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

Art

Culture

Ethics

War & peace

4 November 2025

5 min read

Can we stop killing each other?

How art, theology, and moral imagination confront our oldest instinct

Jonathan Evens

Jonathan is Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, and writes on the arts.

A 17th Century painting of Moses and the brazen cross.

Luca Giordano, The Brazen Serpent, c.1690, oil on canvas.

Compton Verney, photography by Jamie Woodley.

What more important question can there be for humanity, Jago Cooper, Executive Director of the Sainsbury Centre, asks than ‘Can we stop killing each other?’ The Sainsbury Centre’s radical exhibition programme explores the big issues in contemporary society (see my article ‘Life Is more important than art’) so has rapidly arrived at the point where it is exploring what has wrong with the world when killing occurs and how can we put it right.

Cooper sets out the ground that this series of exhibitions seeks to cover: ‘From interpersonal violence to state level conflict, killing has spread its devastating impact throughout all human cultures across the centuries. Why does this violence occur? And can it be better prevented at a time when increased societal pressures of population growth, resource scarcity, human migration and rapid environmental change make the risk of conflict higher? Every day we read about horrifying acts playing out locally and internationally, but what is the answer to stopping them?’

Can we stop killing each other? includes an installation by Aotearoa/New Zealand artist Anton Forde, a series of new paintings reflecting on the refugee crisis by Ethiopian artist Tesfaye Urgessa; presentations of historical artworks such as Claude Monet’s ‘The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil’, and an exhibition spanning Shakespearean tragedy to Hitchcockian spectacle, which asks questions of violent stage and screen narratives, plus (from November) ‘Seeds of Hate and Hope’ highlighting personal artistic responses to global atrocities, such as genocides, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It starts, however, with a room displaying Biblically themed explorations of this question. ‘Denunciation of Cain’ by G.F. Watts depicts the after-effects of the first murder with Watts viewing Cain as a symbol of ‘reckless, selfish humanity’. A pair of paintings by Luca Giordano then take us deeper into the ambiguities of our human responses to anger and violence. ‘The Brazen Serpent’, tells the story of the Israelites’ journey from Mount Sinai in Egypt to the Promised Land of Canaan. On this journey, a plague of poisonous serpents punishes the Israelites for their disobedience and lack of faith. Moses is instructed by God to make a bronze, or ‘brazen’, serpent that will heal those that repent. The curators ask, ‘Does this portrayal of killing as a punishment set a cultural precedent, or establish a moral code for right and wrong?’ Alongside is ‘The Judgement of Solomon’ in which two women both claim to be the mother of a living child and where the true mother is revealed by means of an order that the child to be cut in half with a sword and shared. The true mother reveals herself as the one who will give the baby away to protect the child’s life. Here, the threat of violence is used to bring about justice.

William Hogarth’s print series The Four Stages of Cruelty, with verses by Reverend James Townley, reveals how violence escalates and shows how a lack of moral supervision can lead to a life of crime. Finally, Matt Collishaw’s series of thirteen photographic works entitled ’Last Meal on Death Row, Texas’ alludes to the number of apostles at the Last Supper while depicting the last meals chosen by condemned prisoners on death row in the state of Texas, United States.

The curators suggest that: ‘The artworks in this gallery, and beyond, suggest that there is a choice between peace and conflict and that moral stories exist to guide us towards making ethical decisions in real life. Art provides a powerful connection through which to experience life at its most chaotic and incomprehensible, enabling us to pause and reflect on the darkest aspects of human existence. It can also create vital opportunities for society to mourn and remember victims of violence, and to come together in acts of healing and repair.’

These images and the Bible stories on which they are based give us more than simple moral guidance, however. They also provide an explanation for the existence of conflict between human beings and reveal God’s subversion of that ingrained human tendency.

In the story of Cain and Abel, Cain is jealous of Abel and kills him as a result. The anthropologist René Girard suggests that this story reveals the way in which we consistently act as human beings. We desire something that is possessed by someone else and become disturbed through our longing for what we don’t have. We resolve our disturbance by creating a scapegoat of the person or people who appear to have or prevent us from having what it is we desire. When the scapegoat is killed, we can gain what we desire and also release the sense of disturbance that we feel.

This scapegoat mechanism becomes expressed in religions involving human sacrifices as scapegoats to appease their gods. In the story told within the pages of scripture, it is out of such religions that Abraham is called to form a people who do not sacrifice other human beings, but instead use animals as their scapegoats and sacrifices. Jesus is later born into this people who have subverted the existing practice of scapegoating and he further subverts this practice because, as he is crucified, God becomes the scapegoat that is killed. Once God’s Son has become the scapegoat, for those who follow him, the scapegoat mechanism is undermined and the scapegoating of others should no longer be possible.

In ‘The Judgement of Solomon’, the threat of violence is used to reveal the desire of the woman who had taken the mother’s child and the self-sacrifice of the true mother. On the cross, the violence meted out to Jesus reveals the full horror of the scapegoating mechanism in the torture and violent death of the wholly innocent one.

Jesus explicitly equated his crucifixion with the raising up of the bronze serpent that brought healing because in that story, when it is raised, as Jesus also was, the image of the source of the poison in the lives of human beings became the source of healing. That is also the promise that Christianity holds out to us in relation to the effect of Jesus’ crucifixion where he becomes sin for us. It heals us of our absolute need to scapegoat and harm others.

Can We Stop Killing Each Other? Sainsbury Centre:

Tiaki Ora ∞ Protecting Life: Anton Forde, 2 August 2025 – 19 April 2026

Eyewitness, 20 September 2025 – 15 February 2026

Roots of Resilience: Tesfaye Urgessa, 20 September 2025 – 15 February 2026

The National Gallery Masterpiece Tour: Reflections on Peace, 20 September 2025 – 11 January 2026

Seeds of Hate and Hope, 28 November 2025 – 17 May 2026

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