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Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Praise be!SNOW JOKE Geordie (Robson Green) has an unsuspecting Sidney Chambers (James Norton) in his sightsGrantchesterChristmas Eve 9.00pmITVOver the summer, James Norton found himself filming scenes for a forthcoming movie by a lake in a remote part of northern Canada. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied a boat being rowed across the water. The boat stopped abruptly as it got close to him. The woman at the helm pointed at him and said, semi-accusingly, “You’re the vicar!”It was, Norton admits, slightly surreal to be recognised on the other side of the world for his part in Grantchester, the hit ITV 1950s detective series in which he plays crime-solving Anglican vicar Sidney Chambers. It’s a mark of just how popular Norton has become, with Grantchester regularly attracting six million…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Books to die forThe Witness for the ProsecutionBoxing Day, Tue 27 December 9.00pmBBC1Kim CattrallDid you grow up reading Agatha Christie?I was brought up on Agatha Christie! Murder mysteries were part of my childhood because my mum loved them, but mostly on screen. I would watch the old movies with her. Even at a young age, I never felt terrified – I just really invested in the detective work!Aside from Christie, which is your favourite murder mystery? Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Because none of us knows what we are truly capable of. I like things that engage my brain, rather than just lulling me.You’ve written two books about sex – would you ever write a novel? I would like to do more writing; whether it’s a novel I don’t know. I’m very interested…4 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016What’s up, Prof?The Entire UniverseBoxing Day 9.30pmBBC2First things first – you’re wearing a red dress and Eric Idle is putting make-up on you… Why?It’s an illustration of the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics, which says that everything that can happen does happen. In other words, there is an infinite number of universes. So in one universe I might be Professor Brian Cox. And in another I’m Brian Cox wearing a nice off-theshoulder red dress – which explains why I’m playing a part in Eric Idle’s science musical, The Entire Universe.Proper physics now. How does Santa deliver all those billions of presents around the world and still get home in time for breakfast?It’s down to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which tells you that the rate at which time passes is personal…2 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Books to die forThe Witness for the Prosecution Boxing Day, Tue 27 December 9.00pmBBC1 Kim Cattrall Did you grow up reading Agatha Christie? I was brought up on Agatha Christie! Murder mysteries were part of my childhood because my mum loved them, but mostly on screen. I would watch the old movies with her. Even at a young age, I never felt terrified – I just really invested in the detective work! Aside from Christie, which is your favourite murder mystery? Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Because none of us knows what we are truly capable of. I like things that engage my brain, rather than just lulling me. You’ve written two books about sex – would you ever write a novel? I would like to do more writing; whether it’s a novel…4 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Made in YorkshireTo Walk Invisible Thursday 29 December 9.00pmBBC1 I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know who the Brontës were. I grew up in Sowerby Bridge, about eight miles from Haworth, so they were part of our local history. I visited the Parsonage dozens and dozens of times and was very familiar with the story of the Brontë family. Later, I came to the books; I think I’ve read all of them now, but it was reading Wuthering Heights when I was about 14, possibly earlier, that really pulled me in. I was blown away by how it’s so unlike anything you think women would be writing at that time. It’s so down-to-earth, it talks about the coarseness of real life, and that’s something that appeals enormously to me as…5 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016What’s up, Prof?The Entire Universe Boxing Day 9.30pmBBC2 First things first – you’re wearing a red dress and Eric Idle is putting make-up on you… Why? It’s an illustration of the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics, which says that everything that can happen does happen. In other words, there is an infinite number of universes. So in one universe I might be Professor Brian Cox. And in another I’m Brian Cox wearing a nice off-theshoulder red dress – which explains why I’m playing a part in Eric Idle’s science musical, The Entire Universe. Proper physics now. How does Santa deliver all those billions of presents around the world and still get home in time for breakfast? It’s down to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which tells you that the rate at…2 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Up, up - and underOutnumbered Boxing Day 10.00pmBBC1Daniel Roche, 17 (top)He’s played Ben since age eight“Sometimes I’ll catch my parents watching Outnumbered and say, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I haven’t really done any acting since. I’m playing rugby semi-professionally with Wasps Academy and it’s hard to juggle the two. Rugby gets priority.“Family’s a big thing for me, so hopefully my eldest brother will come home from Norway for Christmas with his girlfriend, my other brother will come over for the day, and we’ll be able to spend lots of time together. Everything’s pretty traditional in our house – my mum starts buying mince pies at the beginning of November!”Ramona Marquez, 15First played Karen aged six“I’m doing my GCSEs, so that’s taken priority over acting, which I’d like to do more of. I get recognised…2 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016The other way to do ChristmasScrap the turkeyThink about it: if turkey’s so tasty, why do we only eat it once a year? Scrap the turkey and do it a different way. Your guests, your stomach and your wallet may thank you. If you’re struggling for inspiration, cast your eyes abroad: eastern Europeans are partial to a bit of fish at Christmas, while Germans are more likely to sit down to a nice side of beef. In the US, beef or goose is the favoured option, or you could go Antipodean and opt for a Christmas BBQ, Aussie style. The choice is yours.Avoid the Christmas TV arguments“Polite” disagreements about what to watch are all part of the Christmas fun, right? Wrong. With Freeview Play you can scroll back through the TV guide to watch programmes…2 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Where’s Mum?Life in the SnowThursday 29 December 8.00pmBBC1Everyone loves a polar bear, but you’ve been closer than most of us…They’re such majestic creatures and they’re perfectly evolved for cold weather. Under their skin they have up to 11cm of fat – that’s four inches – which is a brilliant layer of insulation. In fact, they often roll around in the snow to cool down.You spent weeks on Arctic Live. What’s the worst thing about filming in the cold?The cold! It’s very hard to get warm once you are cold. My mission is to venture out when I’m warm and try to stay warm for the rest of the day.What’s the coldest you’ve been?Weirdly, the closest I’ve got to hypothermia was after falling asleep on a bridge in late summer in Weymouth.…2 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016My kind of ChristmasSports Personality of the YearSunday 18 December 6.40pmBBC1As if winning gold and silver in the triathlon at the Rio Olympics last summer wasn’t enough to secure the Brownlees a place in the nation’s heart, a month later they went on to melt it with a display of brotherly love that had the Prime Minister, Theresa May, hailing them as national icons.When Alistair dragged his ailing younger brother Jonny across the finish line at the final of the World Series in Mexico, the video went global, prompting an outpouring of praise.‘I didn’t know if I’d done the right thing’ ALI STAIRNow the brothers are back in Yorkshire, sitting by the fire in their festive jumpers decorating the tree with their medals as they tell RT all about Christmas round at the…4 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Shirley and meDavid Walliams Celebrates Dame Shirley Bassey Christmas Eve 9.00pmBBC1 Only Santa’s elves have been working harder than David Walliams this Christmas. He will be appearing in an astonishing four Christmas specials in the next two weeks: starring opposite Hugh Bonneville in a festive edition of Walliams & Friend; hosting a special Blankety Blank; providing voices for Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes; and presenting a tribute to his friend Shirley Bassey. All of which he has taken in his stride while also promoting his latest children’s novel, The Midnight Gang; overseeing a touring stage adaptation of a previous book, The First Hippo on the Moon; and finally, early next year, he’ll be the first host of ITV’s new weeknight entertainment programme, The Nightly Show. Phew. In David Walliams Celebrates Dame Shirley Bassey…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016The RT Quiz of the yearTelevision1 In which harrowing drama did Julie Walters play a faithful wife who came to doubt her husband’s honesty?2 What was the name of Queen Victoria’s dog in Victoria (right)?3 Name the magazine editor who duped a documentary film-maker on air.4 Which grim Yorkshire cop grieved over the loss of his sidekick and then had his show cancelled by ITV?5 Who was an Army man with a secret in The Missing and a high-ranking Northern Ireland civil servant in The Truth Commissioner?6 Selling undies in 1980s Yorkshire proved to be a short-lived career for the characters in this saucy ITV drama, cancelled after just one series.7 BBC4 took us on a tour of the Yorkshire Dales that lasted two hours. Name the mode of transport and the title of the…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016FAMILY FUNI trust the festive period will furnish you with a couple of days off in which to luxuriate in some family-friendly films, as the Freeview channels counter the rise of Netflix and Amazon with some joined-up scheduling.All three delightfully funky Madagascar films are on (Mon 19—Wed 21 Dec BBC1), nicely preparing the ground for the premiere of spin-off Penguins of Madagascar (Christmas Eve), which picks up where the third part left off, at the circus.You can also enjoy both extant parts of How to Train Your Dragon (Thu 22 Dec, Boxing Day BBC1) and relive the evolution of boy-Viking Hiccup to reluctant trainee clan chief, when — in the premiering sequel — he and fire-breathing wingman Toothless set out to defeat a megalomaniacal warlord.The evergreen Muppets universe was rebooted in…2 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Discover TVWE THREE BLOKES1 The Grand TourAmazon Prime (new episode every Friday)It’s hard to believe they ever confined themselves to the Beeb. Clarkson, Hammond and May are having even more fun now their budget is infinite and the world is their test track. Festive antics include a trip to the Arctic for their Happy Finnish Christmas, and the sort of stunt they used to pull in their old year-end specials: riding dune buggies across Namibia.NEW SEASON2 The Man in the High CastleAmazon PrimeAmerica is run by Nazis… This dark, classy drama is based on the Philip K Dick book and set in a world where the Allies have lost the Second World War and the USA is split between Germany and Japan. In the new second season, that uneasy divide starts…4 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016SATURDAY ChoicesLEN’S ONE-LINERS“That dance could be one of your five a day, it was that good.”“If you’re not in the final, I’ll pickle my walnuts.”“You floated across that floor like butter on a hot crumpet.”“From Len… a ten!”PICK OF THE DAYStrictly Come Dancing: the Final6.40pmBBC1ENTERTAINMENT Despite Danny Mac’s faultless charleston and samba, this series of Strictly will go down in history as “The One With Ed Balls”.The other celebrities could perform endless fleckerls, magical lifts, eye-popping jives and elegant waltzes as much as they liked. Ed just plodded on, performing increasingly outrageous routines with enthusiasm if not technical ability (oh, that unforgettable Gangnam Style samba). And we lapped it up. Eventually, though, the better dancers could not be ignored any longer and quite rightly he was shown the stage door. So…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016MONDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAYLast Tango in Halifax9.00pmBBC1DRAMA Life is moving on for Caroline (Sarah Lancashire) as Sally Wainwright’s warm but spiky family drama hangs up the decorations for a two-part Christmas special. Caroline wants to “put something back” into society, so she’s taken a post as head teacher of a tough school in Huddersfield.Her mum, Celia, a copper-bottomed snob, is appalled, even after she’s been assured that Caroline isn’t moving “down South” (the ultimate betrayal). But, wails Celia (Anne Reid), “It’s a state school!”Caroline, Celia and Alan’s new home is a damp and draughty farmhouse, infested with mice. Her kids are furious and Caroline feels got-at, so she has a revealing heart-to-heart with her new best pal, Alan’s daughter Gillian (Nicola Walker). I like these chats; Wainwright writes such deft…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016What is Christmas?Cunk on Christmas Thur 29 December 10pmBBC2 (11pm N Ireland) Christmas is the most magical time of year. It’s more magical than Derren Brown and Dynamo playing Quidditch in Las Vegas in a giant top hat. But what is Christmas? The dictionary says it’s “an annual Christian festival celebrated on December 25th”. But that isn’t “what is Christmas?”. It’s “when is Christmas?”. Dictionaries are useless. Which is why no one gets one for Christmas. They get useful things like novelty slippers and Turkish Delights. Christmas, when we traditionally sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus, is the second-most important occasion in the Christian calendar. The top Christian festival is actually the other one, Easter, when we sing goodbye to Jesus. Both festivals are pretty chocolatey, but Christmas has nuts in it as…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016THURSDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAYThe Cook Who Changed Our Lives6.30pmBBC2FOOD Fronted by Nigella Lawson, this documentary is actually about a 91-year-old Italian called Anna Del Conte. Nigella is Anna’s number one fan and fervently believes anyone who claims to know their focaccia from their fusilli should be in possession of her cookery books.When Anna came to England as a young woman in 1949, olive oil was something Brits bought at the chemist’s if they had a dicky ear. By the 70s, she’d had enough of our macaroni cheese and spag bol (which aren’t Italian dishes at all) and started writing, inspiring a culinary revolution in her readers’ kitchens.As well as tributes from other TV acolytes and some lovely recipes, there’s a sprinkling of archive footage, revealing how far we’ve come since…6 min
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Z1 Kawasaki KZ900 KZ 900 MKII KZ1000 H2 Z1R 1973 1974 1975 MOTORCYCLES - wanted - by dealer - sale - craigslist+++ 16:50 Washington besorgt: Keine Amerikaner in die Ukraine zur Wartung von Militärausrüstung +++Ukraine war latest: Zelenskyy sacks air force chief; girl among six killed in Russian bomb attack that hit Kharkiv playground+++ 16:50 Washington besorgt: Keine Amerikaner in die Ukraine zur Wartung von Militärausrüstung +++Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Christmas EvePICK OF THE DAYGrantchester9.00pmITVDRAMA Let’s all take a trip back to 1954 Cambridge. It’s the week before Christmas and our handsome vicar is rehearsing the church’s Nativity play. His pal the police inspector is shopping for toys with his children. Snow is falling. All is well with the world. For about three minutes.Because, as we’ve come to expect, this drama guides us to a kinder, gentler age that proves to be nothing of the sort. You get the feeling Grantchester would put gravel in our mince pies and a mousetrap in every stocking if it could convince us the world is a dark and lonely place.Poor whisky-sodden Sidney can do nothing to save pregnant Amanda from the wrath of her horrid father (a great turn from Pip Torrens). And we…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016The RT Quiz of the yearTelevision 1 In which harrowing drama did Julie Walters play a faithful wife who came to doubt her husband’s honesty? 2 What was the name of Queen Victoria’s dog in Victoria (right)? 3 Name the magazine editor who duped a documentary film-maker on air. 4 Which grim Yorkshire cop grieved over the loss of his sidekick and then had his show cancelled by ITV? 5 Who was an Army man with a secret in The Missing and a high-ranking Northern Ireland civil servant in The Truth Commissioner? 6 Selling undies in 1980s Yorkshire proved to be a short-lived career for the characters in this saucy ITV drama, cancelled after just one series. 7 BBC4 took us on a tour of the Yorkshire Dales that lasted two hours. Name the mode…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016TUESDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAYInside No 9: the Devil of Christmas10.00pmBBC2COMEDY DRAMA For connoisseurs of the bizarre, this is all your Christmas presents wrapped in one. Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith take us to a snow lodge in Austria, 1977, where a frightfully middle-class British family is menaced by a local bogeyman, known as the Krampus.The Devil of Christmas re-creates the style and idiom of ITV’s creepy 1970s anthologies (Armchair Thriller, Brian Clemens’s Thriller, Tales of the Unexpected) and has even been taped on creaky cameras from that era by veteran director Graeme Harper. Everyone employs preposterously arch delivery — guest stars Rula Lenska, head to floor in furs, and Jessica Raine could almost be channelling Meg and Jill from the old ATV soap Crossroads.There are bumps in the night and…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016My 12 treats for ChrıstmasAT CHRISTMAS, THE country pretty well shuts down for two weeks and you can’t spend all that time playing with your smart phone. Besides, there’s much better entertainment offered by films on the box – after all, television knows exactly what we want to help us through the excitement, aftermath and (in some cases, alas) disappointments of the festive season – loads of movies. First up and making its debut on telly is Disney’s magical, Oscar-winning, computeranimated feature Frozen (Christmas Day BBC1), based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. The plot has Princess Anna (Kristen Bell) and companions searching for Anna’s sister, Snow Queen Elsa (Idina Menzel), who has trapped the kingdom in eternal winter. Good adventure stuff with brilliant animation. Staying with the younger viewers, another film having…4 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016FAMILY FUNI trust the festive period will furnish you with a couple of days off in which to luxuriate in some family-friendly films, as the Freeview channels counter the rise of Netflix and Amazon with some joined-up scheduling. All three delightfully funky Madagascar films are on (Mon 19—Wed 21 Dec BBC1), nicely preparing the ground for the premiere of spin-off Penguins of Madagascar (Christmas Eve), which picks up where the third part left off, at the circus. You can also enjoy both extant parts of How to Train Your Dragon (Thu 22 Dec, Boxing Day BBC1) and relive the evolution of boy-Viking Hiccup to reluctant trainee clan chief, when — in the premiering sequel — he and fire-breathing wingman Toothless set out to defeat a megalomaniacal warlord. The evergreen Muppets universe…1 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016My Christmas callingMY HEART GOES out to Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë in Sally Wainwright’s sombre biographical drama To Walk Invisible (Thu 29 Dec BBC1), a particularly thoughtful cornerstone of this year’s Christmas schedules. Life in the Parsonage in the little town of Haworth, high up on the Yorkshire moors, is bleak and hard. The women must look after their ailing dad Patrick and wayward, alcoholic, indulged brother Branwell while writing furiously as they fulfil their brilliantly luminous destinies. Everyone cooped up, cocooned in their own little blankets of misery and, oh, this hardly bears thinking about… no telly! Life surely would be so much better if they could only cuddle up on the sofa to watch Ed Balls throwing a grown woman around a dance floor in Strictly. In one scene…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016SATURDAY ChoicesLEN’S ONE-LINERS “That dance could be one of your five a day, it was that good.” “If you’re not in the final, I’ll pickle my walnuts.” “You floated across that floor like butter on a hot crumpet.” “From Len… a ten!” PICK OF THE DAY Strictly Come Dancing: the Final 6.40pmBBC1 ENTERTAINMENT Despite Danny Mac’s faultless charleston and samba, this series of Strictly will go down in history as “The One With Ed Balls”. The other celebrities could perform endless fleckerls, magical lifts, eye-popping jives and elegant waltzes as much as they liked. Ed just plodded on, performing increasingly outrageous routines with enthusiasm if not technical ability (oh, that unforgettable Gangnam Style samba). And we lapped it up. Eventually, though, the better dancers could not be ignored any longer and…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016TUESDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAY Inside the Christmas Factory 9.00pmBBC2 DOCUMENTARYInside the Factory won my prize for Unexpectedly Not Awful TV of 2016. Gregg Wallace bellowing his enthusiasm over the roar of industrial machinery might not sound like a treat, but something in the format clicked and there’s well-I-never-ish nourishment in every programme. For this extra helping, Wallace visits the assembly line in Yorkshire where Mr Kipling makes — and pause here for a moment to ponder the scale of it — 2,000 mince pies a minute. That’s a lot of mincemeat — about 200 bathtubs’ worth a day. And once Mr K has made it, he leaves it for two days to “mature” like a fine wine. Wallace is in his element, going all Generation Game to have a go…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Theresa MayWhat will you be doing on Christmas Day, Prime Minister?What I’ve been doing for the last nearly 20 years. A quick drink with friends in our village and then the churches in my Maidenhead constituency come together to put on a lunch and entertainment for older people who would otherwise be on their own. I have a drink and chat with them then go home and serve up my own meal.Do you get somebody to cook Christmas dinner for you?No! I always like to cook the Christmas meal myself. But it won’t be turkey. For a few years now we have tended to have goose instead.There’s a tremendous amount of fat on a goose…There is, but if you keep the fat, it makes wonderful roast potatoes for quite a long…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016TUESDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAY Inside No 9: the Devil of Christmas 10.00pmBBC2 COMEDY DRAMA For connoisseurs of the bizarre, this is all your Christmas presents wrapped in one. Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith take us to a snow lodge in Austria, 1977, where a frightfully middle-class British family is menaced by a local bogeyman, known as the Krampus. The Devil of Christmas re-creates the style and idiom of ITV’s creepy 1970s anthologies (Armchair Thriller, Brian Clemens’s Thriller, Tales of the Unexpected) and has even been taped on creaky cameras from that era by veteran director Graeme Harper. Everyone employs preposterously arch delivery — guest stars Rula Lenska, head to floor in furs, and Jessica Raine could almost be channelling Meg and Jill from the old ATV soap Crossroads. There are…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Knock, knock...The Great Christmas Bake Off Christmas Day 4.45pm, Boxing Day 7pm BBC1 One of Mel Giedroyc’s favourite Christmas rituals is a game of guess the punchline. “Everyone around the table has to read out their cracker joke and I get massively annoyed if someone gets there before me,” says the Bake Off host. “I’m very competitive about puns.” Her pun partner is, of course, Sue Perkins. Although the pair are taking a break from cooking up baking jokes – after quitting Bake Off – they remain in each other’s pockets off screen. “Sue is always phenomenally generous with her Christmas presents, but late,” says Mel. “I’m 48 and I’m still waiting for my 40th birthday present.” Always rigorous about her festive rituals, Mel begins, of course, by making a Christmas…1 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Praise be!Grantchester Christmas Eve 9.00pmITV Over the summer, James Norton found himself filming scenes for a forthcoming movie by a lake in a remote part of northern Canada. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied a boat being rowed across the water. The boat stopped abruptly as it got close to him. The woman at the helm pointed at him and said, semi-accusingly, “You’re the vicar!” It was, Norton admits, slightly surreal to be recognised on the other side of the world for his part in Grantchester, the hit ITV 1950s detective series in which he plays crime-solving Anglican vicar Sidney Chambers. It’s a mark of just how popular Norton has become, with Grantchester regularly attracting six million viewers in the UK and also airing on PBS in the…6 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Where to, Doc?Doctor Who Christmas Day 5.45pmBBC1 1 New York, 1920S I’d go back to the Jazz Age to witness the city being built. To see the early skyscrapers going up would be amazing. I’ve been to (modern) New York many times and the energy of the city is addictive, as is the sense that anything is possible. We’ve all seen it in movies since we were kids. It’s so familiar that it feels like going home. 2 Venice, any time This year, on the eve of my birthday, my wife took me to dinner. After we’d eaten, she gave me an envelope. It contained two air tickets to Venice. And the next day, there we both were. Venice feels mythological – somehow appearing from the mist, then vanishing again. So if…5 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016‘Finishing Mum’s work’The Prince Harry DocumentaryMonday 19 December 9.00pmITVI’m not sure exactly what was in my mind as I stepped onto the plane ten years ago to film some of Prince Harry’s gap year in Lesotho, but I guess I thought it might turn out to be a rather trying few days. He was, if you recall, best known at the time for having endured great tragedy and exhibited, perhaps as a result, consistently questionable judgement.In fact, he was a delight to spend time with. His bond with so many of the orphans whose lives had been blighted by HIV and Aids appeared heartfelt. The connection with his mother and her work was there for all to see and when I asked him about her – well, a whole lot of emotion…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016IT’S A LAST 10 FROM LENCLAUDIA WINKLEMAN Who have you loved immediately, even if they couldn’t dance?LEN GOODMAN I clearly remember Ann Widdecombe and John Sergeant, but I couldn’t tell you who won in those years. In five years’ time, I will remember Ed Balls. I was sad when he left — he was the cat with nine lives who went out in week ten, which is funny! People remember the entertainers more than the dancers.Are you going to miss us? Say yes!Of course! When the next series comes round and I’m sitting indoors, I know I will. I’ve been on the show for 12 years and it’s been fantastic, but I’d prefer to leave with people saying, “Oh, what a shame Len’s going!”, not “Thank heavens he’s off!”Any chance that I can change your…2 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016‘I don’t want to be an old git’If you didn’t know which house was Alan Bennett’s, you might well guess: painted green and brown, with a scruffier air than those nearby, it has a bicycle chained to its railings. All appears timeless and calm in this part of north London.Bennett, now 82, opens the front door and is exactly as you’d hope: friendly but diffident, no entourage, just him. He leads the way down narrow stairs to the kitchen: “We’re down here, I think,” he says. Down here, there’s a tick-tock clock, neat cooking area and a wooden table covered with an open newspaper (The Guardian) and sheaves of writing, Bennett’s fountain-penned scrawl scampering across A4 pages. He writes every day, even if it’s just to answer his many fan letters.Bennett offers me the armchair, while he…6 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Shining starsEastEnders creates stars at Christmas: think Den handing Angie those divorce papers, Arthur Fowler’s breakdown or Max’s affair wi th Stacey revealed to the Brannings. This year, it’s a chance for the younger generation to shine as Shona McGarty and Danny-Boy Hatchard take their turn in the spotlight.Their moving plotline has already seen EastEnders return to its roots with a slowburning story that has been pitched perfectly by both actors. For those wanting an alternative to soap whodunnits and infidelity melodramas, the strained marriage of Lee and Whitney Carter has provided the answer.Now the pair look set to play out a bleak but compelling story as Lee buckles under the pressure of spiralling debts and depression, while Whitney remains blind to her husband’s emotional torment.“Over Christmas, it will come to…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016‘Finishing Mum’s work’The Prince Harry Documentary Monday 19 December 9.00pmITV I’m not sure exactly what was in my mind as I stepped onto the plane ten years ago to film some of Prince Harry’s gap year in Lesotho, but I guess I thought it might turn out to be a rather trying few days. He was, if you recall, best known at the time for having endured great tragedy and exhibited, perhaps as a result, consistently questionable judgement. In fact, he was a delight to spend time with. His bond with so many of the orphans whose lives had been blighted by HIV and Aids appeared heartfelt. The connection with his mother and her work was there for all to see and when I asked him about her – well, a whole…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016The people’s championStrictly Come Dancing: the Final Saturday 17 December 6.40pmBBC1 WHO WOULD HAVE thought you and I would be doing this!” says the former shadow Chancellor. Almost all of our previous encounters, which were usually not face-to-face, had been live on a news and current affairs programme: me verbally dissecting the minutiae of Labour Party economic policy; him vigorously attacking any perceived slight. Now, thanks to his eye-popping run on Strictly Come Dancing, we’ve gone from “Can you pass a law?” to “Can you paso doble?” One of his sons had opened the family front door to me: through the back in the kitchen, Ed and his wife, the Labour MP Yvette Cooper, were brewing coffee. It was here – between the washing machine and the ironing board – that he…4 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016IT’S A LAST 10 FROM LENCLAUDIA WINKLEMAN Who have you loved immediately, even if they couldn’t dance? LEN GOODMAN I clearly remember Ann Widdecombe and John Sergeant, but I couldn’t tell you who won in those years. In five years’ time, I will remember Ed Balls. I was sad when he left — he was the cat with nine lives who went out in week ten, which is funny! People remember the entertainers more than the dancers. Are you going to miss us? Say yes! Of course! When the next series comes round and I’m sitting indoors, I know I will. I’ve been on the show for 12 years and it’s been fantastic, but I’d prefer to leave with people saying, “Oh, what a shame Len’s going!”, not “Thank heavens he’s off!” Any chance that…1 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016A helping handThe days leading up to Christmas can be both joyful and stressful. We try to be with friends, family and colleagues, to buy gifts and make arrangements – and somehow to relax when there is still work to be done.Most people who want to make sense of Christmas have some kind of routine. Clergy households are no different. And in many churches today clergy and lay people share in making lunch for those alone, and give generously of their time.But what can be a full time for some, can equally be an empty time for others: particularly those who have no work, or no home; or perhaps no one to love them.‘I, Daniel Blake could be a documentary’St Martin-in-the-Fields, in London’s Trafalgar Square, is known as the “church of the…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016The BIG picture quizSpot all 50 and you could win a Sony 4K 55in Ultra HD TV, a Blu-ray home entertainment system and these titles on Blu-ray: Outlander Collection: Seasons 1—2 box set; House of Cards: the Complete Four Seasons box set; Ghostbusters; and The Night Manager box set, including John le Carré’s book, plus Teletubbies Tubby Snowball on DVD.To enter find the 50 titles or events represented in the picture and send your list, along with your name, address and telephone number, to: Christmas 2016 Picture Quiz, PO Box 201, Leicester LE94 0AA; or you can enter online by visiting radiotimes.com/picturequizPromoter is Immediate Media Co London Ltd. Closing date is 12 noon on Fri 13 Jan 2017. Entrants must be UK residents aged 16 or over. For full terms and conditions visit…1 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016My 12 treats for ChrıstmasAT CHRISTMAS, THE country pretty well shuts down for two weeks and you can’t spend all that time playing with your smart phone. Besides, there’s much better entertainment offered by films on the box – after all, television knows exactly what we want to help us through the excitement, aftermath and (in some cases, alas) disappointments of the festive season – loads of movies.First up and making its debut on telly is Disney’s magical, Oscar-winning, computeranimated feature Frozen (Christmas Day BBC1), based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. The plot has Princess Anna (Kristen Bell) and companions searching for Anna’s sister, Snow Queen Elsa (Idina Menzel), who has trapped the kingdom in eternal winter. Good adventure stuff with brilliant animation.Staying with the younger viewers, another film having its first…4 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016‘I’d touch Margot’s finger for luck’MARGOT FONTEYN My childhood hero Fonteyn was our first proper British ballerina and from the moment I started dancing, her image engulfed me. In my first year at the Royal Ballet School, Margot’s statue was outside my dormitory. Like generations of budding ballet dancers before me, I used to touch her middle finger for luck. When I was 20, rehearsing my first Swan Lake, she suddenly walked into my rehearsal room and I was told she’d be coaching me for a couple of days. I had no idea she was coming. I was in complete shock! I was very young to be taking on such a big classic and I’d learnt the steps really quickly, so all I was worried about was getting through it stamina-wise and technically achieving all…6 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016The other way to do ChristmasScrap the turkey Think about it: if turkey’s so tasty, why do we only eat it once a year? Scrap the turkey and do it a different way. Your guests, your stomach and your wallet may thank you. If you’re struggling for inspiration, cast your eyes abroad: eastern Europeans are partial to a bit of fish at Christmas, while Germans are more likely to sit down to a nice side of beef. In the US, beef or goose is the favoured option, or you could go Antipodean and opt for a Christmas BBQ, Aussie style. The choice is yours. Avoid the Christmas TV arguments “Polite” disagreements about what to watch are all part of the Christmas fun, right? Wrong. With Freeview Play you can scroll back through the TV guide…2 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016The fast showJames May: the Christmas Reassembler Wednesday 28 December 9.00pmBBC4 James May is, to use his own word, knackered. “It never occurred to me that I would become old,” says the former Top Gear star, who turns 54 in January. “I just never imagined it. And yet here I am, suddenly a bit ancient. I like to think of myself as being 12, but I’ve got frizzy grey hair and a baggy face. I’m old. How long have I got left? 30 years? I’m going to assume it’s ten.” He says all this as he carefully packs into a large shoebox a toy train that was given to him as a Christmas present when he was nine years old. He admits that his old toy makes him feel sentimental, no more…6 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Where’s Mum?Life in the Snow Thursday 29 December 8.00pmBBC1 Everyone loves a polar bear, but you’ve been closer than most of us… They’re such majestic creatures and they’re perfectly evolved for cold weather. Under their skin they have up to 11cm of fat – that’s four inches – which is a brilliant layer of insulation. In fact, they often roll around in the snow to cool down. You spent weeks on Arctic Live. What’s the worst thing about filming in the cold? The cold! It’s very hard to get warm once you are cold. My mission is to venture out when I’m warm and try to stay warm for the rest of the day. What’s the coldest you’ve been? Weirdly, the closest I’ve got to hypothermia was after falling asleep on…2 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016WEDNESDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAYSix Wives with Lucy Worsley9.00pm BBC1(Wales 10.40pm, Scotland 11.40pm)HISTORY Poor Anne of Cleves, she’s little more than an unfortunate footnote in Henry VIII’s hideous marital odyssey. He rejected her outright, and couldn’t perform to his full potential on their wedding night. But she had a lucky escape and secured a huge settlement.In the final episode of Lucy Worsley’s jaunt through the wildly diverse experiences of the six wives, using dramatic reconstructions, we learn that Henry, two weeks after his marriage to Anne of Cleves is annulled, marries the very young Catherine Howard.Aged 49, he’s an old goat, while she’s just a teenager, so by current sexual mores it’s a grotesquely unsuitable union. In her role as mute maid, Worsley observes as Catherine confesses to adultery, is convicted…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016‘We only buy presents that cost £10’I LOVE CHRISTMAS,” says Carey Mulligan, Hollywood star, social campaigner and, she reveals, ex-choir girl of St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Buckinghamshire. “It’s my favourite day of the year. When I’m back at home with my parents I love going to church on Christmas morning for the children’s mass – it’s very sweet. It’s the same church I’ve been going to since I was seven – I sang in the choir at Midnight mass.” Mulligan is married to Marcus Mumford, of Mumford and Sons, and they have a one-yearold daughter, Evelyn. As well as her family in Buckinghamshire, the couple have homes in California and Devon. Where will they spend Christmas? “We’ve not quite figured out where we will be yet. There are so many wings to the family…4 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016A helping handThe days leading up to Christmas can be both joyful and stressful. We try to be with friends, family and colleagues, to buy gifts and make arrangements – and somehow to relax when there is still work to be done. Most people who want to make sense of Christmas have some kind of routine. Clergy households are no different. And in many churches today clergy and lay people share in making lunch for those alone, and give generously of their time. But what can be a full time for some, can equally be an empty time for others: particularly those who have no work, or no home; or perhaps no one to love them. ‘I, Daniel Blake could be a documentary’ St Martin-in-the-Fields, in London’s Trafalgar Square, is known as…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Boxing DayPICK OF THE DAYThe Witness for the Prosecution9.00pmBBC1DRAMA Thwarted, down-at-heel solicitor Mr Mayhew (Toby Jones) touts for business in the grim cells of a London police station in 1923. He finds a young man, Leonard Vole, who’s loudly protesting his innocence after being charged with the murder of his wealthy society mistress, Emily French (Kim Cattrall).We glimpse the kinky nature of their relationship as Sarah Phelps’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s short story begins — Emily pays Vole £5 to watch him bathe and to perform other, ahem, tasks.But Emily ends up dead, her head stoved in, discovered by her devoted maid Janet (Monica Dolan), who points the finger at Vole (Billy Howle).It’s a dour story of greed and wounded souls and, let’s be frank, it’s not going to make your…6 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016THURSDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAYTo Walk Invisible9.00pmBBC1DRAMA If you’ve reached that stage in your Christmas holidays when you’re growing weary of sharing bonhomie with your nearest and dearest, just think, it could be worse, you could be a Brontë sister.You could be poor Charlotte, Emily or Anne, stuck in a freezing, grim parsonage way up on a howling Yorkshire moor, watching your ailing dad lose his faculties while your drunk brother coughs up blood. All of those enforced games of Trivial Pursuit don’t seem so bad now, do they?Sally Wainwright’s harrowing dramatisation of life in Haworth for three women who write like angels but who, it seems, are destined to see out their days serving their menfolk or being governesses is the perfect Christmas corrective.Finn Atkins, Chloe Pirrie and Charlie Murphy…6 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016A feast for the earsIN THE WORDS of Garrison Keillor, the loveliest thing about Christmas is: “It’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.” So gather round your radio this season for the most splendiferous output for many a year.Drama lovers will be intoxicated by the variety on offer. Neil Gaiman’s Stardust (Sat 18 Dec 2.30pm and Sun 19 Dec 3pm Radio 4) is a magical, romantic fantasy adventure and marks singer Tori Amos’s radio debut as an actress, albeit playing a tree. And, unlike the 2007 movie, the ending has not been changed for schmaltzy effect. Jane Austen’s funniest novel, Northanger Abbey (Mon 19–Fri 30 Dec 10.45am/7.45pm Radio 4), is worth the ten-part commitment, with her most overtly feminist character, Catherine Morland, displaying a feisty resonance with contemporary women.…4 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Discover TVWE THREE BLOKES 1 The Grand Tour Amazon Prime (new episode every Friday) It’s hard to believe they ever confined themselves to the Beeb. Clarkson, Hammond and May are having even more fun now their budget is infinite and the world is their test track. Festive antics include a trip to the Arctic for their Happy Finnish Christmas, and the sort of stunt they used to pull in their old year-end specials: riding dune buggies across Namibia. NEW SEASON 2 The Man in the High Castle Amazon Prime America is run by Nazis… This dark, classy drama is based on the Philip K Dick book and set in a world where the Allies have lost the Second World War and the USA is split between Germany and Japan. In the…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016SUNDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAY The Apprentice 9.00pmBBC1 REALITY This has been a surreal season of The Apprentice. Not surreal in the sporting sense of “amazing” but in the sense of — well, a task that involved an intergalactic badger with a quiff, for instance, or the one where Dillon sang along with a pair of mermaids. Or there was Lord Sugar comparing Karthik to a trap door in a canoe. The teams haven’t yet been given lobster telephones, but it wouldn’t feel like a stretch. In the midst of all that, we’ve seen plausible products. I’d give the gin brand Courtney came up with called “Giin” a try, for instance, though the one called “Colony” with a map of Africa on the label was less tempting. In any case, all…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016WEDNESDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAY Six Wives with Lucy Worsley 9.00pm BBC1(Wales 10.40pm, Scotland 11.40pm) HISTORY Poor Anne of Cleves, she’s little more than an unfortunate footnote in Henry VIII’s hideous marital odyssey. He rejected her outright, and couldn’t perform to his full potential on their wedding night. But she had a lucky escape and secured a huge settlement. In the final episode of Lucy Worsley’s jaunt through the wildly diverse experiences of the six wives, using dramatic reconstructions, we learn that Henry, two weeks after his marriage to Anne of Cleves is annulled, marries the very young Catherine Howard. Aged 49, he’s an old goat, while she’s just a teenager, so by current sexual mores it’s a grotesquely unsuitable union. In her role as mute maid, Worsley observes as Catherine…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Prize CrosswordEnter online radiotimes.com/xmascrosswordPRIZE CLUESACROSS11 Frosty, maybe, behind awful hairy creature (10,7)12 Skimpy undergarment as festive toy! (5)14 Understand why pronoun is so long (3,3)15 Tall amateur, initially not kept inside (5)16 European PM first to Santa’s home? (5,4)17 Candid sound heard (8)19 Tree adornment quite lacking length (5)21 Time rotten stinker got cheap gifts (8)23 TV series seen at Christmas? (7)24 Small implement to notice in a fight (7)26 Girl taken in by spiritual break (7)30 Fix girl swallowing drink, mixed drink (4,6)32 Instrument with half packaging removed? (5)33 Batsman needed by barman (6)34 Poor dying hen, with program in, results in good conclusion (5,6)36 Get ready for cads to go over deck (4,2,5)39 Way to get spruce, say, set in stone (6)41 Aurally rein in language (5)42 Penny in…10 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Christmas DayPICK OF THE DAY Doctor Who 5.45pmBBC1 DRAMA Think Doctor Who Meets Superman or rather the Doctor creates a superman. Writer Steven Moffat tells RT: “It’s about a little boy who is accidentally given superpowers and happens to be a comics fan, so he decides he should be a superhero in his adult years.” Thus dorky Grant Gordon becomes a cloaked avenger, the Ghost, but in the fine tradition of all superheroes has to keep his identity a secret. Justin Chatwin (star of the US version of Shameless) plays Grant/Ghost, while Charity Wakefield is Lucy, the Lois Lane in his life, caught up in what Moffat calls “a love triangle for two”. It’s set in modern New York (a backlot in Bulgaria and loads of CGI). There’s a Lex…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016WEDNESDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAY James May: the Christmas Reassembler 9.00pmBBC4 DOCUMENTARY This is the series — the lovely, funny, philosophical series — where James May simply puts things together. The kind of preoccupations he gets mocked for by Jeremy Clarkson elsewhere, he gets to indulge to the max here: poring over tiny screwdrivers, explaining the joys of a “re-magnetiser”, and so on. Even if you’re not mechanically minded, it makes irresistible TV. His project this time is to rebuild the electric train he was given as a Christmas present in 1972: a Triang Hornby Flying Scotsman. Once toy train sets made a million children happy, but now they are the preserve of “nostalgic, sad and disappointed old men”, he points out, before adding, “I’ve got hundreds.” As he assembles…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016FRIDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAY Delicious 9.00pmSky1 DRAMA New series Celebrity chef Leo (Iain Glen) has it all — a beautiful wife, Sam (Emilia Fox), a thriving hotel business and a passion for food. But he can’t keep away from his ex-wife, Gina (Dawn French), and the two are having food-fuelled sex in the secluded cabin where he first betrayed his vows. Whether he loves Gina or her incredible cooking (he built his reputation on recipes “stolen” from her) isn’t immediately obvious. But the truly tasty and intriguing thing about this drama is its sudden change of direction at the end of this first instalment. (I won’t say what, but the clues are there.) Set in Cornwall, it looks beautiful as well, and I’m not just talking about the chiselled…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016A feast for the earsIN THE WORDS of Garrison Keillor, the loveliest thing about Christmas is: “It’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.” So gather round your radio this season for the most splendiferous output for many a year. Drama lovers will be intoxicated by the variety on offer. Neil Gaiman’s Stardust (Sat 18 Dec 2.30pm and Sun 19 Dec 3pm Radio 4) is a magical, romantic fantasy adventure and marks singer Tori Amos’s radio debut as an actress, albeit playing a tree. And, unlike the 2007 movie, the ending has not been changed for schmaltzy effect. Jane Austen’s funniest novel, Northanger Abbey (Mon 19–Fri 30 Dec 10.45am/7.45pm Radio 4), is worth the ten-part commitment, with her most overtly feminist character, Catherine Morland, displaying a feisty resonance with contemporary…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016EDDIE MAIR’S 2016HELLO, AND HAPPY Whatever You’re Celebrating, Or Not As The Case May Be. Before you ask, my vagueness is not due to me being fingered by the PC police in their apparently never-ending assault on Christmas. It’s just that I can’t be sure when you’ll be reading this. Christmas-time? Closer to New Year? Or perhaps it’s mid-February and you’re one of my relatives clearing my house after my untimely death and you’ve discovered this excellent magazine underneath my subscription copy of Playboy, which has tucked inside it my subscription copy of Trump magazine. It may be unseemly to talk about my own death but 2016 robbed us of so many broadcasters it’s been a nerve-racking year for everyone who spits into a microphone for a living. I had Tony Blackburn…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Prize CrosswordEnter online radiotimes.com/xmascrossword PRIZE CLUES ACROSS 11 Frosty, maybe, behind awful hairy creature (10,7) 12 Skimpy undergarment as festive toy! (5) 14 Understand why pronoun is so long (3,3) 15 Tall amateur, initially not kept inside (5) 16 European PM first to Santa’s home? (5,4) 17 Candid sound heard (8) 19 Tree adornment quite lacking length (5) 21 Time rotten stinker got cheap gifts (8) 23 TV series seen at Christmas? (7) 24 Small implement to notice in a fight (7) 26 Girl taken in by spiritual break (7) 30 Fix girl swallowing drink, mixed drink (4,6) 32 Instrument with half packaging removed? (5) 33 Batsman needed by barman (6) 34 Poor dying hen, with program in, results in good conclusion (5,6) 36 Get ready for cads to go over…8 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Theresa MayWhat will you be doing on Christmas Day, Prime Minister? What I’ve been doing for the last nearly 20 years. A quick drink with friends in our village and then the churches in my Maidenhead constituency come together to put on a lunch and entertainment for older people who would otherwise be on their own. I have a drink and chat with them then go home and serve up my own meal. Do you get somebody to cook Christmas dinner for you? No! I always like to cook the Christmas meal myself. But it won’t be turkey. For a few years now we have tended to have goose instead. There’s a tremendous amount of fat on a goose… There is, but if you keep the fat, it makes wonderful roast…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Knock, knock...The Great Christmas Bake Off Christmas Day 4.45pm, Boxing Day 7pm BBC1One of Mel Giedroyc’s favourite Christmas rituals is a game of guess the punchline. “Everyone around the table has to read out their cracker joke and I get massively annoyed if someone gets there before me,” says the Bake Off host. “I’m very competitive about puns.”Her pun partner is, of course, Sue Perkins. Although the pair are taking a break from cooking up baking jokes – after quitting Bake Off – they remain in each other’s pockets off screen.“Sue is always phenomenally generous with her Christmas presents, but late,” says Mel. “I’m 48 and I’m still waiting for my 40th birthday present.”Always rigorous about her festive rituals, Mel begins, of course, by making a Christmas cake: “It’s a Mary…1 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Where to, Doc?Doctor WhoChristmas Day 5.45pmBBC11 New York, 1920SI’d go back to the Jazz Age to witness the city being built. To see the early skyscrapers going up would be amazing. I’ve been to (modern) New York many times and the energy of the city is addictive, as is the sense that anything is possible. We’ve all seen it in movies since we were kids. It’s so familiar that it feels like going home.2 Venice, any timeThis year, on the eve of my birthday, my wife took me to dinner. After we’d eaten, she gave me an envelope. It contained two air tickets to Venice. And the next day, there we both were. Venice feels mythological – somehow appearing from the mist, then vanishing again. So if I had a Tardis, I’d…5 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Made in YorkshireTo Walk InvisibleThursday 29 December 9.00pmBBC1I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know who the Brontës were. I grew up in Sowerby Bridge, about eight miles from Haworth, so they were part of our local history. I visited the Parsonage dozens and dozens of times and was very familiar with the story of the Brontë family. Later, I came to the books; I think I’ve read all of them now, but it was reading Wuthering Heights when I was about 14, possibly earlier, that really pulled me in. I was blown away by how it’s so unlike anything you think women would be writing at that time. It’s so down-to-earth, it talks about the coarseness of real life, and that’s something that appeals enormously to me as a writer.I’ve…5 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016The people’s championStrictly Come Dancing: the FinalSaturday 17 December 6.40pmBBC1WHO WOULD HAVE thought you and I would be doing this!” says the former shadow Chancellor. Almost all of our previous encounters, which were usually not face-to-face, had been live on a news and current affairs programme: me verbally dissecting the minutiae of Labour Party economic policy; him vigorously attacking any perceived slight. Now, thanks to his eye-popping run on Strictly Come Dancing, we’ve gone from “Can you pass a law?” to “Can you paso doble?”One of his sons had opened the family front door to me: through the back in the kitchen, Ed and his wife, the Labour MP Yvette Cooper, were brewing coffee. It was here – between the washing machine and the ironing board – that he practised his last…4 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Shirley and meDavid Walliams Celebrates Dame ShirleyBassey Christmas Eve 9.00pmBBC1Only Santa’s elves have been working harder than David Walliams this Christmas. He will be appearing in an astonishing four Christmas specials in the next two weeks: starring opposite Hugh Bonneville in a festive edition of Walliams & Friend; hosting a special Blankety Blank; providing voices for Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes; and presenting a tribute to his friend Shirley Bassey. All of which he has taken in his stride while also promoting his latest children’s novel, The Midnight Gang; overseeing a touring stage adaptation of a previous book, The First Hippo on the Moon; and finally, early next year, he’ll be the first host of ITV’s new weeknight entertainment programme, The Nightly Show. Phew.In David Walliams Celebrates Dame Shirley Bassey he marks the…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016‘I’d touch Margot’s finger for luck’MARGOT FONTEYNMy childhood heroFonteyn was our first proper British ballerina and from the moment I started dancing, her image engulfed me. In my first year at the Royal Ballet School, Margot’s statue was outside my dormitory. Like generations of budding ballet dancers before me, I used to touch her middle finger for luck.When I was 20, rehearsing my first Swan Lake, she suddenly walked into my rehearsal room and I was told she’d be coaching me for a couple of days. I had no idea she was coming. I was in complete shock! I was very young to be taking on such a big classic and I’d learnt the steps really quickly, so all I was worried about was getting through it stamina-wise and technically achieving all the moves. But…6 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016The fast showJames May: the Christmas ReassemblerWednesday 28 December 9.00pmBBC4James May is, to use his own word, knackered. “It never occurred to me that I would become old,” says the former Top Gear star, who turns 54 in January. “I just never imagined it. And yet here I am, suddenly a bit ancient. I like to think of myself as being 12, but I’ve got frizzy grey hair and a baggy face. I’m old. How long have I got left? 30 years? I’m going to assume it’s ten.”He says all this as he carefully packs into a large shoebox a toy train that was given to him as a Christmas present when he was nine years old. He admits that his old toy makes him feel sentimental, no more so than when…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016What is Christmas?Cunk on ChristmasThur 29 December 10pmBBC2 (11pm N Ireland)Christmas is the most magical time of year. It’s more magical than Derren Brown and Dynamo playing Quidditch in Las Vegas in a giant top hat. But what is Christmas?The dictionary says it’s “an annual Christian festival celebrated on December 25th”. But that isn’t “what is Christmas?”. It’s “when is Christmas?”. Dictionaries are useless. Which is why no one gets one for Christmas. They get useful things like novelty slippers and Turkish Delights.Christmas, when we traditionally sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus, is the second-most important occasion in the Christian calendar. The top Christian festival is actually the other one, Easter, when we sing goodbye to Jesus. Both festivals are pretty chocolatey, but Christmas has nuts in it as well. So it’s scientifically…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016‘We only buy presents that cost £10’I LOVE CHRISTMAS,” says Carey Mulligan, Hollywood star, social campaigner and, she reveals, ex-choir girl of St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Buckinghamshire. “It’s my favourite day of the year. When I’m back at home with my parents I love going to church on Christmas morning for the children’s mass – it’s very sweet. It’s the same church I’ve been going to since I was seven – I sang in the choir at Midnight mass.”Mulligan is married to Marcus Mumford, of Mumford and Sons, and they have a one-yearold daughter, Evelyn. As well as her family in Buckinghamshire, the couple have homes in California and Devon. Where will they spend Christmas? “We’ve not quite figured out where we will be yet. There are so many wings to the family –…4 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016‘I don’t want to be an old git’If you didn’t know which house was Alan Bennett’s, you might well guess: painted green and brown, with a scruffier air than those nearby, it has a bicycle chained to its railings. All appears timeless and calm in this part of north London. Bennett, now 82, opens the front door and is exactly as you’d hope: friendly but diffident, no entourage, just him. He leads the way down narrow stairs to the kitchen: “We’re down here, I think,” he says. Down here, there’s a tick-tock clock, neat cooking area and a wooden table covered with an open newspaper (The Guardian) and sheaves of writing, Bennett’s fountain-penned scrawl scampering across A4 pages. He writes every day, even if it’s just to answer his many fan letters. Bennett offers me the armchair,…6 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Up, up - and underOutnumbered Boxing Day 10.00pmBBC1 Daniel Roche, 17 (top) He’s played Ben since age eight “Sometimes I’ll catch my parents watching Outnumbered and say, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I haven’t really done any acting since. I’m playing rugby semi-professionally with Wasps Academy and it’s hard to juggle the two. Rugby gets priority. “Family’s a big thing for me, so hopefully my eldest brother will come home from Norway for Christmas with his girlfriend, my other brother will come over for the day, and we’ll be able to spend lots of time together. Everything’s pretty traditional in our house – my mum starts buying mince pies at the beginning of November!” Ramona Marquez, 15 First played Karen aged six “I’m doing my GCSEs, so that’s taken priority over acting, which I’d like…2 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Shining starsEastEnders creates stars at Christmas: think Den handing Angie those divorce papers, Arthur Fowler’s breakdown or Max’s affair wi th Stacey revealed to the Brannings. This year, it’s a chance for the younger generation to shine as Shona McGarty and Danny-Boy Hatchard take their turn in the spotlight. Their moving plotline has already seen EastEnders return to its roots with a slowburning story that has been pitched perfectly by both actors. For those wanting an alternative to soap whodunnits and infidelity melodramas, the strained marriage of Lee and Whitney Carter has provided the answer. Now the pair look set to play out a bleak but compelling story as Lee buckles under the pressure of spiralling debts and depression, while Whitney remains blind to her husband’s emotional torment. “Over Christmas, it…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016My Christmas callingMY HEART GOES out to Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë in Sally Wainwright’s sombre biographical drama To Walk Invisible (Thu 29 Dec BBC1), a particularly thoughtful cornerstone of this year’s Christmas schedules.Life in the Parsonage in the little town of Haworth, high up on the Yorkshire moors, is bleak and hard. The women must look after their ailing dad Patrick and wayward, alcoholic, indulged brother Branwell while writing furiously as they fulfil their brilliantly luminous destinies.Everyone cooped up, cocooned in their own little blankets of misery and, oh, this hardly bears thinking about… no telly! Life surely would be so much better if they could only cuddle up on the sofa to watch Ed Balls throwing a grown woman around a dance floor in Strictly.In one scene Emily (Chloe Pirrie)…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Escape into three very different worlds…WestworldNowTV, Sky Catch Up TVIn 1973, Michael Crichton unholstered a thriller about a robot-populated western theme park that goes wrong. It had a pulpy charm and Yul Brynner’s man in black was an instant icon — but the tech wasn’t there, in the real world or for the effects, to back it up. Now, however, with artificial intelligence, 3D printing and CGI, having humans interacting with androids is a nightmarish plausibility.This ten-part series from HBO is an intelligent, multilayered show that boasts big names, stunning locations and shootouts that would make Peckinpah blush (this is very strong meat at times).Anthony Hopkins, no less, plays the modern Prometheus, who hides a wealth of secrets, Ed Harris is the sad*stic guest who keeps returning to the park to uncover them, and Thandie…2 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016SUNDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAYThe Apprentice9.00pmBBC1REALITY This has been a surreal season of The Apprentice. Not surreal in the sporting sense of “amazing” but in the sense of — well, a task that involved an intergalactic badger with a quiff, for instance, or the one where Dillon sang along with a pair of mermaids.Or there was Lord Sugar comparing Karthik to a trap door in a canoe. The teams haven’t yet been given lobster telephones, but it wouldn’t feel like a stretch.In the midst of all that, we’ve seen plausible products. I’d give the gin brand Courtney came up with called “Giin” a try, for instance, though the one called “Colony” with a map of Africa on the label was less tempting.In any case, all that make-believe branding is over now,…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016TUESDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAYInside the Christmas Factory9.00pmBBC2DOCUMENTARYInside the Factory won my prize for Unexpectedly Not Awful TV of 2016. Gregg Wallace bellowing his enthusiasm over the roar of industrial machinery might not sound like a treat, but something in the format clicked and there’s well-I-never-ish nourishment in every programme.For this extra helping, Wallace visits the assembly line in Yorkshire where Mr Kipling makes — and pause here for a moment to ponder the scale of it — 2,000 mince pies a minute. That’s a lot of mincemeat — about 200 bathtubs’ worth a day. And once Mr K has made it, he leaves it for two days to “mature” like a fine wine.Wallace is in his element, going all Generation Game to have a go at mixing pastry or rolling…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016My kind of ChristmasSports Personality of the Year Sunday 18 December 6.40pmBBC1 As if winning gold and silver in the triathlon at the Rio Olympics last summer wasn’t enough to secure the Brownlees a place in the nation’s heart, a month later they went on to melt it with a display of brotherly love that had the Prime Minister, Theresa May, hailing them as national icons. When Alistair dragged his ailing younger brother Jonny across the finish line at the final of the World Series in Mexico, the video went global, prompting an outpouring of praise. ‘I didn’t know if I’d done the right thing’ ALI STAIR Now the brothers are back in Yorkshire, sitting by the fire in their festive jumpers decorating the tree with their medals as they tell RT all…4 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Christmas DayPICK OF THE DAYDoctor Who5.45pmBBC1DRAMA Think Doctor Who Meets Superman or rather the Doctor creates a superman. Writer Steven Moffat tells RT: “It’s about a little boy who is accidentally given superpowers and happens to be a comics fan, so he decides he should be a superhero in his adult years.” Thus dorky Grant Gordon becomes a cloaked avenger, the Ghost, but in the fine tradition of all superheroes has to keep his identity a secret.Justin Chatwin (star of the US version of Shameless) plays Grant/Ghost, while Charity Wakefield is Lucy, the Lois Lane in his life, caught up in what Moffat calls “a love triangle for two”. It’s set in modern New York (a backlot in Bulgaria and loads of CGI). There’s a Lex Luthor-style villain and of course…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016The BIG picture quizSpot all 50 and you could win a Sony 4K 55in Ultra HD TV, a Blu-ray home entertainment system and these titles on Blu-ray: Outlander Collection: Seasons 1—2 box set; House of Cards: the Complete Four Seasons box set; Ghostbusters; and The Night Manager box set, including John le Carré’s book, plus Teletubbies Tubby Snowball on DVD. To enter find the 50 titles or events represented in the picture and send your list, along with your name, address and telephone number, to: Christmas 2016 Picture Quiz, PO Box 201, Leicester LE94 0AA; or you can enter online by visiting radiotimes.com/picturequiz Promoter is Immediate Media Co London Ltd. Closing date is 12 noon on Fri 13 Jan 2017. Entrants must be UK residents aged 16 or over. For full terms and…1 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016WEDNESDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAYJames May: the Christmas Reassembler9.00pmBBC4DOCUMENTARY This is the series — the lovely, funny, philosophical series — where James May simply puts things together. The kind of preoccupations he gets mocked for by Jeremy Clarkson elsewhere, he gets to indulge to the max here: poring over tiny screwdrivers, explaining the joys of a “re-magnetiser”, and so on.Even if you’re not mechanically minded, it makes irresistible TV. His project this time is to rebuild the electric train he was given as a Christmas present in 1972: a Triang Hornby Flying Scotsman. Once toy train sets made a million children happy, but now they are the preserve of “nostalgic, sad and disappointed old men”, he points out, before adding, “I’ve got hundreds.”As he assembles tiny bits and pieces in his…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016FRIDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAYDelicious9.00pmSky1DRAMA New seriesCelebrity chef Leo (Iain Glen) has it all — a beautiful wife, Sam (Emilia Fox), a thriving hotel business and a passion for food. But he can’t keep away from his ex-wife, Gina (Dawn French), and the two are having food-fuelled sex in the secluded cabin where he first betrayed his vows.Whether he loves Gina or her incredible cooking (he built his reputation on recipes “stolen” from her) isn’t immediately obvious. But the truly tasty and intriguing thing about this drama is its sudden change of direction at the end of this first instalment. (I won’t say what, but the clues are there.)Set in Cornwall, it looks beautiful as well, and I’m not just talking about the chiselled torso of son Michael (Ruairi O’Connor), who…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016EDDIE MAIR’S 2016HELLO, AND HAPPY Whatever You’re Celebrating, Or Not As The Case May Be.Before you ask, my vagueness is not due to me being fingered by the PC police in their apparently never-ending assault on Christmas. It’s just that I can’t be sure when you’ll be reading this. Christmas-time? Closer to New Year? Or perhaps it’s mid-February and you’re one of my relatives clearing my house after my untimely death and you’ve discovered this excellent magazine underneath my subscription copy of Playboy, which has tucked inside it my subscription copy of Trump magazine.It may be unseemly to talk about my own death but 2016 robbed us of so many broadcasters it’s been a nerve-racking year for everyone who spits into a microphone for a living. I had Tony Blackburn on the…3 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Escape into three very different worlds…WestworldNowTV, Sky Catch Up TV In 1973, Michael Crichton unholstered a thriller about a robot-populated western theme park that goes wrong. It had a pulpy charm and Yul Brynner’s man in black was an instant icon — but the tech wasn’t there, in the real world or for the effects, to back it up. Now, however, with artificial intelligence, 3D printing and CGI, having humans interacting with androids is a nightmarish plausibility. This ten-part series from HBO is an intelligent, multilayered show that boasts big names, stunning locations and shootouts that would make Peckinpah blush (this is very strong meat at times). Anthony Hopkins, no less, plays the modern Prometheus, who hides a wealth of secrets, Ed Harris is the sad*stic guest who keeps returning to the park to uncover…2 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016MONDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAY Last Tango in Halifax 9.00pmBBC1 DRAMA Life is moving on for Caroline (Sarah Lancashire) as Sally Wainwright’s warm but spiky family drama hangs up the decorations for a two-part Christmas special. Caroline wants to “put something back” into society, so she’s taken a post as head teacher of a tough school in Huddersfield. Her mum, Celia, a copper-bottomed snob, is appalled, even after she’s been assured that Caroline isn’t moving “down South” (the ultimate betrayal). But, wails Celia (Anne Reid), “It’s a state school!” Caroline, Celia and Alan’s new home is a damp and draughty farmhouse, infested with mice. Her kids are furious and Caroline feels got-at, so she has a revealing heart-to-heart with her new best pal, Alan’s daughter Gillian (Nicola Walker). I like these…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016THURSDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAY The Cook Who Changed Our Lives 6.30pmBBC2 FOOD Fronted by Nigella Lawson, this documentary is actually about a 91-year-old Italian called Anna Del Conte. Nigella is Anna’s number one fan and fervently believes anyone who claims to know their focaccia from their fusilli should be in possession of her cookery books. When Anna came to England as a young woman in 1949, olive oil was something Brits bought at the chemist’s if they had a dicky ear. By the 70s, she’d had enough of our macaroni cheese and spag bol (which aren’t Italian dishes at all) and started writing, inspiring a culinary revolution in her readers’ kitchens. As well as tributes from other TV acolytes and some lovely recipes, there’s a sprinkling of archive footage,…6 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Christmas EvePICK OF THE DAY Grantchester 9.00pmITV DRAMA Let’s all take a trip back to 1954 Cambridge. It’s the week before Christmas and our handsome vicar is rehearsing the church’s Nativity play. His pal the police inspector is shopping for toys with his children. Snow is falling. All is well with the world. For about three minutes. Because, as we’ve come to expect, this drama guides us to a kinder, gentler age that proves to be nothing of the sort. You get the feeling Grantchester would put gravel in our mince pies and a mousetrap in every stocking if it could convince us the world is a dark and lonely place. Poor whisky-sodden Sidney can do nothing to save pregnant Amanda from the wrath of her horrid father (a great turn…7 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016Boxing DayPICK OF THE DAY The Witness for the Prosecution 9.00pm BBC1 DRAMA Thwarted, down-at-heel solicitor Mr Mayhew (Toby Jones) touts for business in the grim cells of a London police station in 1923. He finds a young man, Leonard Vole, who’s loudly protesting his innocence after being charged with the murder of his wealthy society mistress, Emily French (Kim Cattrall). We glimpse the kinky nature of their relationship as Sarah Phelps’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s short story begins — Emily pays Vole £5 to watch him bathe and to perform other, ahem, tasks. But Emily ends up dead, her head stoved in, discovered by her devoted maid Janet (Monica Dolan), who points the finger at Vole (Billy Howle). It’s a dour story of greed and wounded souls and, let’s be…6 min
Radio Times|Week 51/52 - 2016THURSDAY ChoicesPICK OF THE DAY To Walk Invisible 9.00pmBBC1 DRAMA If you’ve reached that stage in your Christmas holidays when you’re growing weary of sharing bonhomie with your nearest and dearest, just think, it could be worse, you could be a Brontë sister. You could be poor Charlotte, Emily or Anne, stuck in a freezing, grim parsonage way up on a howling Yorkshire moor, watching your ailing dad lose his faculties while your drunk brother coughs up blood. All of those enforced games of Trivial Pursuit don’t seem so bad now, do they? Sally Wainwright’s harrowing dramatisation of life in Haworth for three women who write like angels but who, it seems, are destined to see out their days serving their menfolk or being governesses is the perfect Christmas corrective.…6 min
