The Sunday Telegraph

Monday

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Mary Berry’s Christmas Party BBC ONE, 8.30PM; SCOTLAND, WEDNESDAY, 8.00PM; N IRELAND, THURSDAY, 11.40PM

With the doyenne of British baking showing how simple it is to cook Christmas food, Mary Berry’s

Christmas Party could be the definition of easy viewing. Shorn of dramatic tension by the fact that four famous faces take turns in Berry’s kitchen, rather than competing against one another, the only way it could get any cosier would have been

(in times past) to have

Val Doonican involved. The guests themselves are having plenty of fun. News anchor Huw Edwards turns up with his “bulging biceps” (Berry is in flirtatiou­s mode) and general incompeten­ce; Poldark’s Eleanor Tomlinson fields questions about sex scenes with Aidan Turner that she’d surely refuse anywhere else; sprinter Dina Asher-Smith loses a nail midpastry roll; and comedian Joe Lycett reveals his own bizarre Christmas tradition (six Weetabix, full-fat milk and cream). The food isn’t bad either: chicken and mushroom suet pie, peppered fillet of beef, hazelnut roulade. And through it all, Berry, still the nation’s favourite grandmothe­r, basks in her late-blossoming career. Gabriel Tate

Inside the Chr Christmas Factory BBC TWO, 9.00PM

Rather than a trip to Lapland to watch the elves at work, Gregg Wallace visits a factory producing two million tins of jewel-wrapped chocolates a year, Cherry Healey learns about German-made ornaments and Ruth Goodman discovers the history of the Christmas turkey. GT

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