Forget Nat King Cole . . . Xander is the croon prince of Christmas!
With the country divided as never before and neither side willing to concede an inch, Alexander Armstrong put Britain’s most vexed question to a vote: is Fairytale Of New York a great Christmas record or three minutes of raucous earache?
the answer should be obvious. it’s a crude, slurred rant of a song, full of bile and foul language. Kirsty MacColl and Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan hurl abuse at each other: he’s a meths drinker, she’s a junkie, wishing each other dead. And a Merry Christmas to you, too.
But comedian Chris Ramsey insisted, on the light-hearted knees-up Best Christmas Ever (itV), that MacGowan’s tuneless croak was better than anything Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole or even Michael Buble could do. And the studio audience agreed with him.
Coronation Street actor Ryan thomas was incredulous: ‘it’s just a drunk man behind a piano — my grandad could do better than that.’
Xander certainly fancies he could himself. he opened the show by crooning it’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas in his favourite big-band style, and then invited West End star Alfie Boe to join him on a rapid-fire medley of festive hits. it was daft, but it must have taken a lot of rehearsal.
Once, every variety tV host from Mike Yarwood to Ronnie Corbett used to indulge in a bit of doobydooby-do-ing. Xander is last of the breed. there’s a thin line between charm and smarm, and sporting his holly-and-ivy breast pocket hankie put him right on the cusp.
this one-off serving of family entertainment, soaked in brandy butter, was saved from being too sickly by its guests.
Cook Prue Leith described her grandchildren as ‘marauding and feral’. Cold Feet actress Fay Ripley announced she’d had enough of Christmases at home and was decamping to italy, to visit her Roman mother-in-law.
they had a go at a Victorian parlour game called Squeal Piggy Squeal, in which one player dons a blindfold and has to identify the others by their oinks.
the party was going splendidly, till Prue casually revealed the favourite present of her childhood — a pony, which she stabled on the verandah of her family’s ranch house in South Africa. Just for half a second, the noisy celebs were speechless as they tried to work out which part of that sentence was most unexpected. Fortunately, Xander was on hand to break into song again.
Surprise revelations from a bygone era also made the history of London’s favourite toy shop, Inside Hamleys (C5), a rather odd show. the family firm that rescued the store from bankruptcy during the Great Depression switched all their factories to armaments production during World War ii.
their best-selling product was the metal Sten submachine-gun, which looked like it was built from Meccano. how many Allied troops knew, i wonder, that their weapons came from hamleys? this documentary would have been a good deal more engaging if it had kept a tight focus on its war stories.
in 1914, the shop was obliged to ditch its bestselling teddy bear range, because they were made by a German firm, Steiff. Boys were encouraged instead to play with lead soldiers, in the hope it would instil martial spirit and a passion for military tactics.
By cramming in factoids about every kind of toy across more than a century of fads and fashions, from rocking horses to Sindy dolls, Paddington Bear to elastic slime, magic tricks to Monopoly, it all became overwhelming and dizzying.
Rather like the shop, in fact.