Red Eye

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Red Eye

(Tuesday 23 December 2008)

Britain's only socialist TV critic gives a lowdown on the Christmas telly.

Ho ho ho! It's Yuletide once again and, with it, the usual dizzying assortment of overindulgence, excessive alcohol and sugary television confectionary.

If you've been complying with the government's cunning plan to get us out of recession by continuing to shop like consumerist idiots, you should all have brand new plasma screen tellies by now, the better to enjoy the feast of joy ready to splatter across your eyes over the next week.
Readers may detect a note of sarcasm and weariness about the whole enterprise - and they may be right.
With such fare as Caught in a Trap (Boxing Day, ITV1), in which "Sound of Music star Connie Fisher" plays "a lonely young woman with an Elvis obsession" or the thrice-damned Strictly Come Dancing Special (Christmas Day, BBC1), can anyone blame Red Eye for pouring himself a large Lidl brandy and slumping dejectedly behind a hardback copy of Bleak House?
However, there are always some tasty nuggets among the dross and dreck.
That joyous jewel in the BBC crown Doctor Who of course rides to the rescue on BBC1, with a humdinger of a Christmas Day special. We are promised new monsters - the somewhat groovy-sounding Cybershades - and lashings of Victorian London, with the added bonus of David Morrissey appearing alongside David Tennant as an alternative Doctor. Woo!
This will be genuine, quality family entertainment and you are mandated to watch it. So there.
For comedy fans, Blackadder Rides Again (Christmas Day, BBC1) takes the viewer on a retrospective romp through the much-loved historicom, which reminds us all what Ben Elton could do when he was funny.
More retro fun can be found with All New Shooting Stars (Tuesday 30, BBC2) in which Vic Reeves, Bob Mortimer and Matt Lucas return for a one-off return to the surreal comedy panel show.
I loved the anarchic silliness of this show in the 1990s and I'm seriously hoping that they can pull it off nowadays.
Spooks actor Rupert Penry-Jones stars in the Beeb's latest drama adaptation, John Buchan's tale an ordinary man caught up in an international web of double-dealing and murder The 39 Steps (Sunday 28, BBC1).
A rollicking yarn, even if Buchan was a bit of an old fascist.
Elsewhere, there's the usual period dramas, Miss Marples and such, to satisfy us as we sit burping and nibbling our nuts.
View selectively, ignore the Queen's tedious witterings and for heaven's sake stay away from the charades and you won't go far wrong.
Ding dong merrily on high to you all.

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