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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Review

Culture

Film & TV

Holidays/vacations

3 June 2025

5 min read

Race across the world: you can go fast and go far

Forget the tight travel connections; it’s the human ones that enthral us.

Lauren Westwood

Lauren writes on faith, community, and anything else that compels her to open the Notes app.

Contestants in Race Across the world stand in front of neon-lit Chinese street scene

Ready to race.

BBC.

After years of peer pressure, my husband and I have joined the bandwagon and become Race Across the World evangelists. The BBC series, currently in its fifth season, follows five competing duos on an expedition between far-flung locations with limited resources and no forward planning.

Viewers love the show wherever they are in the world. In America, The Amazing Race, which has a similar format, is now on its 38th series.

‘No flights, no phones,’ boast the rules – but Race Across the World is a far cry from retreating to simpler times before smart devices and online banking, nor does it shy away from the complexities of modern life. Though there is a cash prize, the format of Race Across the World prioritises connection over competition. Each episode is a picture of messy, frantic humanity and examines how we cope in an environment where all we really have is each other.

The challenge is real. In the current series, the couples trek across China, Nepal and India, the start and end checkpoints spanning more than 14,000km. This cohort is an eclectic mix: two sets of slightly estranged siblings, teenage sweethearts from Wales, former spouses and a mother and son. Their vulnerabilities, as well as their triumphs, take prominence. In their conversation and in confessional, each person demonstrates a remarkable willingness to face the hard stuff of life with resilience, tenacity and enough convivial spirit to please the production team.

This emotional depth maps the physical and logistical demands of the race, as the viewer follows the pairs’ fast-paced journeys, stopping occasionally to enjoy some wonderful view amid countless train stations and overnight busses.

My sympathy derives from a belief that I would fare horrendously as a contestant – I think my excellently organised, exceedingly patient husband would flat-out refuse to compete with me. But the wider response to Race Across the World is one of empathy. Unlike similar shows, we are not called to blindly favour for the frontrunner, but to enjoy spending time with and bearing the burdens of all. We feel every frustration of the missed shuttle that just departed. When the ferry disembarks late due to poor weather, our response is not to scoff, but to share, in some small way, their lament. As their successes and failures are magnified, so is our compassion, willing them not to get lost in comparison’s snare but to keep moving forward.

Race Across the World exhibits the reality of community, speaks to the ache of life’s unpredictable nature, and extends grace for struggling humanity. We learn, alongside those racing, that the point is not always to fix our frustrations, but in being able to sit with them, to acknowledge disappointment rather than dismiss it, and to allow setbacks to spur us onto the next step. Sometimes, things get hard and we acutely feel that a situation is beyond our control. What have we then? Still, each other. Still, communion. Still, God.

Most of the time, the competitors’ issue does not disappear; they arrive at the checkpoint 24 hours late, they board the wrong train, the persistent typhoon ruins their chance of first place. But this hardship renews their strength and determination, promoting the notion that while suffering is never easy, it somehow shapes us. We endure and, in that endurance, we are refined and strengthened in ways we never thought possible. In the testing of our own endurance (or lack of), it turns out that some things actually are immovable.

This resilience permeates to the heart of who we are, forming us into people who can carry disappointment and hope simultaneously. It is an unwavering, defiant hope that finds us and never leaves us stranded. From this new position, fresh possibilities arise out of a deeper satisfaction, a greater victory, than found in being first place. This hope is rooted in something deeper, and it cries from the other side of difficulty: ‘Here I am, not lost.’

In his poem, Vow, Roger McGough reminds us that when,

Things seem to go from bad to worse,

They also go from bad to better …

Trains run on time,

Hurricanes run out of breath, floods subside,

And toast lands jam-side-up.’

It speaks to how the relatively small disappointments help us cope with the bigger stuff of life, the stuff we feel we will not emerge from. In the gritty, heavy, unfair stuff of life, we appreciate the weight of the enduring hope we possess, manifested in the belief that things not only can, but will go from bad to better. This is not a fragile optimism, but a fortitude and faith that sees the world as it is yet maintains that good and better is possible.

In the same way, Race Across the World urges us to consider what we can handle – not in our own strength, but in community, in reliance on another. Though our complex, strained humanity may attempt to deter us, life’s hardships are eased when shared, whether on a televised journey or from our sofas. We are strengthened in, by and through devoted community. In keeping pace with another – slowing down or rushing to keep up – we are mutually inconvenienced, and that is a source of beautiful fellowship. In letting go of the things that enslave us to self – ambition, insecurity, pride – we encounter the gift of each other, and give life to love that serves. We commit to community; we choose connection over competition.

The saying goes, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’ In Race Across the World, significant effort is understandably made by competitors to go fast and to go far, to place first and take home the cash prize. But the viewer’s delight is not so much in seeing the winning duo cross the finish line, as in witnessing the journey of two muddling through, sharing the load, bearing burdens and multiplying joys.

In our lives, too, the road can be unpredictable, full of detours, missed buses and, yes, a few painfully overpriced cabs. Yet it is in the community of fellow travellers we learn the worth of endurance, the refining possibility of suffering, and the hope that is cultivated in its place.

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