More Christmas / New Year TV (2009-10)

Well now that Xmas and New Year all done and dusted for another few hundred days it's time for a second wrap up of what I've been watching over the festive period (and I've still got a couple of things stacked up on the DVD recorder for another time too - I'm not ready for 3 hours of Hamlet just yet).

The Outnumbered Christmas special was a corker, as I've come to expect. I stumbled across the second series last year almost by accident and was very pleased with what I found. The 3 child actors are terrific, and well supported(!) by Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner, and I find the humour and the dialogue is often particularly fresh and interesting. Of course, the precocious children would be absolutely hideous if I knew them in real life, but as they're safely tucked up in tellyville I can laugh along at and with them. 

On New Year's Eve I managed to see both The Graham Norton Show and Alan Carr: Chatty Man. I watched all of Graham Norton's recent series and am constantly impressed with how funny he continues to be, and at the level of guest he gets on his sofas - 50 Cent, Catherine Tate and Jimmy Carr together at last?? The line up for the New Year's show was just as eclectic - with Sarah Jessica Parker conversing with Jedward and Joan Rivers, before being replaced by Dominic West. It wasn't the most interesting line up for me personally, although I do love Joan Rivers, but Graham (as usual) made everything watchable. Alan Carr's special was the first I've seen of his current series as it keeps clashing with other shows I'm watching/recording. I wasn't that taken with the first series, however I enjoyed this one. And what a rarity to see David Tennant on TV over Xmas!

Another seasonal highlight, and a one off, was 2009 Unwrapped with Miranda Hart starring my new favourite comic actress. This was a sort-of review of the year's events complete with talking heads (including Duncan Bannatyne!), but the twist was that the footage was manipulated or CGI-augmented for comic effect, and the vox pops were in on the joke. The best bits of the show were the speeches by Nick Clegg, David Cameron and Gordon Brown, taken from their respective party conferences, and edited to have them saying what they would never dare - Clegg confessing that no one votes Lib Dem so there's no point trying, Cameron confirming that he's a cut-rate Tony Blair, and Brown looking ahead to the next Tory government. Miranda's links, where she pretended to be a Nigella-type, cooking Xmas dinner in her house, were amusing in the same way that her sitcom is, complete with knowing winks and asides to camera, and on the whole a very enjoyable way to spend an hour's TV viewing.

I half-watched Channel 4's Greatest Songs of the Noughties poll, which ran down 20 tracks that the public had voted for, and as such made for depressing viewing. Too much indie, too much dross, too much Coldplay. There were only a handful of songs that I liked - by Will Young, Beyoncé and Take That - and the winning song, Snow Patrols' Chasing Cars... well I couldn't even hum it never mind sing it. Who on earth did they poll for this thing? One of the talking heads referred to Coldplay as 'music for accountants', and that could sum up nearly the whole list.

One of the shows I was most eagerly awaiting this December was the return of the period drama Cranford for 2 feature length episodes. I'm not normally one for costume dramas - they're all a bit samey - but the first series was in a different league. The cast was stellar for starters, and most of them returned here, along with some new faces. Tim Curry, Jonathan Pryce and Leslie Sharp were among the new residents, and they were all marvellous. They'll never best the quartet of ladies at the heart of Cranford though - Julia McKenzie (Mrs Forrester), Deborah Findley (Miss Tomkinson), the sublime Imelda Staunton (Miss Pole), and the god-like Dame Judi Dench as oh-so-adorable Miss Matty Jenkins. Staunton has me in stitches one minute, and Dench has me welling with tears the next, they're such accomplished actresses, and thankfully the material they have to work with on Cranford serves them wonderfully. The stories themselves are multi-faceted, taking in a multitude of characters, and are never boring, if somewhat depressing at times - too many regulars seemed to die off in the first episode! I do hope everyone returns to Cranford again soon.