GARY'S CHRISTMAS TV GUIDE 2017!
We've gone through the Festive Bumper Radio Times so you don't have to! Here are our recommendations for the TV coming up over Christmas whilst your Gran dozes off drunk and you avoid awkward questions off Auntie Cath...
Saturday 23rd December
Mildred Pierce
3.15pm on BBC2
The ultimate Joan Crawford performance in the classic Mildred Pierce. The perfect film for anyone watching Feud: Bette and Joan later in the day!
Feud then Whatever Happened to Baby Jane
9pm and 10.35pm on BBC2
Feud continues but this time followed by the camp movie classic Whatever Happened to Baby Jane that inspired the series. Dream!
Our Friend Victoria At Christmas
9.30pm on BBC1
A continuation of the excellent retrospective series that came out after Victoria Wood's death in 2016 - this episode sees Anne Reid looking at some of Vic's best Christmas sketches including the amazing Victoria Wood With All The Trimmings Xmas special.
An Evening With Jane McDonald
9pm & 10pm Channel 5
Or perhaps you're a looking for spending the night with another Northern gay icon. Ms McDonald if you're nasty! Join Jane as she cruises around Europe and then presents her own festive variety show straight after!
Christmas Eve
Agatha Christie: Crooked House
6pm on Channel 5
Our traditional BBC Christmas Christie got rightly cancelled because Ed Westwick might be a creepy sexual predator but Channel 5 have come to save the day with Gillian Anderson in a wig in an Agatha Christie adaptation by the team behind Downton Abbey with Glenn Close in it? Yes please!
The Great Gatsby
9.30pm on BBC2
You can't beat Baz Luhrmann for crazy OTT fun... even middling, near-miss like this adaptation of the classic 1920s novel is glorious fun! The perfect Xmas Eve movie.
Christmas Day
Doctor Who: Twice Upon A Time
5.30pm on BBC1
This is the big TV blockbuster of the season! A rare regeneration on Dr Whoand this time Peter Capaldi is turning into Jodie Whittaker! The internet goes crazy and masculinity's collective penis shrinks a little! Hooray!
This special episode is also a multi-Doctor episode with Capaldi's 12th Doctor teaming up with the first ever Doctor (here played by Game of Thrones' Walder Fray - Mr David Bradley!). Even if you're not a big fan this one is going to be one to watch!
The Great Christmas Bake Off
7.40pm on Channel 4
A great big warming pudding of a TV show! Old contestants return (including Selasi!) and bake Christmas favourites...ho ho ho!
300 Years of French and Saunders
10.35pm on BBC1
A retrospective Best Of clip show PLUS some new sketches...one to bring together the gay kids with their Mums at the end of Xmas day!
Boxing Day
Matthew Bourne's Cinderella
5.35pm on BBC2
You can't beat a big camp Matthew Bourne ballet at Christmas!
Jurassic World
6.40pm on ITV1
Aunt Claire is all of us being forced to hang out with our families, the Jurassic World park is Christmas itself and the Indominous Rex is your homophobic relative in this metaphor for queer yuletide with dinosaurs.
Sound of Musicals
7pm on BBC4
This series by Neil Brand is just plain lovely. A three part tour of stage musicals from 1900s to the modern jukebox musical by ways of Lloyd Webber. Features LOTS of John Barrowman singing whilst being interviewed!
9pm on BBC4
Tim Rice - a Life in Song
Another one for you West End Wendies! From the day Tim Rice arrived on this planet, blinking came into the sun, there's more to see than can ever be seen in this documentary, more to do than can ever be done...
Joanna and Jennifer: Absolutely Champers
11pm on BBC2
A repeat from earlier in the week - Ab Fab duo Jennifer Saunder and Joanna Lumley learn where their beloved bolly gets made, darling!
Thursday 28th December
Francis Bacon: A Brush With Violence
9pm on BBC4
This Francis Bacon doc debuted in 2017 and it really packs a punch (as you would imagine!). A really great career retrospective with enlightening interviews with his friends and lovers, this documentary shines a light into the dark, sexy world of one of greatest queer artists of the 20th century.
Friday 29th December
Victoria Wood Night
9pm & 10pm on Channel 5
More Victoria Wood with another look back on her career followed by a rare TV outing for one of her stand-up live shows.
Vic and Bob's Big Night Out
9pm BBC2
Vic and Bob are back with a new episode of their classic 90s show! Surrealist craziness! What's not to love?
Saturday 30th December
Feud then Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte
9pm & 10.30pm on BBC2
Feud continues but this time followed by Bette Davis' second Hagsploitation film Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte which was supposed to star Joan Crawford...we won't spoil why Olivia De Havilland took her part in the final film...
New Year's Eve
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
1.40pm on BBC1
Three words... DAME. ANGLEA. LANSBURY!
New Year's Day
The Story of Bohemian Rhapsody
9pm on BBC4
Queen: Rock the World
10pm on BBC4
Queen: The Legendary 1975 Concert
11pm on BBC4
Freddie Mercury night on BBC4 is just a perfect way to wake yourself up on New Year's Day. 4 hours of Queen documentaries and a full vintage live show from 1975...Bryan Singer will be watching from home and crying!
Tuesday 2nd January
Inside No 9
10pm on BBC2
Fans are always gagging for a new series of the horror tinged comic anthology series from Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, perhaps season 4 will get more attention to Inside No 9 after the universally well received League of Gentlemen specials they wrote and starred in over Christmas.
If you're new to the show you can jump in at series 4 as each episode is completely self contained (like Black Mirror, Tales of the Unexpected or The Twilight Zone), expect laughs, scares and twists in the same vein as their more famous Royston Vasey creations. Series 1-3 is also on Netflix.
Diet Secrets and How To Lose Weight
8pm on Channel 5
Celebrity Big Brother
9pm on Channel 5
Okay fatties! Put down the cheese and trifles...this is 2018 and Jodie off of Big Brother is here to let you into her diet secrets just before you sit down to eat a full bag of Doritos and watch the new series of Celebrity Big Brother. New Year's resolutions are made to be broken, right?!