SARAH VINE’S My TV Week: A trio of horrifyingly hilarious Christmas nightmares

COUNT MAGNUS

FRIDAY, BBC2

INSIDE NO. 9 CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

THURSDAY, BBC2

MOTHERLAND: LAST CHRISTMAS

FRIDAY, BBC1

The Inside No. 9 team! Shearsmith and Pemberton’s tale also features a long-dead pilgrim, only not quite such a nasty one: St Nicholas

For someone who finds Christmas a bit of a nightmare, I confess even I love Christmas Eve. That wonderful moment when the shops shut and the streets begin to empty, and you can really sense the magic in the air.

I particularly love a Christmas ghost story, the more spooktacular the better. Two crackers last week, one from master of modern macabre Mark Gatiss, the other from Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton.

All three used to be in partnership of course, as The League Of Gentlemen, BBC2’s surreal comedy-horror set in the village of Royston Vasey.

Gatiss first. He takes an icon of the genre – MR James, famous for his ghost stories which normally involve an eccentric scholar, some sort of ancient text and various malevolent entities, often of a tentacled nature. But don’t be fooled by the Victorian veneer of gentility: James knew how to set the reader’s imagination on edge in the most sinister of ways.

Anna Maxwell Martin is her usual apoplectic self, together with Diane Morgan as deadpan Liz (pictured)

Jason Watkins (himself no stranger to horror – he was brilliant as the oily Simon Harwood in W1A, the BBC’s self-depreciating comedy about itself) is perfect as an Englishman touring Sweden for scholarly purposes. His irritatingly cheery manner and sense of superiority would be reason enough to see him meet a sticky end, but there are darker forces at work.

Specifically, a long-dead Count who went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and returned with something unholy in his luggage. A chilling tale of what happens to those who don’t listen to Swedish innkeepers.

Shearsmith and Pemberton’s tale also features a long-dead pilgrim, only not quite such a nasty one: St Nicholas, the fourth-century saint who is the inspiration for Santa Claus. The Bones Of St Nicholas takes place on Christmas Eve inside a church, where yet another eccentric Englishman (Pemberton) has his scholarly peregrinations rudely interrupted by the arrival of an annoying pair of ‘champers’ (church campers) who have booked the place for the night on Airbnb.

Sarah Vine (pictured) said that she particularly enjoys a Christmas ghost story

Simon Callow is superbly Simon Callow-esque as the verger full of jaw-dropping (quite literally) tales of beings lurking behind the Christmas tree. Needless to say, his warnings fall on deaf ears, with deadly consequences.

Of course, for many of us, Christmas nightmares tend to be more of a domestic variety: enter the Motherland Christmas Special. To my mind Motherland is up there with Outnumbered as one of the greatest comedy sitcoms about parenthood ever written: funny, clever and bittersweet in equal measure – and this year’s special was no exception.

Anna Maxwell Martin is her usual apoplectic self, together with Diane Morgan as deadpan Liz, Paul Ready as downtrodden Kevin and Lucy Punch as Amanda, who has the horror of a post-divorce ‘blended’ Christmas to negotiate (sounds, as Liz points out, like a particularly revolting smoothie), not helped by her toxic mother, played by Joanna Lumley.

Still, none of them have it as bad as poor Meg, whose husband goes off piste with his Christmas gift. The horror! The horror!

THE SNOWMAN? I MELTED 

THE SNOWMAN: THE FILM THAT CHANGED CHRISTMAS

SATURDAY, CHANNEL 4

The stars of The Showman: The Film That Changed Christmas were indubitably Hilary Audus and Joanna Harrison (pictured), whose job it was to animate Briggs’s drawings

If you like your Christmas all snuggly and schmaltzy, then you’ll have enjoyed this, the story of how Raymond Briggs’s illustrated story was brought to life 40 years ago by Channel 4.

The stars of the show were indubitably Hilary Audus and Joanna Harrison, whose job it was to animate Briggs’s drawings, and add a bit extra (Father Christmas) to the tale. Now a rather natty pair of middle-aged ladies, they were just young girls back then, in awe of Briggs, whose caustic wit was legendary.

And there was a great cameo from the man who commissioned the film in the first place in 1982, Paul Madden, one of those old-school television types who sadly don’t exist today.

Also, who knew that it wasn’t Aled Jones who sang the film’s haunting Walking In The Air melody, but a boy called Peter Auty? History stands corrected.

A court snorathon 

VARDY v ROONEY: A COURTROOM DRAMA

WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY, Channel 4

Rating:

Natalia Tena as Rebekah Vardy. This dramatisation is based on court transcripts.

I approached this thinking it would be a cross between Footballers’ Wives and Rumpole Of The Bailey. I was sadly mistaken.

Quite how anyone could make the most salient celebrity feud of the decade into such a snorathon is a mystery. The problem is that this dramatisation (Natalia Tena as Rebekah Vardy) is based on court transcripts.

Star witnesses squirming in the box can be entertaining viewing if it’s the real deal: Amber Heard and Johnny Depp, for example.

But when it’s actors reading their words from a script, it’s not nearly so much fun. Honestly, I’ve been to more lively PTA meetings.

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