Suck in your belly and fasten your seatbelt for The Grand Tour Presents: Carnage & Trois (Amazon Prime). Clarkson, Hammond and May rattle around the Welsh hills in vintage Citroens and Renaults, mocking France’s history in Insp Clouseau-style accents.
If it’s more traditional, tinsel-bedecked light entertainment you seek, The Weakest Link (BBC1, 6.10pm) should ring your bell. Romesh Ranganathan presides over a Strictly Come Dancing special, which leads neatly into Strictly Come Dancing: The Final (BBC1, 7pm).
Christmas or not, there are plenty of repeats, but The Galaxy Britain Built (BBC4, 10.40pm) is well worth a look if you haven’t seen it before, especially for Star Wars fans.
SUNDAY 19
The Girl Before (BBC1, 9pm), a four-parter unspooling over consecutive nights, is yet another psychological thriller featuring two timelines.
Antiques Roadshow (BBC NI, 7pm; other regions, 5.45pm) traces the fate of various nostalgic items after the cameras stopped rolling. One is a letter from JRR Tolkien to a then 14-year-old Lord of the Rings fan, who promised he’d never sell it. Did he keep it?
In recent years The Royal Variety Performance (Virgin Media 1, 9pm; UTV/ITV, 7.20pm) appears to have a new cachet. The impressive line-up includes comedy from Bill Bailey, Josh Widdicombe, Rod Stewart, Elvis Costello and Olly Alexander.
If none of these melt your marshmallows, there’s always Only Murders in the Building (Star on Disney+), which is one of the word-of-mouth hits of 2021 and a lot of fun. Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez are true-crime podcast obsessives turned sleuths.
Video of the Day
MONDAY 20
The next time you moan about Christmas telly, stop and think about what people had to put up with in decades gone by. In What We Were Watching at Christmas (BBC4, 8pm). Grace Dent drags us back to 1991, when the old guard like Bruce Forsyth and Noel Edmonds still largely ruled the festive schedules.
Rob Brydon is back behind the desk of the always entertaining Would I Lie to You? (BBC1, 8.30pm). Comedy prevails tonight with a festive episode of Scottish sitcom Two Doors Down (BBC2 NI, 10.30pm; other regions 9.30pm) and the one-off We Wish You a Mandy Christmas (BBC2 NI, 11.30pm; other regions, 10.30pm), starring Diane Morgan as the selfish sloth.
That tangled string of tree lights driving you nuts? See how the pros do it in Deck the Halls: The Luxury Christmas Decorators (Channel 4, 10pm).
TUESDAY 21
The wonderful vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows (BBC2, 11.10pm) bows out for now with a triple bill.
Impeachment: American Crime Story (BBC2, 10pm) wraps up, with Linda Tripp (Sarah Paulson) realising too late she’s been cast as the big villain of the piece.
There’s a chance to see Irish animation Sol (TG4, 6.25pm). It deals with grief through the story of an eight-year-old.
WEDNESDAY 22
Documentary maker Alex Fegan’s The Toy Shop (RTÉ1, 9.30pm) looks at the bond between 16 independent shops and their customers. There are more toys in Inside the Christmas Factory (BBC2, 9pm).
Jason Manford is uncharacteristically edgy in Live at the Apollo (BBC1 NI, 11.10pm; other regions, 10pm).
At some point everyone has been given a present they didn’t want. Here’s a second season of the woeful Emily in Paris (Netflix).
THURSDAY 23
A cracker (sorry) of a day for comedy. Giving new meaning to the term ‘the spirit of Christmas’ is Ghosts (BBC1, 8.30pm). David Walliams mucks around with the Brothers Grimm with Hansel and Gretel: After Ever After (Sky Max, 8pm), starring Sheridan Smith as the witch.
The first episode of Not Going Out (BBC1, 10pm) made since Bobby Ball’s death features the panto-hating Lee (Lee Mack) winding up on stage as Buttons in Cinderella.
After last year’s after-hours romp around Hamley’s toy store, One Night in . . . (Channel 4, 9pm) lets Josh Widdicombe, Aisling Bea and Alex Brooker loose in the locked-up Natural History Museum.
CHRISTMAS EVE
One of MR James’s creepiest tales gets the Mark Gatiss treatment in A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Mezzotint (BBC2, 10.30pm). Gatiss is also the creative hand behind the enchanting The Amazing Mr Blunden (Sky Max, 7pm), a remake of the 1972 Lionel Jeffries film. Also for the child in all of us is the hilarious Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas (BBC1, 6pm).
Nostalgia-fest The Way We Were at Christmas (RTÉ1, 9.25pm) recalls the days when Irish Christmas dinner (served at lunchtime, of course) was accompanied by a bottle of Blue Nun or Black Tower.
You’d need a heart of ice to resist The Repair Shop at Christmas (BBC1, 7pm). Treasured toys, long broken but never forgotten, are restored.
And what would Christmas Eve be without the annual repeat of the Father Ted Christmas Special (RTÉ2, 9.45pm)?
CHRISTMAS DAY
Without wishing to spoil the Christmas mood, what business has a 14-year-old episode of the wretched Killinaskully (RTÉ1, 8.20pm) got in a prime time slot on Christmas Day? Virgin Media 1, meanwhile, might as well rebrand itself ITV5 for the festive season, for all the difference it makes. Once again, it’s TG4 that provides the day’s homegrown highlight. Brian Reddin’s documentary, Peter O’Toole: Réalta & Rógaire (TG4, 9.35pm), looks at the life and career of the mesmerising star.
BBC1, which always wins the Christmas Day ratings battle in the UK, offers the same schedule as last year and the year before: Strictly Come Dancing (5.10pm), Michael McIntyre’s The Wheel (6.25pm); Blankety Blank (7.25pm); Call the Midwife (8pm), EastEnders (9.35pm – showing simultaneously on RTÉ2) and Mrs Brown’s Boys (10.20pm), which RTÉ1 airs earlier at 9.35pm.
All the other UK channels offer by way of resistance are The Larkins at Christmas (UTV/ITV, 9pm) – a feature-length episode of the abysmal Darling Buds of May remake – and The Great Christmas Bake Off (Channel 4, 8pm). Still, there’s always the timeless magic of The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show (BBC2, 7pm).
ST STEPHEN’S DAY
It’s up, up and away in a hot air balloon for a new version of Around the World in 80 Days (BBC1, 5.50pm & 6.40pm), starring David Tennant as adventurous Phileas Fogg.
There’s rather more down-to-earth intrigue in A Very British Scandal (BBC1, 9pm). The three-parter looks at the Duchess of Argyll’s 1963 divorce case, which dragged up some spectacularly sordid details.
Fans of musicals are in for a treat with Cole Porter’s Anything Goes (BBC2 NI, 7.40pm; other regions, 6.40pm). Music of a different kind features in The Saw Doctors: Sing a Powerful Song (TG4, 7.40pm) and Seán Ó Riada: Mo Sheanathair (TG4, 9.20pm),
MONDAY 27
Rebecca Breeds follows in the footsteps of Jodie Foster and Julianne Moore in new series Clarice (Alibi, 9pm). Hannibal is on Amazon Prime, starring the great Mads Mikkelsen.
Stephen Sondheim Night (BBC4, from 7pm) celebrates the musical theatre giant who died last month aged 81.
TUESDAY 28
The decade when rock music festivals exploded here is recalled in How Ireland Rocked the 70s (RTÉ1, 6.30pm). Rather more sedate is Daniel at Sixty (RTÉ1, 9.25pm), a documentary marking you-know-who’s big Six-O.
The charming Worzel Gummidge (BBC1, 7.15pm) sees the scarecrow (Mackenzie Crook) fearing obsolescence when the farmer unpacks a fancy new crow-scaring contraption. He obviously survives; he’s back tomorrow at the same time.
Oliver Stone returns to his favourite obsession in JFK: Destiny Betrayed (Sky Documentaries, 8pm), a four-part documentary across the week.
WEDNESDAY 29
Star Wars spin-off The Mandalorian gets a spin-off of its own in The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+), featuring the further adventures of one of its most popular characters.
Helen Mirren, who has joked about her ‘upset’ at not being in the Harry Potter movies, turns quiz show host for Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses (Sky Max, 7pm & 8pm). Frankie Boyle’s 2021 New World Order (BBC2, 10pm) offers a successful blend of no-holds-barred stand-up and panel discussion.
THURSDAY 30
Fossil-hunting was the young David Attenborough’s passion, so he’s in his element in Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard (BBC1, 8pm).
New documentary Dean Martin: King of Cool (Sky Arts, 9pm) deep-dives into the life and career of the singer and actor who remained an enigma even to his friends and family. It promises rare and fascinating archive footage.
As usual, Oliver Callan gives his impressions of the last 12 months in Callan Kicks the Year (RTÉ, 9,25pm).
NEW YEAR’S EVE
It’s ironic that the best New Year’s Eve countdown show usually tends to be a ‘fake’ one: Jools Holland’s Annual Hootenanny (BBC2, 11.25pm) is recorded early in December.
If you’re stuck in Saorview land then I’m afraid it’s the New Year’s Eve Countdown Show with The 2 Johnnies (RTÉ1, 10.45pm), with guests Picture This.
Years & Years, otherwise known as Olly Alexander, sings his hits, does some surprising covers, duets with Kylie Minogue and welcomes the Pet Shop Boys on The Big New Years & Years Eve Party (BBC1, 11.25pm). It continues after a break to ring in 2022.
