Christmas TV schedule 2023 UK: The Crown, Doctor Who and Agatha Christie bless the holidays

Genie, Sky Cinema / NOW

Since its release in 2003, Richard Curtis's Love, Actually has become a common staple of the modern Christmas experience. Now, 20 years later, the warm and fuzzy romcom writer returns to the festive season for his latest effort Genie (directed by Sam Boyd).

Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You) plays the New York auction assistant Bernard Bottle, who’s enduring a terrible December. He missed his daughter’s birthday, his marriage is collapsing, and he’s sacked by his merciless boss Flaxman (Alan Cumming). Bernard’s at a low ebb, and needs a miracle. Cue the ancient jewellery box that Bernard decides to polish. Unwittingly, he releases a magical genie that takes the form of Melissa McCarthy – endowed with the power to grant unlimited wishes. But after 2,000 years of entrapment, this fortuitous being has a lot to learn about the modern world.

Photo: Sky/Universal Studios

Candy Cane Lane, Prime Video

Adding to the Christmas magic, Candy Cane Lane aims at a fantastical version of Deck the Halls, complete with family gatherings and decorative competition.

However, in this film, the ridiculously motivated father Chris Carver (Eddie Murphy) strikes a bargain with the duplicitous elf Pepper (Jillian Bell) to ensure his decorations are the best. He doesn’t read the small print, and Pepper casts a spell on the neighbourhood to make the 12 Days of Christmas into a harrowing reality. With his family, Chris seeks to undo his mistake and break the spell. But there are plenty of mystical enemies blocking the way.

Photo: Amazon

Theater Camp, Disney+

Given that the faux-documentary format has been ubiquitous in TV since the turn of the century, it’s unusual for something like Theater Camp to be a quick, 90-minute breath. With excellent speed, directors Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman drop into a performing arts troupe in upstate New York and wrestle between multitudinous teachers, students and departments.

Gordon (The Bear) and Ben Platt (Dear Evan Hansen) take centre-stage as lifetime performance duo Rebecca-Diane and Amos. She’s head of music, he’s head of drama. They write and direct a musical every year and this time they're commemorating Joan (Amy Sedaris), the head of the camp, who’s fallen into a coma due to a Bye Bye Birdie-related incident. Her vlogger son Troy (Jimmy Tatro) arrives to take the reins with no idea how to run the place.

Photo: 20th Century Studios

Platform 7, ITVX

Modern transport hubs are ideal settings for purgatorial circumstances. Often, when you’re waiting for a plane or a bus or a train, you’re stuck in a transcendentally tedious waiting period to travel somewhere better. Adapting her own novel, writer Louise Doughty (Apple Tree Yard) opts for the train station to examine a confused ghost, lingering on the platform as she tries to remember herself.

With her memory gone, Lisa (Jasmine Jobson) wanders. At 4am, she witnesses a man throw himself in front of a freight train. Soon, his ghost appears and she begins to talk with him. In their conversations, Lisa gradually figures out why she's there.

Photo: ITV

The Famous Five, CBBC / BBC One

Nicolas Winding Refn is the filmmaker behind a lot of bloody pleasures. He elevated the career of Ryan Gosling with Drive and showed Elle Fanning in a new light with the surreal, cannibalistic The Neon Demon. Surprising, then, that he's created a new BBC adaptation of Enid Blyton’s classic Famous Five books for children, following a gang of kid adventurers. Even more intriguing: the antagonist is played by Joffrey Baratheon himself, Jack Gleeson.

The first episode The Curse of Kirrin Island sees the Five come together for the first time, with George (Diaana Babnicova), Julian (Elliott Rose), Dick (Kit Rakusen), Anne (Flora Jacoby Richardson) and Timmy the dog discovering a body on the beach. Turns out, it's the victim of a local curse. The Five then sail to an uninhabited island, finding a subterranean chapel filled with cursed treasure.

Photo: BBC

Vigil, series 2, BBC One

Writer and creator Tom Edge has become an important asset to the BBC. Following his underrated Netflix romcom Lovesick, he adapted the Cormoran Strike books into Strike. But his biggest success with the Beeb is Vigil, a detective thriller set miles underwater aboard a submarine, attracting over 13 million viewers – the most since Jed Mercurio’s Bodyguard in 2018.

This December, the second series finally arrives with an oppositional experience to series one: up in the air rather than down in the depths. After seven people are murdered at a Scottish military base, returning detectives DCI Amy Silva (Suranne Jones) and DI Kirsten Longacre (Rose Leslie) investigate the world of drone warfare to find their killer.

Photo: BBC

The Crown, season 6, part 2, Netflix

After providing a divisive and detailed conclusion to Princess Diana in the first part of The Crown’s final season, the series now readies for the turn of the millennium.

Princes William (Ed McVey) and Harry (Luther Ford) grow into adolescence and adulthood following their mother’s death – the former pursuing his studies at the University of St Andrews, where he meets the future Princess Kate (Meg Bellamy). Queen Elizabeth (Imelda Staunton) prepares for her Golden Jubilee, reflecting on the future of the monarchy, before Prince Charles (Dominic West) and Camilla (Olivia Williams) finally marry. And undoubtedly, considering the period, the series will also cover 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror that Prime Minister Tony Blair (Bertie Carvel) supports.

Photo: BBC

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, Netflix

For millennials, Chicken Run was a defining family movie. Clucking forward on the insane premise of 'The Great Escape but with poultry', the Aardman animation told the story of a chicken flock planning their breakout from the evil Tweedy’s Farm. The sequel Dawn of the Nugget – coming 23 years after the original – turns into a heist-y direction: now, the chickens are breaking into Tweedy’s latest genocidal venture.

After escaping the farm, Ginger (Thandiwe Newton) and Rocky (Zachary Levi) have built a beautiful haven on an island – separated from the greedy instincts of humanfolk. But their recently hatched daughter-chicken Molly (Bella Ramsey), unaware of the dangers, wants to explore beyond the island. She leaves without her parents’ permission and gets snatched up. Ginger, Rocky and the broader chicken community are determined to retrieve her.

Photo: Netflix

Maestro, Netflix

There are three prominent reasons you should be sceptical of Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro. Cooper’s ‘Jewface’ prosthetic nose is currently dividing the Jewish community. The casting of white British actor Carey Mulligan as Bernstein’s Latin-American wife Felicia Montealegre has been seen as whitewashing. And Cooper’s previous film A Star is Born was an overrated melodrama, leaving little anticipation for his follow-up… Okay, that last one was just this critic’s experience, but the controversy remains.

However, as this spirited and curious examination of the legendary composer/conductor proceeds, you have to admit: Cooper does a decent job.

Read our review

Photo: Netflix

The Winter King, ITVX

The void left after Game of Thrones’ conclusion (as controversial as it was) can be seen in the armies of medieval dramas rushing to fill it. Amazon has invested heavily in The Wheel of Time and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Netflix has The Witcher and The Last Kingdom. And Sky/HBO could never let go, and so produced the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon. Now, the relatively new streaming service ITVX wants a piece of the swords-and-sandals action with The Winter King.

Like The Last Kingdom’s loose penetration of British history, this new series dives into Arthurian legends when the country was split into several warring factions. The Winter King follows the life of outcast Arthur Pendragon (Iain de Caestecker) in this brutal fifth-century existence, prior to his royal ascendency. Also stars Eddie Marsen as King Uther, Ellie James as Nimue, and Nathaniel Martello-White as Merlin.

Photo: ITV

Saltburn, Prime Video

Writer/director Emerald Fennell broke into filmmaking with the divisive and much-discussed Promising Young Woman in 2020. It was a dark, amusing and uncomfortable triumph for revenge thrillers and post-#MeToo dramas, revealing an audacious new voice in cinema.

Fennell transplants many of those qualities to her new project Saltburn, a second feature that not only matches her film debut but outgrows it. Returning to the shores of Great Britain, she tells a strange, gothic tale of extreme social climbing that straddles the funny, the satirical, the disturbing and the kinky.

Read our five-star review

Photo: Amazon

Mog's Christmas, Channel 4

It’s an annual tradition for Channel 4: beautifully animating classic children’s books. Following their successful adaptation of The Tiger Who Came to Tea in 2019, director Robin Shaw and writer Joanna Harrison return to the animal worlds of Judith Kerr with Mog’s Christmas.

Mog the family cat feels a bit ignored during the chaos of Christmas. Mr and Mrs Thomas (Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy) are busy making the usual festive preparations with their children, their Aunts (Miriam Margolyes and Maggie Stead), and their Jolly Uncle (Charlie Higson). When Mr Thomas arrives home with a big Christmas tree, Mog retreats to the roof for safety – refusing to come down. Also features the voices of Zawe Ashton and Adjoa Andoh, as well as an original song performed by Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Photo: Channel 4

A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249, BBC Two

A Ghost Story for Christmas was a BBC staple in the 70s, and had been resurrected sporadically in the 21^st century. But the efforts of Sherlock writer Mark Gatiss – a walking encyclopaedia for classic horror – have proved the most fruitful: spinning an eerie yarn every Christmas since 2018, mostly from short stories by MR James. But this year, Gatiss shakes up the routine and returns to Arthur Conan Doyle for his latest half-hour haunt Lot No. 249.

It's 1881 at the Old College, Oxford. The strange research by Edward Bellingham (Freddie Fox) of Ancient Egypt has become the talk of the university, attracting the likes of rational colleague Abercrombie Smith (Game of Thrones’ Kit Harington) and the more delicate Monkhouse Lee (Colin Ryan). But Bellingham’s experiments cross into the supernatural as he attempts to breathe life into a bag of bones…

Photo: BBC/Adorable Media Ltd/Colin Hutton

Doctor Who, BBC One

Yes, the lore of Doctor Who is complicated, but it's best to just accept it. David Tennant is somehow back as the brilliant Time Lord known as the Doctor, and he's taken the writer/rebooter Russell T Davies with him. There’s a lot of pressure on the next actor to fill Tennant’s Converse shoes and, thankfully, Ncuti Gatwa (Sex Education) is a pitch-perfect choice. Christmas Day sees his Doctor’s first steps into the future of the series.

This episode marks Millie Gibson’s debut as the Doctor’s new companion Ruby Sunday. Abandoned as a baby on Christmas Eve, Ruby lives with her mum and grandmother before the Doctor picks her up. In this introductory adventure, she encounters mythical goblins and, um, Davina McCall?

Photo: BBC

Agatha Christie's Murder is Easy, BBC One

The spirit of Agatha Christie returns to loom over the holidays in this new two-part adaptation of Murder is Easy, the author's 1939 novel. Prepare for another seemingly idyllic village in the English countryside – complete with doctors, lawyers and vicars – to be plagued by the dark undergrowth revealed by murder.

But in the case of Murder is Easy, neither Hercule Poirot nor Miss Marple is at the centre. This time around, the ex-officer Fitzwilliam (Industry’s David Jonsson) is the lead investigator. He grows intrigued by a story told on a train to London: Miss Pinkerton (Penelope Wilton) informs him of a large number of suspicious deaths in Wychwood upon Ashe. According to the villagers, these casualties are all accidents but Pinkerton believes there’s a killer on the loose. Afterwards, when travelling to Scotland Yard, she is also killed. Fitzwilliam needs to find the murderer before they kill again. Also stars Morfyyd Clarke and Mark Bonnar.

Photo: BBC/Mammoth Screen/Mark Mainz

Based on a True Story, Sky Max / NOW

If the stupendous superhero bubble is waiting to burst, the true-crime genre is raring to replace it. Not only are broadcasters and streaming platforms swarmed with murderous stories that are stranger than fiction, but there are plenty of comedies to satirise those obsessions – Only Murders in the Building being the most popular. Like Only Murders, Based on a True Story also features characters incensed with true crime and desperate to become amateur sleuths themselves.

Kaley Cuoco continues to shed her Big Bang Theory roots as Ava, a pregnant estate agent and true crime lover. Ava’s husband Nathan (Chris Messina), a former tennis pro, isn’t really into it. However, when they both stumble upon the identity of a local serial killer – known as the ‘Westside Ripper’ – they decide to create a podcast and get rich.

Photo: Sky / Universal

Men Up, BBC One

As the years progress, the collective consciousness is growing more frank and open about sex – especially via television, helped by shows like Sex Education. Men Up is the latest example of this openness, tackling a sexual revolution that changed lives worldwide: the invention of Viagra.

Industry screenwriter Matthew Berry pens this new feature-length BBC drama about the early clinical trials for the drug in 1994. The fictionalised account follows five Welshmen who submit themselves for testing because of impotence. All these men want to reignite a spark in their lives, to meet their desire for romantic connection and quash their sexual insecurities. Stars Iwan Rheon (Game of Thrones).

Photo: BBC

Harlan Coben's Fool Me Once, Netflix

Netflix and crime author Harlan Coben have enjoyed a prolific marriage, and they show no signs of slowing down. If you need a silly, bingeable mystery drama, any of their collaborations will satiate that urge. Fool Me Once, based on Coben’s 2016 novel, is the latest effort – kicking off 2024 with a story of truth, murder and nanny-cams.

Maya Stern (Michelle Keegan) is still recovering from the murder of her husband, Joe (Richard Armitage), while also raising a baby daughter. She installs a camera to keep an eye on the latter. But when Maya looks over the footage, she’s shocked to see her supposedly dead husband walking around the house. Also stars Adeel Akhtar and Joanna Lumley.

Photo: Netflix

The Tourist, series 2, BBC One

Writerly brothers Harry and Jack Williams are prolific in their TV work, which includes The Missing, Baptiste, and The Widow. But it’s rare for one of their series to follow almost immediately after another. Their Coen Brothers-like British thriller Boat Story will soon give way to the return of their formerly Australia-based amnesia caper The Tourist. And instead of the sun-soaked vistas of the Outback, Jamie Dornan will be running across the rural landscapes of Ireland for series two.

Still befuddled by his own identity, Elliott Stanley (Dornan) continues his pursuit of filling the gaps in his memory. He’s joined again by Aussie police officer Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald), and their search for the truth drags them into a local family feud – filled with shocks and laughs.

Read our review

Photo: BBC