Review

Christmas culture

Culture

Film & TV

24 December 2024

6 min read

The twelve days of Christmas TV

What to watch across the festive season.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead.

At a Christmas party, friend smile, laugh, and collapse in a heap on a sofa.

This is occurin'.

Christmas approaches! We are soon to begin the twelve-day marathon of celebrating the birth of Christ through food, drink, and…collapsing in front of the telly! It is a season of great joy and gladness, but also one of physical and mental exhaustion. To make it all a little easier I have finely combed through the Christmas edition of the Radio Times to present to you the one can’t miss televisual offering for each of the twelve days. Consider this my gift to all the readers of Seen & Unseen; hopefully a little more practical than a partridge in a pear tree.

On the first day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Gavin & Stacey: The Finale

Christmas Day, BBC 1, 9pm

The first G&S Christmas Special is an annual tradition in my household. My wife and I are guaranteed to watch it at least once in the run-up to Christmas. It is an example of a truly perfect piece of television: masterfully combining the necessarily contrived and mawkish sentimentality of Christmas telly, and the absurdist/realist/deadpan comedy that endeared the series to so many. The comeback Christmas Special in 2019 was a let-down on the night (I had such high expectations) but has grown on me over the years: nowhere near as good as the original, too self-referential and mannered for its own good, but still darn-funny, and acting as a rather sweet meditation on aging and parenthood. Christmas Day is all about family – be it our own family, or the Holy Family of Bethlehem – so why not see the day out in the warm glow of the Shipman-West family.

On the second day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Zulu

Boxing Day, Channel 4, 3.50pm

This one is personal for me. This is one of the first films I remember watching with my father, around the Christmas season. Glorious cinematography, a pacey plot, an electrifying final set-piece (which, 60 years later, is still more engaging than most of the bigger budget CGI shlock you can see today), a smattering of Welsh patriotism, and Michael Caine doing a posh accent. This is a classic for a reason: the remarkable story of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift combined with a searing and sympathetic exploration of the British class system, ending with a meditation on both the unifying and horrifying nature of war. If you’re suffering from over-indulgence on Boxing Day I can’t think of a better tonic.

On the third day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Pitch Perfect

27 December, ITV 2, 9pm

The sequels very much delivered diminishing returns, but the original is such a wholesome piece of film-making. A celebration of music, growing-up, sisterhood and girl-power…it is feel-good fare from beginning to end. Anna Kendrick shines with raw singing-star-power, while Rebel Wilson provides just the right amount of comic relief. After the high of Christmas Day, and the slow come-down of Boxing Day, this film is like a warm bath of feel-good aca-enjoyment.

On the fourth day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Maggie Smith at the BBC

28 December, BBC 2, 7pm

A celebration of the career of Maggie Smith on what would have been her 90th birthday. If that precis doesn’t hook you, then we can’t be friends.

On the fifth day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

The Fugitive

29 December, Channel 5, 4.35pm

I can’t think of many thrillers better than this. From the very first scene this film has you on the edge of your seat asking the most terrifying of existential questions…

WHY DOES HARRISON FORD HAVE A BEARD!?!?!?

The tension only ratchets up from there! Harrison Ford plays the character he was born to play: a slightly gruff man, down on his luck, full of ingenuity, trying to prove that he didn’t murder his wife. Tommy Lee-Jones is similarly expertly cast as the long-suffering law-man who doesn’t follow procedure…no, he feels the case in his bones! The film rips along as such a rollicking pace that you’ll feel like it’s just started by the time it has finished.

On the sixth day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Rocketman

30 December, Channel 4, 9pm

The music of Elton John is indestructible.

On the seventh day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Jools’ Annual Hootenanny

New Year’s Eve, BBC 2, 11.30pm

By now this is has become a cross between a National Treasure and a National Institution, and I cannot comprehend people who see the New Year in with anything else on their telly.

On the eighth day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Airplane!

New Year’s Day, ITV 4, 9pm

This is the funniest film ever made. That is an indisputable fact, whether your metric is quantity or quality. The jokes come at a machine-gun rattle, and every single one hits their target! Absurdism, slapstick, wordplay, and the straight-face of Leslie Nielsen…THE FUNNIEST FILM EVER MADE!

On the ninth day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World

2 January, BBC 2, 10pm

Russel Crowe deserved to have this film be the start of a worldwide phenomenal franchise; especially as Patrick O'Brian left us with twenty novels to work from. Crowe embodies Captain Jack Aubrey perfectly – oaken and noble and solid. Teaming him up with Paul Bettany for the second time is a masterstroke, as they bicker and play-off each other like old friends. There is action, emotion, intrigue, drama, and naval tactics. What isn’t to like?

On the tenth day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

The Silence of the Lambs

3 January, ITV 1, 10.45pm

Anthony Hopkins serves us up plenty of leftover Christmas ham with his performance. His Hannibal Lecter is intelligent, sophisticated…and essentially and pantomime villain. His Hannibal is hammy with a capital H! Please don’t misunderstand me, I enjoy the performance and the film, but it isn’t a patch on Brian Cox’s bone-chillingly subtle, understated performance in Manhunter. Anyway, this is a terrifying film in the best way possible. Putting Hopkins aside, the performances are all spot on: Jodie Foster gives us an ingénue who’s vulnerability is both a weakness and her greatest strength, and Ted Levine is indescribably creepy as serial-killer Buffalo Bill. After ten days of Christmas lulling you into a soporific stupor, this flick is the icy wake-up you need!

On the eleventh day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

The Graduate/Rain Man

4 January, BBC 4, 9pm/11.20pm

Early-career Dustin Hoffman or mid-career Dustin Hoffman: take your pick. The is no wrong answer.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Aliens

5 January, ITV 4, 9pm

The rarest of creatures: a sequel which surpasses the original. Sigourney Weaver is iconic, and is the prototype for all future female action heroes. James Cameron takes Ridley Scott’s original claustrophobic horror masterpiece, and morphs it into a war-movie to rival ‘Saving Private Ryan’. It is a superb adrenaline-rush of a film. At the end of twelve days we can all echo Bill Paxton’s immortal words: Game over, man! Game over!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

BONUS GIFT…

Carols from King’s

Christmas Eve, BBC 2, 6pm

One of the finest examples of Anglican liturgy, perfectly combining atmosphere, music, and scripture. I’ve written a little article explaining why the service of Nine Lessons and Carols is a treasure we must not lose.

Read now

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Article

Culture

Easter

Sport

16 April 2025

4 min read

Rory McIlroy’s pilgrim’s progress

The golfer’s relief at finally laying his burden down.

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

A golf clutches his face after winning a competition

McIlroy's moment at the Masters.

Simon Bruty/Augusta National.

It's Sunday evening. Along with most golf fans, I'm still up around 1 am, gripped by the drama unfolding on the famous course at Augusta, Georgia. Despite being one of the world’s best golfers, for the past eleven years, Rory McIlroy has been carrying around three big burdens. One, he has never won the Masters, one of golf’s iconic competitions. Two, he last won a ‘major’ eleven years ago and inexplicably has kept missing out on winning golf’s biggest tournaments. Three, there is the ‘career grand slam’ – winning all four ‘majors’ (of which the Masters is one) – something only five golfers in the history of the game have done before, none of them European. Rory has won three of them, but this one – The Masters - has always eluded him.

After four agonising days, with his fortunes switching this way and that like a drunk driver careering down a road, Rory stands over a four-foot putt on the final play-off hole, one that even average amateur golfers like me would expect to make. Heart pounding, he nudges the ball forward. As it rolls into the white-ringed hole, his knees crumple, shoulders shake, as tears of relief and joy pour down his face. You can almost see all three burdens roll away in that moment. As he put in in a post-round interview: “This is a massive weight that's been lifted off my back.”

As a self-confessed fan of Rory, who seems genuinely humble and likeable, with a golf swing as smooth as butter, I punch the air, probably like most golf fans around the world. Watching the post-round interviews, you can sense his elation and liberation. As Scottie Scheffler, last year’s winner, clothes him in the coveted green jacket, awarded to all winners of the tournament, Rory cannot stop grinning, wandering around the Champions’ Locker Room, which he has had no right to enter until this point, like a kid in a sweet shop.

Now I’m sure the golf committee at Augusta National never thought for a moment they were drawing on rich religious imagery for their award ceremony and the emotions generated in winning their tournament, but Rory’s relief made me look up a moment in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. The parallels in this old tale of Puritan faith were even more striking than I expected.

In Bunyan’s dream-story, the main character, Christian, having been through years of tests, trials, ups and downs, reaches the climax of the tale as he reaches Calvary, the place where the cross of Jesus Christ stood:

Just as Christian came up to the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble; and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.

Then there was the tearful joy and relief:

Then was Christian glad and lightsome. He looked therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks.

There was even the celestial equivalent of the green jacket. Three angels appear, and one of them:

…stripped him of his rags, and clothed him with a change of raiment. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment.

Burdens rolled away, tears of joy, dressed in new clothing. It’s all there.

Yet this comparison tells of a difference.

Bunyan’s relief was about forgiveness. Rory McIlroy’s came from winning a game of golf. His Twitter / X self-designation delightfully used to read: “I hit a little white ball around a field sometimes.” (It now reads ‘Grand Slam Winner’ - not so good in my humble opinion).

The lessons drawn were all about persevering, persistence, getting there in the end. Looking across at his young daughter Poppy, Rory said:

‘Never, ever give up on your dreams. Keep coming back, keep working hard, and if you put your mind to it, you can do anything.’

Yet of course there was nothing inevitable about his victory. It could so easily have gone the other way. His putt might have slid past the hole, Justin Rose, his play-off opponent might have sunk his, and Rory might never have won the Masters, never won the Grand Slam. That is the nature of sport. However strong your dreams, however good your skills, winning is never guaranteed. Not everyone’s dreams come true. It's simply not true that “if you put your mind to it, you can do anything.” Ask Justin Rose.

Bunyan’s relief is something completely different. It's not the relief of having achieved something. It's the relief of receiving something - a totally undeserved gift - more like a prisoner receiving news of an unexpected release, or someone owing huge debts receiving a windfall which enables her not only to pay off the debts but to live comfortably in the future.

The relief of the winner who finally achieves their dream is wonderful to watch. But for those whose dreams don't get fulfilled, for the likes of Justin Rose, who at age 44 seems destined never to win it, that kind of joy remains tantalisingly out of reach.

Christian’s tears of happiness are not the tears of the winner but of the loser. They are for those whose dreams never come true as well as those whose do. They are for those who fall short yet are given the gift of forgiveness, peace and hope. They are - potentially at least - for all of us, winners or losers.

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