When Christmas viewing is as comforting as a gooey mince pie

Christmas is a time of comfort viewing, when we want to prise open a six-pack of mince pies and watch something gooey and satisfying.

and now that it’s getting dark outside just after lunch, there’s no need to feel guilty about snuggling down to a murder-mystery costume drama in the afternoon.

Father Brown (BBC1) returned with a Christmas episode set around an am- dram panto of Cinderella at the local theatre. Despite a barnstorming audition, in which the sleuthing priest (mark Williams) gave his richard iii, hump and all, there was no role on stage for Father Brown himself.

it wasn’t his fault: the tryouts were ruthless, like Britain’s Got talent without simon Cowell’s customary milk of human kindness. Village panto is a competitive business.

Deadly, in fact. the body of the company’s leading lady had turned up in the woods and naturally the local inspector and his stolid sergeant volunteered to play the Ugly sisters, to keep an eye on all the suspects.

With his choleric scowl and bristling moustache, Jack Deam as inspector mallory seems to be channelling the wonderful James Finlayson of Laurel & hardy fame. i keep expecting him to clutch his face and shout: ‘Dohhhh!’

this low-key gem of a series succeeds because it never takes itself too seriously. it’s like Grantchester, another clerical detective show set in the Fifties, but without the secret homosexuals and angst.

some of its dialogue is traditional enough to grace any panto. When the police first gathered the suspects for questioning, one of the am-drammers demanded: ‘surely you don’t think any of us did it?’

the writers even crowbarred a couple of risque jokes into the script. an exasperated theatre director hissed at an Ugly sister backstage: ‘hurry up — you’ve got the ballroom now!’

‘Not in this corset, i haven’t!’ came the reply.

in the end, the murder solution was almost too easy for the good Father: it was the phony doctor whodunnit, peddling drugs to the grandes dames of the am-dram.

the priest tricked a confession out of him on stage, while the police were hiding in the balcony seats. But this wasn’t the finale: we got the panto highlights, and then a tear-jerking reunion between a wrongfully convicted man and his dear old mum on Christmas Eve, as the snow fell outside the window. it brought a warm glow that wasn’t just the afternoon sherry.

at any other time of year, even C5 couldn’t have got away with the drama-documentary Abba: When All Is Said And Done. But this group are the world’s ultimate guilty pleasure — and at Christmas nothing can be too camp. this was the story of Frida and agnetha, partly told by friends and musicians, but mostly through outrageous re-enactments.

From the first appearance of ‘ Bjorn’ in a lopsided wig, i couldn’t take my eyes off this show. the stars talked to each other in stilted swedish accents, though presumably the real members of abba spoke their native language when they weren’t on parade. the exception was their manager, who apparently couldn’t do swedish, so did a scottish accent instead.

all the most lurid moments from abba’s career were played out. By the end, when a middleaged agnetha discovered her new boyfriend was a stalker with a cardboard shrine to abba beside his bed, i was crying with laughter.

it’s just a shame there wasn’t nearly enough music in the soundtrack. Otherwise, peerless comfort viewing.