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

Community

Culture

Nationalism

Politics

2 March 2025

5 min read

Nationality can never unite a nation

For countless people, it’s a complicated thing.

Graham Tomlin

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

A montage of two conversation participants side-by-side.

Fraser Nelson and Konstantin Kisin.

Triggernometry.

What does it mean to be English? A debate has broken out on this thorny question, sparked by a conversation between Konstantin Kisin and Fraser Nelson, where Kisin, a British-Russian social commentator suggested Rishi Sunak, as a ‘brown Hindu’, was British but not English, and Nelson (a Scot) said that it was simple – if you’re born and bred in England, you’re English. End of story.

The video on YouTube got 4 million views. Since then, Suella Braverman has weighed in with her instinct that despite being born and raised in England, she will never be truly English. The debate has generated more heat them light over these past weeks – just read the comments after Nelson-Kisin YouTube video to get the gist.

Now this is something I've thought about all my life, as it's been a bit of an issue for me.

I was born in England, have lived most of my life in England, my dad was English, I speak with an English accent, and love it when England beat the Aussies at cricket.

However, my mum was Irish. She was born and grew up in Limerick, met my dad in Dublin after he had moved to Ireland to train to be a Baptist minister. I never knew my father's family, as his parents had both died before I was born. So, the only family I knew in my childhood were Irish. Family summer holidays were spent in Dublin or most often in County Clare in the wild west of Ireland. Growing up, I felt at home in Bristol where we lived, with my English friends, supporting the mighty Bristol City at Ashton Gate. Yet the place where I felt most secure and rooted, at home in a different way, surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and people who had known my family for generations, was Ireland.

While my dad liked football, and we cheered when England won the World Cup in 1966, my mum was a big rugby supporter. So when it came to the Six Nations (or Five Nations as it was in those days) there was no question of who we followed, driving to Cardiff Arms Park or Twickenham, festooned in green scarves, cheering on the boys in green. I still do support Ireland, rooting for Peter O’Mahony and Caelan Doris as well as players in the team less Irish (at least by descent) than me, like New Zealanders James Lowe and Jamison Gibson-Park, the Australian Finlay Bealham, or the very un-Irish sounding, yet hero of the nation, Bundee Aki.

Of course, my story is far from unique. The Irish diaspora is everywhere. Irish people for centuries have left Ireland to find jobs, to see the world, or like my mum, following a spouse to different shores. There are loads of us, part-Irish, living in England, caught in our nationality somewhere in the middle of the Irish sea.

So am I English? Or am I Irish? I have held both passports, long before Brexit. I can sing God Save the Queen and Amhrán na bhFiann. The truth is that I'm a bit of both. Sometimes my Englishness comes to the fore, sometimes my Irishness. I remember being at school in the 1970s during the IRA bombing campaign and getting abuse and graffiti on my school locker for being Irish, then spending holidays in Ireland and being teased for sounding English. Such is the fate of the half-breed.

So for me, and for countless other people who have a mixed heritage, nationality is a complicated thing.

When nationality becomes the primary location of a person's reason for being, that's when it can become dangerous.

There are many different factors involved in a person's national allegiance: where they were born, where they grew up, where their parents or ancestors came from, where they decide to settle later in life. It can also be affected by emotions as varied as gratitude for a welcome received or resentment for rejection. Centuries ago, when people didn't travel much, and most didn't travel far from the place where they and their parents were born, the nation states that emerged in Europe and across the world out of the great empires of earlier times were relatively stable entities and could claim a degree of settled character, and a claim to loyalty. The twentieth century, with two world wars fought largely over nationality and race showed us the dark side of absolute loyalty to country or ethnic origins.

In today's hyper-mobile world, and especially in the UK, which is a magnet for people all over the world, there are probably very few people with simple, pure national heritage. Most of us have some migrant blood in our veins, stemming from some ancestors who moved from their home at some point in the past, seeking a better, or a different life elsewhere.

Being nationalistic or patriotic by supporting a sports team, learning a language, or being proud of one's origins is a good thing. Life would be a lot poorer without the possibility of rooting for your national team, taking pride in your national culture or history, feeling rooted in a particular place on this good earth. We were made to put down roots in a place, to care for it and take pride in it.

Yet nationality is too fluid and imprecise a concept to provide a firm sense of identity. When it becomes the primary location of a person's reason for being, that's when it can become dangerous. That's when we begin to fight wars over national sovereignty, identity and superiority.

Nationality can never become a strong enough centre to unite a people. It’s why the debate on ‘British values’ never quite lands. Even if we could decide what they are, is the implication that they are better than other values? And if they are does that give us the right to feel superior to other nations who don’t share them? And even if we could identify them, I imagine the French, the Germans or the Swedes would probably recognise a lot of them and claim them as their own.

To have a firm sense of identity, a centre around which to gather, requires a stronger and more unshakable foundation. I may be part English, part Irish, but I am wholly a child of God. Even more deeply rooted than my Irish mother and English father, the place of my birth or my family roots, lies my identity as someone whose true origin comes not from them but from the God who made me, continues to love me, and will hold me until my dying day and beyond. And unlike national identity, this identity can be true of anyone, therefore it’s not something I can ever use as a badge of superiority over anyone else.

That is who I am. Nothing can disturb or change it. And only something like that – something unshakable, independent of our changeable feelings and shifting allegiances can provide a firm basis for belonging and cohesion.

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If you’re enjoying Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Alongside other benefits (book discounts etc.), you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing what I’m reading and my reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin

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