christmas.

All of which makes for a good adventure, although there isn’t time for us to get to know Joy really well, not just because it’s a one-off episode, but also because she’s absent for a big chunk of it. When the Doctor is trying to stop the briefcase killing Joy, he gets the solution from his future self, and the only way to make that happen is to live out an entire year on Earth before the portals to the Time Hotel reopen. So he’s forced to live a linear existence, with the days running in order for once, and to get him through the year he befriends Anita, the hotel manager. She’s played by Steph de Whalley, in what Russell T Davies says is her first ever TV role in the Behind The Scenes video, and she too is very good. The whole B story about the Doctor’s year is beautifully summarised without feeling rushed, as he and Anita form a great connection, and it would be nice to see more of her in the future. There’s certainly potential for her to come back one day, given the surprise she gets at the end. So the episode is as much about her as it is Joy really, and they’re both good characters.

So altogether it’s a nice episode, weaving together a couple of interesting stories, with plenty of humour, cultural references, action and effects, without feeling too heavy for Christmas. Now we just have to wait patiently for Season 2, which is looking very interesting.

Doctor Who Prom

This year’s Doctor Who Prom, which came a long overdue 11 years after the last one and was recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in August, was finally broadcast on TV on Christmas Eve, after which it became available on iPlayer for at least a year. I had already heard the concert on BBC Radio 3, but had been looking forward to enjoying the visual elements in the TV version as well.

And it was of course a lot of fun, with relevant clips from the series accompanying many of the tracks, as well as various creatures walking through the auditorium itself, which always gets wonderful reactions from the children and often some of the adults too! I’m also very pleased that the TV version includes every track that was performed, rather than some being edited out as has happened with previous concerts, so it runs for nearly 2 hours!

Having already written about the radio broadcast in my post about Ncuti Gatwa’s first season on the show, I’ve now updated my review of the Prom there to incorporate the TV version. So do go and check that out if you want to know the full details of the setlist. Suffice to say we got to hear a lot of Murray Gold’s incredible music from his current and previous eras on the show, as well as a medley from Segun Akinola’s period too, so I really enjoyed it.

Conclusion

So that brings us to the end of my extensive Christmas Favourites. I hope you enjoyed it and found things of interest as usual. I don’t yet know what 2025 will hold, other than one or two plans I’ve got in mind and a couple of shows I’ve already booked well in advance, so it’ll be interesting to see what the next 12 months have in store. I’ll keep you updated as usual of course. And I hope that it’s a great year for you too!

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Author: Glen

Love London, love a laugh, love life. Visually impaired blogger, culture vulture & accessibility advocate, with aniridia & nystagmus, posting about my experiences & adventures.

2 thoughts on “Christmas 2024 Favourites – Part 2”

  1. Pingback: Christmas 2024 Favourites – Part 1 – Well Eye Never
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