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

Creed

Death & life

Easter

Film & TV

3 March 2025

4 min read

Don’t die: the relentless pursuit of life

If there was a way beyond death, shouldn't we give up everything to find it?

Josh Richards

Josh is a curate in London, and is completing a PhD in theology.

A man stands in his home wearing a black t-shirt that reads 'DON'T DIE'.

Ryan Johnson at home.

Netflix.

In the days before my daughter's birth, I was reading about the fear of death. Ernest Becker won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for his book The Denial of Death. In it, he argues that our lives are structured around the fear of death. In the posthumously published follow-up, Escape from Evil, Becker writes:

"Man wants to persevere as does any animal…but man is cursed with a burden no animal has to bear: he is conscious that his own end is inevitable."

For Becker, human culture is really a series of attempts to avoid or transcend the reality of death. We follow charismatic leaders in the hope of becoming part of something greater. We have children in the hope that something of us will last beyond the span of one lifetime. We collude to marginalise pensioners and prisoners and any other reminders of our frailty, hiding them away so we can briefly pretend at immortality.

Last week I thought of Becker when I watched Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever on Netflix. The documentary follows Bryan Johnson, who made his millions in tech and is now going to extremes to undo the impact of ageing on his body. An exacting routine of dieting, sleep, fitness and medication is augmented by riskier interventions, such as experimental gene therapies.

As Johnson tells it, his past struggles with mental ill health and suicidal ideation led him to pursue a life less reliant on his mind. He seeks instead to listen to what his organs tell him they need via algorithms and diagnostics: fallible humanity corrected by data.

Johnson is resolute that it is not fear of death that drives the enterprise but a desire to live, particularly to live as long as possible with his son. One of the documentary’s strangest and most touching scenes is an inter-generational plasma transfer. There is evidence that plasma from a younger donor can have a de-ageing effect on a recipients' organs. So, Bryan decides to give his dad some of his plasma and his son gives him some plasma. Each of the three men, we learn, have experienced isolation after leaving Mormonism. The transfer becomes a kind of founding of a family outside the faith they have each rejected and been rejected by.

Johnson’s pursuit of longevity now plays an equivalent role in his life to that faith– not just as a source of belief and human purpose, but of human connection. The documentary ends with a montage of "Don't Die" communities around the world hiking and dancing and celebrating life together.

In the months after my daughter's birth, I recognised something of what Becker names. Here is someone who will outlast me, something of me will transcend the limits of my life. And here is someone who reminds me of those limits. Here is this great gift and joy who will sit in the front row at my funeral: the embodiment of life’s goodness a witness to its end.

Are we wrong to fear death? If there was a way beyond it, shouldn't we give up everything to find it?

There is more going on in Bryan Johnson and the wider de-ageing movement than Becker's analysis would perhaps allow. Fear of death is not the only story here. When is it ever, really? Fear only makes sense alongside—and in light of— goodness, life, gift. To fear loss, you must have something to lose.

And yet, the story Becker tells about culture does seem to ring truer in the years since his death. As technology improves, death's denial becomes more convenient. As the natural world degrades, it becomes more compelling. And as wealthy men become wealthier still, their denial on behalf of us all becomes ever more creative.

And who can blame us—any of us? Are we wrong to fear death? If there was a way beyond it, shouldn't we give up everything to find it?

This Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of Lent, the Christian season of reflection and self-denial. On Wednesday, I will receive an ash cross, and as I draw that same cross on forehead after forehead, I will repeat these words:

"Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return,
turn away from Sin and be faithful to Christ."