Crocodile Dundee beats Del Boy to top TV ratings
SOME of Britain’s best-loved TV faces, including David Jason and the Two Ronnies, have been beaten by a reptile-wrestler from Australia in a new survey of the all-time mostwatched Christmas television.
Crocodile Dundee, the 1980s comedy smash hit starring Paul Hogan, is the surprise record-holder of the UK’s biggest Christmas Day TV audience.
Some 21.8 million viewers tuned in for the film’s UK premiere on December 25, 1989 – a figure that no single TV broadcast has managed to beat since current records began.
Second place in the chart with 21.3 million viewers is the episode of Only Fools And Horses shown on Christmas Day 2001, which saw the Trotters lose their fortune and Del Boy attempt to win it back on a game show.
In total there are seven episodes of Only Fools And Horses in the top 20, along with editions of comedy classics Just Good Friends, Bread and One Foot In The Grave.
But EastEnders appears only twice, Coronation Street just once, and there is nothing from the past 16 years. The chart, which has been compiled by the Press Association, reflects the traditional domination of Christmas TV by the BBC, with 17 of the top 20 having been shown on BBC One.
While films make up a fifth of the chart, soap operas – a permanent fixture on December 25 for decades – barely appear, suggesting they are not quite as popular on Christmas Day as TV executives assume.
The two episodes of EastEnders in the chart are from 1986, when Den Watts famously surprised his wife Angie with divorce papers hidden inside a Christmas cracker.
Coronation Street is represented by the episode in 1987 that saw veteran resident Hilda Ogden leave Weatherfield for a new life in Derbyshire. Missing from the top 20 entirely are Morecambe and Wise, whose most popular star-studded Christmas specials date from before the modern system of compiling ratings began in 1981.
FOOTBALL pundit Robbie Savage is back donning his sparkly tie and waistcoat for the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special, after finishing sixth with Ola Jordan in the 2011 competition.
And he’s certainly still got his Strictly sparkle.
While never the most technically smooth, the former Premier League midfielder and Wales international wowed viewers with his cheeky charm and trademark blond locks.
So has his dancing improved since he reached the quarter-finals during his first attempt? “Well, I knew I couldn’t get any worse!” he jokes. “It was obviously very nerve-racking.
“The good thing for me was I had the confidence that I am not the best dancer in the world, but the public still kept me in for 10 weeks.
“I was looking at the standard at week 10 and thinking: ‘Wow! I can’t believe I am here!’ So it was amazing to go back.”
Robbie, 43, is dancing with a new partner this time, Diane Buswell, who made her debut on the BBC show contest earlier this year
“The theme this year is what we most love about Christmas,” the father of two says. “When I was playing football you’d always be on the road at Christmas, so the day I look forward to most is coming home to my family.”
Robbie opens the Christmas Day show, which also features Strictly favourites Katie Derham, Judy Murray, Kimberley Walsh, Colin Jackson and Jeremy Vine, with his performance set in a 1940s family home, where Diane longingly waits for her husband to return.
Football’s Mr Marmite, who gained notoriety for his robust tackles while playing for Leicester, Birmingham, Blackburn and Derby, adds: “Performing on Strictly is way more nerve-racking than playing football. I could play football with my eyes closed – and, to be fair, some people said I did!”
Thankfully, Robbie says being partnered with newcomer Diane really boosted his performance.
“Diane is a really fantastic dancer,” he enthused. “Both her and Ola are very helpful and very patient teachers. And they’re both great fun.”
As part of their two-minute routine, Robbie lifts Australian Diane, 28, an impressive six times – but he jokes that the audience shouldn’t expect any knee slides this year, after he broke his nose doing the risky move into the camera in 2011.
He adds: “I wasn’t the best dancer when I was in the show six years ago, but I always either opened or finished the show, which was a good sign that people actually liked me.
“Also, because I was the first one dancing this year, I didn’t have time to get nervous.”
Robbie goes to the gym every day, which not only means he stays trim, but it keeps his mind sharp.
Recently the former Welsh captain opened up about his own battles with insecurity and anxiety, encouraging others to seek help for mental health problems.
He said in September that he sees a doctor once or twice a month, adding: “I go home, I worry. I am insecure, very insecure.”
Robbie, who has been married to Sarah for 15 years, says: “If I had a broken neck or a broken leg or any other physical injury, people would say, ‘Are you OK? How are you?’ But obviously with mental health you can’t see it and that’s why I try and speak up as much as I can to help other people.
“I think it is something people talk about more now and that’s benefiting people, which can only be a good thing.”
He says after his friend and fellow former sportsman Freddie Flintoff opened up about his own mental health battle on their BBC Radio Five Live podcast, the pair were inundated with letters and phone calls.
“So many people said: ‘Thank you Robbie, thank you Freddie, because of you two opening up about your own issues, I have been able to get help or help for someone in my family’.
“That’s an amazing thing, when you can influence people through a podcast. It’s humbling, really.”
Mental health is painfully close to home for the Wrexham-born former Welsh international.
Reminiscing on his favourite Christmas traditions in the Strictly special, he tells professional Diane: “Christmas Day! My kids are opening their presents, my mother’s round my house, all the family’s here, it’s fantastic.”
But one person who will be very sadly missed this Christmas is Robbie’s dad, Colin, who succumbed to dementia in 2012 when he was just 64.
Robbie, who won 39 caps for the national side during his two-decade career, says: “It’s the family around those with Alzheimer’s who suffer so much – my mum suffered so much.
“My dad was the person my mum married and fell in love with, who I idolised, he was my father – and you would look at him and think he’s the same person.
“But for years he wasn’t, and that’s the most difficult thing to deal with.
“They’re in their own little world and they don’t know anything different, so it’s the people around them that suffer.”
Robbie’s dad was diagnosed with Pick’s disease, a form of dementia, when he was 58.
Robbie has spoken movingly in the popular podcast Flintoff, Savage and the Ping Pong Guy about his guilt at visiting former factory manager Colin in Wrexham Maelor Hospital and thinking “what’s the point?” – because his dad didn’t know who he was.
Robbie adds that all the recent publicity about the link between heading in football and dementia, including Alan Shearer’s investigation into the issue, is a positive step towards raising greater awareness.
Robbie says: “Alan’s documentary was brilliant and everything the football authorities are putting into researching the issue is great – the more awareness, the better.
“Obviously my father didn’t play football, but more awareness around the disease is really important, and that’s what the documentary helped to do.
“Because of what happened to my dad, my mental health is so important to me. And that’s why I am so open about it. The more we talk about it, the better.”
Dancing for seven hours a day in preparation for the Christmas show was, of course, a great form of physical and mental exercise for the star.
Even if Robbie can’t perfect his moves this time round, he is hoping to match his highest score of 31 with an American Smooth to Sway, by The Pussycat Dolls, in week seven of the ninth series – another reason why he chose the traditional ballroom dance.
“It was great to see the judges again,” he says. “I was most looking forward to seeing Craig because he hammered me so much last time around.
“It was an amazing experience – I have had the opportunity to do lots of TV shows and turned a lot of them down, but Strictly is special.”
Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special airs on Christmas Day at 6.30pm on BBC One.