It’s a Wonderful Life – The Farting Edition! What Insiders Watch on Christmas TV Every Year | television

CChristmas is a time steeped in tradition. One of the big traditions found in many of our homes during this period revolved around television: rewatching your old favorite shows, anticipating that special program you’ve been dying to see, or sitting down at an after-lunch party with a beloved family movie. And as we posted last week, there are plenty of Christmas TV shows we can relate to this year.

But what about the people involved in the television industry? What do your Christmas viewing habits look like? Here, a diverse group of actors, writers, directors and comedians – many of whom may be appearing on your screens this year – share their favorite Christmas TV shows.

Jools Holland

Oliver Twist
My mother always told me that my great-grandmother’s mother died, like the protagonist in the story, in a union workshop in Greenwich. So we sat watching the movie, holding hands, and it was just like that we somehow. There’s something about it at the end where you want to get to the house of Mr. Brownlow – the kind man who greeted Oliver Twist. Mr. Brownlow’s house is the archetype of a safe place, which I think is what everyone wants. He made a lasting impression on me, and I may have tried to make a home for Mr. Brownlow in my own life—a place to return to. I love to watch this every Christmas and force the kids and grandkids to watch too.
Netherlands offers Jules’ annual Hootenanny New Year’s Eve, 11.30pm, on BBC Two

Ben Wheatley, director

Quincy mission
This was a Tommy Steele Christmas special in 1979. I have a very vivid memory of it. She’s crazy. It’s nightmare fuel. The film revolves around a toy soldier inside a department store who has adventures with all kinds of toys, giant robots, Lego bricks, witches, etc. When I was a kid, it was a big fantasy to be able to play with giant toys, and that really stuck with me. You can watch it on YouTube and it’s very funny. Just don’t watch all of this because it will make you blind.

Macy Adam

Special Christmas movies

My favorite Christmas movie when I was little was always Home Alone, but only one and two. You should have Culkin in there – if you go any further than that it won’t count. But now that I’m older, my husband has started a channel that exclusively shows Hallmark Christmas movies. It’s become a game to find ourselves on the Hallmark Channel, pick out a movie title, and try to guess the plot based on that. They’re always terrible with the cheap sets and the acting is really bad, like they’re suddenly going to look down the camera lens by accident. We love them.
Adam is in Taskmaster: Champion of Champions December 22, 9pm, Channel 4

Arabella Weir, actress

Fart movies
Growing up, almost without exception, we watched Meet Me in St Louis or It’s a Wonderful Life. But we have another tradition. In our family, on Christmas Day, you can fart as much as you want and you don’t have to apologize and no one can complain. So, after lunch, Brussels sprouts and a lot of decadent food, we would sit down and watch these movies. I had two older brothers, and of course, in true boys’ tradition, the taller, louder and smellier the better. Farting was a sport and a big soundtrack to both films.
ware is located in Two doors down Christmas special on Christmas Eve, 10pm, on BBC One

Jeremy Dyson, one of the founders of the League of Gentlemen

Christmas carol

On Christmas Eve, we watch Richard Williams’ unparalleled 1971 animated version of A Christmas Carol. It’s some of the most beautiful hand-drawn animation ever created by the genius behind Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It takes me back to being seven years old, snow on the ground, a carol concert in elementary school. Just awesome. If you haven’t seen it yet, enjoy the 4K restoration here.

Bridget Christie

Box of delights
We watch The Box of Delights every year without fail. Schoolboy Kay Harker is given a magic box and goes on a journey through time and space. There are wolves and mice eating decaying cheese, which is one of those cheerful children’s shows we used to have in the 1970s and 1980s that isn’t the case anymore because everyone is too afraid to be entrusted with thoughtful, slightly bizarre things nowadays. We started when the kids were little and they have continued the tradition, and even though they are now teenagers, they still love it. Part of the fun is trying to remember what each year is called – Box of Tricks? Magic box? Tray of delights? It’s captivating, beautiful, and has snow. Remember that?

Paris Lees, writer, What It Feels Like to Be a Girl

Titanic

In 1998, my mum took me to see Titanic at the Odeon in Nottingham, and that was the only time I heard applause in a cinema – when Kate Winslet said: “I would rather be his whore than your wife!” So when the BBC broadcast it on Christmas Day 2000, it looked like an event, and the whole family gathered to watch. I used to find mainstream culture oppressive and vulgar, but in these fragmented times I’ve come to miss it. Christmas seems like one of the rare times we can still watch it as one.

Ian Morris, co-creator of The Inbetweeners

James Bond
The occasional post-prandial Bond movie was the closest thing to a tradition, and that’s the only thing I carried with my kids and any guests at Christmas. However, I’m very strict, and insist that Roger Moore was peak Bond, so it would be one of seven films, with a thumb on the A View to a Kill scale due to my love of Duran Duran and Grace Jones. I’m forcing my teenage nephews to watch The Inbetweeners at the moment, so there’s a chance I’ll put that on after Max Zorin dies, leave the room to avoid embarrassment, and then stand listening at the door praying for a laugh.

Christine Gernon, Director of Gavin and Stacey

Strictly Come Dancing

The thing that really sums up Christmas for me is absolutely the finale. We watch it with friends. It’s generally the start of Christmas week and feels very festive. We usually have people over: snacks, champagne, hats and getting into the atmosphere. I love the show because I love the journey, which is why I always love people who come to us and are a little bad but get better. It’s a really happy piece of television. It’s very hard to watch without smiling.

dwarf
It brings me great joy. I insist that my family watch it every year, and for some people — my brother — it can be quite infuriating. But what’s not to love about a man who thinks he’s a dwarf trying to find his long-lost father in New York City? I realized years ago that the reason I loved it so much was because when I was 19, I moved to New York and felt strangely associated with an optimistic, naive, troll-like creature struggling to fit in.

Holly Walsh, writer, Amandaland

Christmas Day movie
I’ve been begging my parents to buy me a magazine with TV listings so my brother and I can carefully plan what we’ll watch over Christmas. It was a complicated schedule – deciding which programs we were watching live and what we were recording on our old video player so as to maximize viewing. The Christmas Day movie was obviously a big one: you’re sure to score that, because it’ll be showing during lunch – Back to the Future III, Jurassic Park, Crocodile Dundee. Although I never got to see the maze because someone accidentally taped Paul Daniel’s Christmas special over it.
Amandaland’s Christmas special is on Christmas Day, 9.15pm, BBC One

Alan Titchmarsh

All creatures great and small
There are several movies that are a must-have in our house at Christmas: The Holiday, It’s A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street. But more than anything else, I’m looking forward to the Christmas special of All Creatures Great and Small – a Yorkshire bit to keep that kid doing missionary work in the south happy. It’s very beautifully shot and the characters have real depth. We are ardent Mrs. Hall fans in our house.
Love Your Christmas with Alan Titchmarsh Running ITVX

Arthur Matthews, co-founder of Father Ted

Top of the pops

I was watching the Top of the Pops Christmas specials with my sister. I especially remember the 70s with Slade and Wizard. It was a big show for me and I’m very nostalgic for it. I watch the replays but wouldn’t care about anything after 1981/82. I think Top of the Pops was terrible after that, with all this very artificial and artificial-sounding stuff. I just didn’t like the 80s. But when I think of Christmas TV, it’s always Top of the Pops.

Jessica Swale, Writer, Paddington the Musical

Christmas soap
We were never allowed to watch soap operas as children. My father always said, “Imagine what you could do with that time instead.” But the exception to the rule was every Christmas at my grandmother’s house. I loved EastEnders and Coronation Street and we used to watch the Christmas specials. I’ve always thought they were the best TV show ever because they had so much drama – so surely the other 364 days of the year were just as good. This was a Christmas gift because my parents couldn’t say no. I didn’t understand what was happening but I loved it.

Ben Whitehead, voice actor, plays Wallace in Wallace and Gromit

After dinner movie

Watching a movie after Christmas dinner is a TV tradition for me. It doesn’t have to be a classic, just entertaining and preferably new to me. But mostly it comes down to who you watch it with. Last year was special. When I learned that Vengeance Most Fowl would premiere on Christmas Day, I was both nervous and excited to know that millions would see it. My brother had a family feast and after that we watched the movie. I will hold this memory very dear for many birthdays to come.

Tony Dow, director of Only Fools and Horses

Raising a child
Once my kids got to a certain age, I couldn’t get them to watch a black and white movie, so watching one over Christmas became a bit of an obsession. Raising a child is absolutely amazing. The quality of what Cary Grant does is amazing. They call it screwball comedy but there is something natural about it. Grant does all the falling, and Katharine Hepburn is completely natural and just reacting. She’s not trying to act. “Don’t overact” is one of the great notes I always give to actors, especially in comedy. I look at David Jason and Nick Lyndhurst as having a similar amazing quality – David was the energy, the driver, and Nick was the reactor.

Cheney Taylor, actress, acts natural

A John Lewis Christmas advertisement

This is the first Christmas ad I was old enough to remember correctly, when I was about ten years old. I Liked It So Much: The Story of This Bear Who Has Never Seen Christmas Before. I like the sentimental, sentimental and sad Christmas ad. Lily Allen’s version of “Somewhere We Only Know” is still on my sleepover playlist. I love it and it calms me down. Watching this ad makes me feel hopeful. I watch it every year. It doesn’t even have to be Christmas. It could be June. If I feel like I just want to sit back and watch something wholesome and nice, that’s my choice.

Issy suti

Snowman