Satellite choice

GREAT FESTIVE FARE Miracle On 34th Street, 11am, Film4

FEW films capture the spirit of Christmas so perfectly. Natalie Wood is the girl whose faith is restored by a department store Santa (Edmund Gwenn, pictured with Wood), who believes he’s the real deal!

FOOTBALL Fulham v Wolverhampton Wanderers, 12 noon, Sky Premier League & Main Event

AS The Cottagers flounder at the foot of the table, mid-league Wolves could leapfrog to 7th with a victory in London in today’s festive first kick-off.

Watford v Chelsea, 7.15pm, Sky One, Premier League & Main Event

WATFORD have exceeded all expectations as we head into the new year, but must be cautious as The Blues will be intent on victory after their home defeat to Leicester on Saturday.

THEATRICAL TREAT Phantom Of The Opera At The Royal Albert Hall, 5.15pm, Sky Arts

IT takes a lot to fill London’s Royal Albert Hall, but this lavish special staging of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical does the trick. The moment when the Phantom makes his entrance – to that familiar music – is high-impact theatre.

WHODUNIT Poirot, 5.55pm, ITV3

DAVID Suchet’s Poirot investigates The ABC Murders, the case that John Malkovich’s Poirot is looking into at 9pm on BBC1. Here, the Belgian is joined by the cheerily idiotic Hastings (Hugh Fraser) as they arrive at a murder scene where the killer has left them a single clue: an ABC Railway Guide. What does it mean?

SEASONAL SCIENCE Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, 8pm, BBC4

IT’S tempting for humans to see ourselves as beyond the animal kingdom, yet we share 44% of our genes with fruit flies. In the first of three new lectures, Alice Roberts reveals humanity’s true place on the tree of life.

NEW SCI-FI Ascension, 9pm, Pick

THRILLER set on a spaceship launched by the US in 1963, to safeguard humanity against the Cold War. The story picks up 50 years on, with the crew (including Tricia Helfer as Viondra, pictured) stuck in the social structure of the Sixties – but cracks are starting to appear . . . It’s a great premise and stylishly done, if a little on the long side. Continues daily.

ON-DEMAND THRILLER You, Netflix

MARGIN Call’s Penn Badgley sets the skin crawling in this wellplayed new thriller. He narrates the series and stars as a New York book store manager, who seems OK at first – if a bit sleazy and pleased with himself – but reveals a darker side when he becomes obsessed with a customer.

REMARKABLE MOVIE BlacKkKlansman, Sky Store, Virgin

A BLACK detective infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan in Spike Lee’s Seventies-set drama, which pulls no punches – especially at the end – yet is also surprisingly funny and, quite incredibly, based

closely on truth.

STAR PROFILE Marilyn: The Last Sessions, 10pm, Sky Arts

THIS tour of Marilyn Monroe’s psyche uses tapes of sessions with Dr Greenson, her psychoanalyst. It’s a rather intense film that reflects deeply upon Greenson’s acute fascination with Monroe – he even gave up his other patients to focus on ‘my child, my pain, my madness’.