Today, the BBC unveiled its Christmas highlights. God alone knows what the lowlights will be like. I am not going to pretend that Christmas TV was ever any good – it wasn’t – but this seems to be the worst yet.
Top of the bill is, astonishingly, two episodes of Mrs Brown’s Boys. I think this will be the story of how the BBC squandered an arm and a leg on a show that was as funny as a burning orphanage and the participants squirrelled the money out of the taxman’s reach. Please tell me it’s not just me that wonders what all the fuss is about? A very obvious drag act surrounded by a generic supporting cast, performing rubbish very badly. If that wasn’t bad enough, we have the reunion of the desperately unfunny French and Saunders, who have failing to make people laugh for 30 years. The show is less than hilariously called 300 years of French and Saunders. It’s not true, but it feels like it. Whoever said comedy is dead obviously had advanced sight of the BBC’s schedules.
There will be a tribute to Victoria Wood which will be appreciated by her many fans. I do not wish to speak ill of the dead but here is another alleged comedians I have never found funny. I once watched her show with my stepfather and he was in hysterics from the moment Ms Wood walked on stage. I, meanwhile, could not see anything remotely humorous. It seemed that all she had to do was sing a Joyce Grenfell-type song, packed with innuendo, very quickly and pull lots of wacky faces, or utter a “rude” word like tampon. Cue for the audience to fall off their seats, in floods of tears of laughter. A friend of mine saw her at the Bristol Hippodrome and found her equally unamusing. It takes all sorts.
The other highlights, we are promised, include the following:
– Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders learn about their favourite tipple in Absolutely Champers
– Sports Personality of the Year
– The Apprentice final
– Michael McIntyre’s Big Christmas Show
– Pointless Celebrities and Celebrity Mastermind
– David Walliams’ Grandpa’s Great Escape
– Mary Berry’s Christmas Party featuring Mel and Su
– Gospel Christmas on BBC Two
It’s enough to drive a man to drink. I might even have to talk to the family.
Surely, the BBC can do better than this. These shows feature some of my least favourite “entertainers” and are guaranteed to see me looking for the TV remote, if I am allowed near it.
To top things off there will be no Charlie Brooker’s TV wipe this year which was not only the finest programme on the BBC last Christmas, it was the finest show from the entire year.
Can I just wake up in January?
