Midwives deliver us a triumphant time
WELCOME TO this year’s Christmas special “special”. I’ve now seen so many uninterested mules on prime-time television I’m going to donate immediately to a donkey sanctuary. Unsurprisingly their careworn expressions resemble many of us on Christmas night after consuming a bulging barn-full of Nativities.
First up was the ever-reliable, and ever-popular Call The Midwife
(BBC One, Christmas Day), which actually started with a Nativity. Why not? Give them what they came for! Several local urchins made-good – the lovely fictional children of Poplar in 1966 – crowded on to the stage to give us a heartfelt rendition of the greatest story ever told. Just before local character Fred Buckle (Cliff Parisi) showed us how he’d split his Santa trousers in the most embarrassing place.
Oh, yes he had!
Dear Fred – whom would we laugh at if not you? Well, personally, I also find every utterance from either Miriam Margolyes’s Mother Mildred or Judy Parfitt’s irrepressible Sister Monica absolutely hilarious. Some of the laughs even seem intentional. Mildred entered one room with a tray of goodies, at the same time bellowing like a medieval town crier, “WE BRING SUCCOUR!” The country immediately sat bolt upright, thinking another war had been announced.
Also, you can’t ask Mother Mildred to make a balloon animal in front of a spellbound audience of kids (who were probably in fear of being sent to bed without succour) without expecting comedy.
She also shouted a splendid version of A Christmas Carol, by Dickens, which would serve any viewer who regularly uses an ear trumpet.
And Sister Monica? Well, gawd bless her and may she never desert Nonnatus
House for a residency at the Palladium.
Who else quotes Theocritus from the 3rd century BC along with recommending one of his ancient remedies for a black eye?
A blood-sucking leech was placed on nurse Lucille’s wound, thus allowing her to marry pastor Cyril, prompting cheers throughout the land. Oh, and a clutch of babies were born too. Had there been a certain football match some months earlier? I blame Geoff Hurst.
The Larkins At Christmas (ITV, Christmas Day) attempted heightened social realism in their Nativity when they set it in the Larkins’ actual barn.
Even though the lighting was a little subdued it was a splendid production with a trio of ewes occupying centre stage.
All the while, however, the locals in attendance were being fleeced, good and proper, by the son of the only known criminal in the village.
Of course, no one’s ever that nasty in
The Larkins, or at least that’s what Pop thought until he looked down the barrel of a small pistol in the grocery shop. It
turned out the culprit was just doing a good turn for his family – before shooting himself in the foot. Literally, too.
The tone of this comedy drama, and many performances, still seem something of a work in progress, much like Pop’s precarious vocation of buying and selling. But he’s at least now spared any more snooping from HMRC by having his daughter Mariette propose to Charlie, the intrusive tax man.
It was only left for us to wonder why the village has a vicar (Peter Davison) who is the nearest thing to a tramp, grasping for food and booze at every turn. And a special mention, too, for actor Robert
Bathurst’s resting thesp whose King David will always be talked about in Kent as “head and shoulders above” the younger players. Another series
beckons, Covid-willing.
Not Going Out Christmas Special
(BBC One, Thursday) ditched the Nativity for a visit to the panto, or at least Lee’s nightmare vision of Cinderella, where wife Lucy is burdened with housework, and Lee – as Buttons – is not helping enough with the chores. As is the style of our longestrunning sitcom, it had more puns than a Christmas cracker convention.
Finally, All Creatures Great &
Small (Channel 5, Christmas Eve) dared to have a seasonal special without either Nativity or panto. Was the director having a Christmas moment? The drama, one of the best around, went for pathos.
That was of course after showcasing the ongoing romances of the piece, James and Helen, Siegfried and Diana, and Mrs Hall and the dodgylooking clock mender.
But the real drama centred on pooch Tricky Woo up at the big house who, like the rest of us by then, had been fed to within an inch of his life.
But dark clouds are scudding and war is approaching in the next series. On that cheerful
note...happy New Year!