So that was Christmas, and what have we done?
Well, hopefully we went for a frosty wander or two, because that was a fine crisp spell of seasonal weather.
It was, let’s face it, more tempting to be out and about than to be inside trying to keep up to date with everything happening on the telly. And, you know, the telly was not that great.
You might, for example, have stumbled into the Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special as you would into a trap of punji sticks. It’s disconcerting to see just how long this has been going on – the Christmas specials alone have been going since 2011 – but you almost have to admire how consistently the shows straddle the border between the insipid and the objectionable.
Case in point: this year’s edition, which was too rude for families and too childish for laughter (although the live audience, if I’m not mistaken, laughed at the simple act of Brendan O’Carroll saying hello at the start.)
Still, I have some good news regarding this year’s annual crass panto. It’s funny, you ask? Oh no it isn’t, I say. So what’s the good news as we move into 2026 still emotionally scarred? IT’S BEHIND US, I say.
Amadeus
It was a brave decision for Sky to make a series of Amadeus, based on the 1979 play by Peter Shaffer, given how fabulous and famous Milos Forman’s film of the same play already is (and it’s just been rereleased in 4K). Then again, it’s 41 years since the film came out and really I’m not sure how many people have seen it lately – so it’s not unreasonably hasty, I suppose. And after all, the trailers suggested they’ve tried to make a decent job of it, with glittering costumes and actors like Paul Bettany in significant parts.
If you’re not familiar with it, it’s the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (played here by Will Sharpe) time seeking success in 18th-century Vienna, and, more centrally, his awkward friendship/rivalry with court composer Antonio Salieri (Bettany). It’s a wonderful setting, from the populist theatres of the city to the glittering courts of Emperor Joseph II (played glumly by Rory Kinnear), full of opportunities for lavish costumes, and of course that music.
The makers, obliged to try something slightly different from the film, have chosen to give it a surprise ending and to make enough edits and additions to fill five episodes. It’s not entirely successful: some of Shaffer’s poetry has been replaced with ho-hum dialogue, and there are subplots about infidelity that are both unwarranted by the evidence and largely inconsequential to the drama here anyway. And, if this isn’t a weird thing to say, some of the younger actors have distinctly modern-looking faces and didn’t feel quite right for the setting.
All the same, at times it worked quite well. The two leads could hardly hope to match Tom Hulce and F Murray Abraham in the same parts – and their characters are thinner here anyway – but on their own terms they have real chemistry between them. And overall it’s quite watchable, handsome and well-acted. Not a patch on the film, then, but not the complete travesty we feared.
Titanic Sinks Tonight which aired on BBC is a minute by minute of the night the unsinkable ship sank. Photo: BBC
Fallout
Over on Amazon, meanwhile, Christmas seemed like an odd time to reintroduce us to the post-apocalyptic western drama of Fallout. Nevertheless, here it is: in case you’ve forgotten (or lost interest in season one), it’s set 200 years after nuclear devastation left humanity just about surviving in the Californian wasteland; some live lives sheltered in every way in underground bunkers, while Lucy (Ella Purnell) has gone above ground searching for her kidnapped father Hank (Kyle MacLachlan) in the company of the gunslinging Ghoul (Walton Goggins). In fact, as we join them again for season two, the Ghoul is in a spot of noose-shaped trouble and waiting for Lucy to rescue him before they continue their journey.
There’s a lot going on here, sometimes unevenly, though it’s never confusing, and technically it’s always been an impressive show: scenes and places look real, and the CGI is copious but usually subtle. I can understand why some fans have become so obsessed with it, and in some ways it looks like something I should enjoy. But it’s a show I’ve never connected with. It’s overly stylised, with an underground that is essentially Ned-Flanders-World, which means its humour (and music) is often too unreal to work. Lucy is unengaging and often cartoonish, and her early wordy speech, full of pleases and thank-yous at the most urgent moment, just reminds me again what damage all that knowing irony (yes, thank you, Mr Tarantino) has done to our dramas. I will say that Goggins is entirely, predictably enjoyable as the Ghoul, but he’s not enough to make us care.
The Room In The Tower
I am very much in favour of the recent revival of A Ghost Story For Christmas, even if the modern ones (often drawn from the work of MR James) have felt too perfect to match the atmospheres of the 1970s originals. This year’s offering (once again from Mark Gatiss, this time based on the work of EF Benson) was The Room In The Tower, in which Tobias Menzies played Roger, who, sheltering underground during the Blitz, tells a nurse how his life has been plagued by a recurring nightmare of being put in the titular room in a posh manor house, knowing something terrifying is lurking there.
It’s a simple story, though carefully enough delivered, using claustrophobia and camera angles to combat its repetitive nature. Menzies is excellent, as is Joanna Lumley as the terrifying woman in his dreams, and it’s all perfectly polished (arguably a bit too polished). For all its intricate variations on a theme (“like Paganini”) though, as a drama it’s surprisingly linear, with an ending that you can see almost from the beginning, but which offers no surprises or twists: it’s a shame, but, as tidy and careful as it is, there is a faint sense of “is that it?” afterwards.
Titanic Sinks Tonight
Titanic Sinks Tonight had a lot of things against it: it’s a part-documentary, part-drama series, it’s hardly what you want in Christmas week, and the title just cued the song Wimoweh in your head.
But its focus was on letters and diaries left behind by passengers and crew we don’t normally hear from, and its minute-by-minute structure gave it an unusually detailed kind of tension that revealed both structural and social faults. And even though not all the talking heads seemed like the right choices, we had the likes of Suzannah Lipscomb giving good historical detail while Jeanette Winterson brought a novelist’s eye for the human stories. A bit padded, but watchable after all.
Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special, RTE1, Wednesday, 9.30pm
Amadeus, Sky Atlantic, Sunday, 9pm
Fallout, Amazon
The Room In The Tower, BBC2, Wednesday, 10pm
Titanic Sinks Tonight, BBC2, Sunday, 9pm
Channel Hopper, written by Paul Bradley, features every Thursday in the Donegal News
