Jonathan Thomas (00:13) Welcome back to the Anglotopia Podcast, the podcast for people who love British travel, history and culture. I'm your host, Jonathan Thomas, and today we're diving into one of Britain's most beloved Christmas traditions, the Christmas television special. My guest is Tom Salinsky, writer, podcaster, and British TV expert who previously joined us to discuss Red Dwarf. Tom has written extensively about British television, including his recent books about Red Dwarf, and his deep knowledge of British comedy makes him the perfect person to explore the unique phenomenon of British Christmas telly. He's also the co-host of a brilliant new podcast called All British Comedy with comedian Abigoliah Schamaun which you can find at All British Comedy.com From Doctor Who and Morecombe and Wise to Only Fools and Horses and The Vicar of Dibley, British Christmas specials have become as essential to the season as mince pies and crackers. We're going to explore why British television goes all out for Christmas, discuss the greatest Christmas specials ever made, talk about memorable disasters, and examine what makes these festive episodes so different from regular telly and so very British. Welcome back, Tom. Tom Salinsky (01:21) Thanks for having me, nice to be here. Jonathan Thomas (01:23) Thanks for being on the podcast. knew when I wanted to do something about Christmas TV specials that you were the person to go to. So. Tom Salinsky (01:30) Yeah, the, the new podcasts is a lot of fun. All British comedy explained. ⁓ and, ⁓ the reason for doing that is that, my good friend, Abigoliah Liar is an American standup comedian, ⁓ but she's based in the UK and despite having lived in London for 11 years, her knowledge of British television comedy is frankly appalling. ⁓ and she and I, let me make that clear. She and I thought that it would be good to try and do something about that. ⁓ so we're going through. Jonathan Thomas (01:51) Hahaha Tom Salinsky (02:00) one comedy show per episode and I'll tell her about it. I'll share a couple of installments and then she gets to decide whether it earns a place on the shelf of fame or whether it's forever consigned to the bargain bin. Jonathan Thomas (02:14) Well, and as we know, are many terrible British comedies that she's going to enjoy. Tom Salinsky (02:18) Yes, well, I've tried to curate it, especially early on, tried to show her some of the greats, but Monty Python's flying circus didn't find favour with her, for example. And, you know, kind of fair enough, the early television shows are probably not that team absolutely firing on all cylinders. Jonathan Thomas (02:34) Yeah, you know, I will get many comments for saying this, but I'm actually not a huge fan of Monty Python. ⁓ It's not a part of my Anglophile journey, but I'm also not a fan of the Beatles either, but don't tell anybody that. Don't tell anybody that I'm going to lose my job. So what, what, what, what what comedies have you guys covered so far? Tom Salinsky (02:47) gods right ⁓ absolutely jesus So it's very early days. We're doing it in themed seasons. The first season is called Landmarks. So these are the shows that really changed the game. So Monty Python's Flying Circus is what we started with. Then we did the Young Ones. Then we did Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Not Only But Also. Then we did The Goon Show, not technically a television show, but hugely influential. And I'm not quite sure when this is going out, but coming up, also have Victoria Wood has seen on TV. We have The Office. Jonathan Thomas (03:00) Okay. Let's go. Tom Salinsky (03:26) the day to day and then our first season will finish with another radio show. I'm sorry. I haven't a clue. Jonathan Thomas (03:33) So that's so you heard it folks go to allbritishcomedy.com and start listening our we'll put the links in the show notes and ⁓ It's give it a listen. It'll be if you love British comedy. You guys are gonna enjoy it. So back to British telly and Christmas ⁓ Let's start with a big picture question ⁓ So in America Traditionally during the holiday season TV goes on hiatus. There's no new television that airs during the Christmas holiday season. So that's all reruns and movies. So explain why British Christmas television is such a massive cultural institution in Britain in a way that it really isn't in America and what makes it special because you get new telly over the holidays and then we don't. Tom Salinsky (04:20) Yeah, I think it's a fairly recent phenomenon. And I say that as somebody who is quite old, because in the 60s and 70s, I think it was much more similar to what you'd see in America. Things didn't go off the air in quite the same way because our seasons tend to be short, six or seven episodes rather than 20 to 25. So you don't have that pattern which you have in America of a network show that will air. 26 episodes over 39 weeks and go off the air in the summer and then come back again. So in Britain, when a series starts airing, usually there's absolutely consecutively until the last episode and then it's finished, whether that's six episodes or as many as 12 for a really successful show. But then the other thing is, I think in the 60s and 70s, you sometimes had like a sitcom which would start airing its six episode season in November. And so therefore there would be an episode that was scheduled to be shown in Christmas week and it would be shown. And sometimes they say, well, let's do a Christmas edition. So from my research, ⁓ till death do depart ⁓ actually started its 1966 season with a Christmas episode. But it was just part of the regular season. wasn't a Christmas special. There's one exception to this rule. And that's all the way back in 1957, where there was a bumper edition of Hancock's Half Hour, which was entitled Hancock's 43 Minutes, and was essentially the Hancock character presenting a variety show. But that was the exception. And I think it was EastEnders that made the difference. So in its second year on air in 1986, ⁓ EastEnders devoted its Christmas episode to ⁓ the Den and Angie storyline absolutely coming to boiling point with this incredible two-hander with just the two actors. And these are storylines that had been seeded for the better part of a year. Because the thinking previously had been, well, at Christmas, people are going to be with their families, people are going to be eating and drinking, they aren't going to have time to watch TV. But some clever person thought, well, maybe if we give them something really special. The fact that we have this captive audience means actually everybody will turn in. And the viewing figures for that episode of EastEnders were phenomenal. I think it was something like 30 million. I mean, extraordinary. Like half the population is watching. It's in the days of four channels of television in the UK, but even so, that is extraordinary. And I think that seeded the idea, ⁓ you can actually do something with this captive audience, particularly in the evenings, in what Americans would call prime time, because everyone's... ⁓ Jonathan Thomas (06:50) Wow. Tom Salinsky (07:10) their big lunch and they're sitting around with relatives and they want to put the television on. Yes, it used to be a James Bond movie or Where Eagles Dare or something like that, but maybe we could do something a bit special. I think that's where it began. Jonathan Thomas (07:23) Well, then we should we should make clear to that a Christmas special doesn't necessarily have to be about Christmas It could just be an extra episode They made that they held back to air at Christmas and call a special or like with dr. Who which I'm sure we'll talk about ⁓ You know, it's a very Christmassy themed episode so it can can it could vary the gamut Tom Salinsky (07:42) Yes. Um, the other, other thing is, uh, the other big tradition we have with American, with the, with, um, British television, which you don't have in America, uh, is what growing up, I always used to call the queen's speech. Uh, but of course today would be the king's speech. Uh, so there's this cornerstone of the television schedule, usually about 3 PM on Christmas day, uh, where, uh, everyone is going to turn the television on and, and watch the monarch favor us, uh, with his or her Jonathan Thomas (07:57) Yeah. Tom Salinsky (08:14) thoughts about the past year. As I understand it, kings and queens are not things that you go in for in quite the same way over there. Jonathan Thomas (08:22) ⁓ no, it is not something that, that we, that we do the, ⁓ the, president usually does a Christmas message, but it's not nobody, the country doesn't stop to watch it or listen to it. Like it gets released and then, you know, everyone goes on what their day and only really political minded types of care. So it's, it's not. Yeah. There's not a thing at 3 p.m. where everybody is stopping and watching. that's, so that's, that's interesting because. Well, it's 3 PM. You've seen the Queen's speech. Well, now the telly's on, you know, might as well, might as well leave it on. So, so, ⁓ the tradition of families gathering around the television on Christmas day seems uniquely British then, because like I said, we don't, we don't usually turn the TV on on Christmas. ⁓ do you think it started with the, the Queen's Christmas message being this, this cornerstone of British Christmas where people were like TV's on? Tom Salinsky (08:53) Yes, exactly. Jonathan Thomas (09:17) or why does it might as well keep going. Tom Salinsky (09:19) I bet that was a big influence. Both that Hancock's half hour and the first televised Queen's speech were in 1957. I think that was where the seeds were sown. The Queen's speech would have been on the radio before then, but 1957 was the first year it was on the TV. Jonathan Thomas (09:27) Makes sense. Interesting I should go back and find that interesting viewing ⁓ So there's there's a specific rhythm to to British Christmas Day, which television kind of fits into ⁓ Certain shows there at certain times building up to the big evening specials Can you walk us through what a traditional? British TV Christmas Day looks like and how has it changed in recent years? Tom Salinsky (09:59) So I did a little bit of research for this one. I used the amazing BBC genome project, which gives these listings going back decades and decades. And at random, I pulled up BBC One on Christmas day in 1982, when I would have been about 10 for a bit of personal nostalgia, just to see what was being offered. So there are cartoons for kids to start with. Jonathan Thomas (10:15) Okay. Okay. Tom Salinsky (10:24) Then there's quite a lot of religious programming. There's two or three different versions of carols or a religious service or something like that. Then there's a very creaky musical Dickens film, Mr. Quilp, which is the 1975 musical version of the old Curiosity Shop with Anthony Newley. Then The Queen and then another kind of creaky old movie, International Velvet, which is the sequel to National Velvet. And then we could get into the special. So there's a Paul Daniels Christmas special. There's a two Ronnies Christmas special and then death on the Nile kind of starts seeing us into the evening. And that's sort of television as I remember it from being a little kid on Christmas day. To be honest, there isn't a lot there that would have had a big appeal for 10 year old me. I might have watched Paul Daniels or the two Ronnies if I had nothing better to do. But equally, I might not. There will be other things that would have attracted me more. Then I also looked at last Christmas. So there's a lot more kid stuff. We start the day with Trolls, Holiday and Harmony, which I'm absolutely sure what it is, but it sounds like it's for children. There's one very brief morning service instead of the about two and a half hours of carols that we got in 1982. And then it's all about entertaining the kids. It's Toy Story 3, it's Minions, The Rise of Gru. Then we get the King's Speech and then we're into some of the specials. And these are much more... sort of ⁓ reality issue. It's the weakest link. It's strictly come dancing before finally Doctor Who. And then last year we had the debut of the Aardman film Vengeance Most Foul. And I must tell you that my family did all sit around the television when that went out live watching Vengeance Most Foul together and had a lovely time. Jonathan Thomas (12:01) Yes. Yes. And it was incredible too. ⁓ We, I can't say how I managed to watch it live ⁓ because it didn't come out until January in the US on Netflix. But let's just say I watched it on Christmas day and I very much enjoyed it. And it was really the perfect end to the Christmas day because ⁓ those Arvin films are just always perfection. Yeah. Tom Salinsky (12:13) Yeah. Ways and Means. Yeah, I don't know how they keep pulling out the bag. Jonathan Thomas (12:40) It's crazy is it feels like just yesterday they did a matter of loaf and death which but that was like in 2008 I think I was like this makes me feel really old Tom Salinsky (12:45) Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that was to us all. Jonathan Thomas (12:54) So, ⁓ that's really interesting. So I'm glad. Thank you for doing that comparison because the prevalence of reality TV there is really interesting because it really is kind of low hanging fruit for the BBC to just tack on another episode of their famous, you know, reality or game shows to Christmas. ⁓ although that says more about the state of the BBC than, than, than maybe we want to, maybe we want to get into in a non political podcast. Tom Salinsky (13:03) Hmm. Jonathan Thomas (13:22) So let's talk about your personal favorites. What would you say are your top three British Christmas specials and why do you like them so much? Tom Salinsky (13:30) Well, a couple of these are informed by work that I've done for All British Comedy Explained. We are doing a Christmas special. I actually haven't told Abigoliah I what we're watching. I've just told her we're doing a Christmas special, but it may be come as little surprise to you to know that what I've selected for us to watch is the 1971 Morkham and Wise Christmas special, which is of course the episode with, as he was repeatedly referred to, Andrew Preview, better known as Andre Previn. Jonathan Thomas (13:40) Hahaha. Tom Salinsky (14:00) And that's just absolutely unbeatable. But actually what I think remarkable about Mork of a Wise is around about 1970, they really kind of came into their own. They'd found Eddie Braben to write for them. They had a sympathetic producer who understood how to get the most out of them. They were making seven or eight episodes a year and a Christmas special most years. And they kind of stayed at top of their game for about seven or eight years, which is hard to do. Jonathan Thomas (14:29) Yeah. Tom Salinsky (14:30) The last regular episode in something like for the BBC and something like 78 or 79 is the one with the incredibly famous the stripper at breakfast routine. I mean, they just keep knocking them out again and again and again. But the 71 special with Andre Previn is definitely something a cut above. And that is such a famous routine. And it's the centerpiece of that show. So that would definitely be on the list. And then we've just we just finished our episode on The Office. Jonathan Thomas (14:53) Okay, well keep going. Tom Salinsky (14:59) And in fact, we were able to do a, an interview with one of the sort of, ⁓ background actors, one of the, the, the, the, you people, ⁓ I was going to say, make up the numbers, which is unfair to her. anyway, ⁓ Emma Manton gave us an hour of her time and it was very interesting to hear her perspective on how the office was made. But the way that the office started out as this show, which nobody really knew what he was or why it was funny, which repeatedly had people going, is this, is the Is this real? Why are the cameras following this guy around? He's awful. To then capturing the nation's conversation and then ending up being the centerpiece of the BBC One Christmas schedule in three years is astonishing. And those two episodes work so well to draw those plot strands together, to give us closure where closure is required, to not give us closure where it isn't, and to... to send us off. I'm slightly sad that Ricky Gervais wasn't able to resist the temptation to revisit the character because those two episodes are pretty much perfect. But again, I remember our entire family sitting around the TV to watch those. It was a real cultural event. And then if I have a third, well, Doctor Who, everything always comes back to Doctor Who with me. nobody knew whether that first series with Christopher Eccleston was going to be a success. It was an incredible gamble for the BBC to give them 13 episodes without making them do a pilot. Just make 13 and deliver them. Here we go. I think one of the producers said they were so disorganized that at the end of the first day's filming, they were already three days behind. So it was... It was a real scramble, but it was huge. And then the news came that the BBC was commissioning two more series and a Christmas special. And we'd never had a Doctor Who Christmas special before. One episode of Doctor Who had happened to go out on Christmas Day in the 60s, as we were saying before, just because it was on pretty much every Saturday for about 40 weeks of the year. And one of those Saturdays was Christmas Day. And this was right in the middle of the 12-part epic, The Daleks Master Plan. realizing it was going to go out on Christmas Day rather than offering the Christmas Day audience more bloodshed and destruction and deaths of regular characters, all of which feature in the Daleks Master Plan. The plot is suspended for a throwaway comedy episode which features the TARDIS landing at Lord's Cricket Ground, hijinks with the Keystone Cops and then William Hartnell turning to the camera and wishing the viewers a Merry Christmas at the very end. But other than that, We never had a Christmas special before. Very often series would start airing towards the end of the year and go off the air for a couple of weeks over Christmas and then come back in January. There'd never been a Christmas special. So this was new, just as Russell T. Davies had had to invent how to make Doctor Who at all in 2005, he had to invent a Doctor Who Christmas special. And the Christmas invasion, which also had to establish a new Doctor in the form of David Tennant, succeeds brilliantly. And again, I can just remember everybody huddling around the TV to see what the new guy was like and watching the story unfold for 60 minutes, which was also something we hadn't seen before. yeah, fabulous stuff. Those are the three that jumped to mind immediately. Jonathan Thomas (18:26) Yeah, if I had to pick three, I would pick that as one of the three. Because I came to Doctor Who late. I came with New Who. So I never, I mean, I may have seen one or two episodes of the original Doctor Who when I was younger, but because PBS here in the US would air them like late at night on the weekends. And to me, they were hokey and like I wasn't a fan. But when Doctor Who came back in 2005, I was hooked. Tom Salinsky (18:37) Mm, yep. Jonathan Thomas (18:55) And so I, and I liked Chris Recklston as a doctor. He was great, but my doctor is David Tennant. ⁓ he, he, he is the doctor to me. And so the Chris's invasion was a great introduction to him. And it was, and it was, ⁓ I think, ⁓ I don't, I don't mean to belittle, ⁓ Dr. Who or British television, but the scale of the episode on the budget they had to make it is. is astonishing in that they can make such an epic good story on with cheesy graphics and 2005 special effects and it's still be like it's still talk about it almost you know what 20 years later so I applaud them for being able to do that and I've you know ⁓ Dr. Who is now It's not Christmas, Dr. Who Christmas is special. There's been one almost every series since it's been back. Tom Salinsky (19:55) Yeah, not this year, which is disappointing because the Disney deal fell through. So we get the war between the land and the sea, but I don't think that's going to actually air over Christmas. I think it's going to wrap up before then. Jonathan Thomas (19:58) Yeah. Yeah. Well, we know how those spin-offs always go. They don't usually go in the direction we appreciate. But we will have a special next year. The BBC has seized back control from Disney. If I had to pick two more off the top of my head, the Yes Minister Christmas special, party games when your honorable Jim Hacker Tom Salinsky (20:15) Yes, we will. Yes. Jonathan Thomas (20:32) plays everybody to become prime minister. It's so good. After. Tom Salinsky (20:35) Yeah, or it kind of is played. mean, they're sort of manipulating him into position. I love the early going in that episode when his name is first mooted and people are reacting with incredulity. Your minister, Jim Hacker, he's the perfect compromise candidate. Jonathan Thomas (20:54) Yeah. Uh, yeah, he's and cause you, know, you've been watching these characters for three series up to that point. And you're like, you never really saw him as the prime minister. He saw himself as the prime minister. You know he would do is as Churchill in fact. Uh, what's amusing about that is I'm listening to this Scepter and Isle, uh, the classic BBC radio history of Britain. And I just realized that. Tom Salinsky (21:06) Yes! That's Churchill in fact! ⁓ Hmm. Jonathan Thomas (21:20) Paul Eddington is doing Churchill in the recordings because they quote large chunks of his history of English-speaking peoples and it's Paul Eddington doing Churchill. It's great. ⁓ Tom Salinsky (21:22) Yes, yes Quick fact about that, I found this out recently, but ⁓ Churchill gave many famous speeches in the House of Commons, maybe none more famous than We'll Fight Them on the Beaches. And you can hear recordings of those speeches that he made in a recording studio. Those are not recordings from the House of Commons, those do not exist. But he went back to recording studio and made those. Jonathan Thomas (21:47) No, no they don't. And some of the most famous ones are even recorded after the war was over. He did him in his bed with a microphone. Tom Salinsky (21:54) Yes! ⁓ Yes, essentially he's a podcaster. Jonathan Thomas (22:02) then we can give him a lot more respect then. ⁓ Yeah, it's funny ⁓ because you know when you see him performing in the movies, his speeches and we're getting off track, but I don't mind because I talking about Churchill. You think these are these moments that history is written about that he's making these speeches. But well, the only people who heard the speech the first time were the people in that room and nobody else heard it until later when he would go to the BBC and actually do the broadcast. And sometimes they didn't even save the recordings. So it's like Yeah, it's, it's bizarre. And then, you know, the, and then they were, then he recorded what wasn't saved after the war because it was a money making venture because in the estate owned the audio of the speeches. And so now if you want that audio, you have to license it even to this day, as I know as, as a, as a blogger and a podcast, or you get copyright struck. If you use any Churchill Churchill words or audio. Tom Salinsky (22:51) Yeah. yes. There's another example of that from America. Did you see the film Selma about Martin Luther King? Jonathan Thomas (23:01) Yeah, which contains no speeches by Martin Luther King. Yeah. Tom Salinsky (23:03) That's right. Yeah, They were denied permission. imagine that day as a screenwriter, was the director who did this, not the credited screenwriter. But imagine that day at the typewriter, okay, so six speeches in the style of Martin Luther King. ⁓ Who would set themselves that task? But she had no option. Jonathan Thomas (23:19) Yeah. Yeah. There's one of reasons I never saw that movie because it's like, they're not using his speeches. What's the, what's the point? I don't have to check it out. Well, it makes you think of a, there was a David Bowie biopic that came out a few years ago, but they didn't have permission from the estate to use any of his music. So like, it's just a movie about a guy named David Bowie. And you're like, well, that's not, yeah. Like why did you even bother to make this then? It's like, you know, Tom Salinsky (23:28) I think it's a good movie. I think it's a good movie. Yeah. That sounds incredibly pointless. Yeah, I mean, the music's the secondarily important thing about David Bowie, isn't it? It's about the... No, I'm stuck. Jonathan Thomas (23:56) So enough if I had to pick a third Christmas special ⁓ It would be a tie for me I'm gonna cheat and pick four here. It would be a tie between the black at our Christmas special and ⁓ The vicar of Dibley Christmas lunch incident ⁓ With black at our it's such it's you know black at our if you know what? He's watched the first three series of black at our black at our cynical and a dark character Tom Salinsky (23:59) Yes. Jonathan Thomas (24:25) But in the Blackadder Chris especially, they flip that on its head and make it seem like Blackadder is a lovely character and it's the world who makes him bad. And it's super funny. And it's a nice Victorian interlude for between the last, the third series and the World War I series. I'm a big fan of that one. And then, yeah. Tom Salinsky (24:47) Interestingly, Ben Alton is not so much of a fan of that one. He thinks that's the one where, to the greatest extent, the cast throwing in their own ideas during rehearsals made it less funny, not more. He said it was considerably funnier when he and Richard Curtis turned it in than it was when it was broadcast. But I think it's terrific. So I can only imagine how brilliant the original script was, or maybe Ben Alton isn't the best judge of his own work. That's not for me to say. Jonathan Thomas (24:50) Really? Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry, Ben, you're wrong. It's an excellent special. The less said about the Blackadder stuff that came after the famous fourth season. Yeah, after it goes further. The less said, better. And then so the Christus Lunch incident, just, one of those, Richard Curtis is such a great comedy writer and it's one of those comedies that builds and builds and builds and it's... Tom Salinsky (25:16) Hahaha. ⁓ after goes forth, yes, yeah, yeah, yes. Yeah. So we are going to cover the Vicar of Dibley on our podcast soon. And I have just begun my Vicar of Dibley rewatch, having not seen, I think, seen any of them since they first went out. So I don't remember the details of that one clearly, but I'm sure it'll all come flooding back when I rewatch. Jonathan Thomas (25:46) Okay. wow. Well, that's an interesting turn of phrase there for flooding back. Yeah, I watched it a few years ago and it's a very 90s British comedy. ⁓ It's very of its time. ⁓ So I have to listen to that episode because I'm interested to hear what you thought of it. So that's enough about the favorites. Let's move on. So you mentioned Morecombe and Wise. Tom Salinsky (26:01) Okay, alright. Jonathan Thomas (26:28) explain Morcombe and Wise to somebody who had never heard of them before. I'm not even sure I could explain it. I'm not sure I could explain it. Tom Salinsky (26:36) from scratch. Well, I mean, they are kind of the survivors. ⁓ when you turned on British television in the 60s and 70s, you saw a lot more people like that. But those shows don't get repeated. So now they look weird. But basically, they were what were called front cloth comics, ⁓ going around the regions in variety halls. And front cloth comic meant that If on the stage there was somebody who needed a big set or lots of apparatus or a band setting of instruments, while that was being set up, they would bring the curtains across and they would bring on an act that could just stand in front of the curtains and talk. And there's often be double acts, or it might just be somebody doing what we'd essentially think of as stand up or just possibly a solo singer. But that's what more common ways were. They were front cloth comics. That was their niche. And they got a show television in the 50s or the early 60s called Running Wild, which was not a success. There's a very famous review of Running Wild which says, new definition of television set, the box they buried Morecambe and Wise in. So they gave up television and went back on the road. And then when they came back with having been guest stars at other people's specials, they had a clear idea of what they wanted. Jonathan Thomas (27:51) Yeah. Tom Salinsky (28:01) And then, I said earlier, when they found Eddie Braben in about 68 or 69, I think he was the one who really understood how to get the most out of their chemistry. And so a typical Morecombe a Wise show would be a mixture of that kind of front cloth stuff, them just bouncing off each other. It would be sketches where they're playing different characters, sketches where they're essentially playing themselves. It would all build to one of Ernie's terrible plays and they would be frequent guest stars. So from quite early on, they'd had some pretty starry names and kind of done jokes to them as a running gag about Peter Cushing not having been paid for his first appearance. And so he would keep cropping up to demand his check. But then as it got bigger and bigger, celebrities started almost petitioning the program, like all agents were ringing up saying, like, can my client come on? Will Morecombe and Wise? ⁓ take the Mickey out of them, please. And they would do things like having newsreaders doing song and dance routines. ⁓ and so, almost by the time of the 71 Christmas special, although it's all brand new material, there's a feeling of nostalgia because their style harks back to a style of comedy, which goes back to before the turn of the century. And because they were already part of the television landscape. So after Eric's death, every Christmas there would be another compilation of Best of Morecombe and Wise. But by that stage, it's nostalgia for this program that had aired 10, 15 years previously. But it sort of felt nostalgic even then. And I think we've talked about this so far, but nostalgia and Christmas, certainly for British television, seem very intertwined. It's a time when we want to of hark back Jonathan Thomas (29:55) Yeah. Yeah. Tom Salinsky (30:00) to the past. Look at those films that were on in 1982. It's Dickens who kind of invented Christmas and an international velvet, which is very much a story of a bygone era. And even Vengeance Most Foul, which again is a brand new piece of work, feels old fashioned, has that old fashioned charm about it. Jonathan Thomas (30:20) Yeah. Well, that's a great segue and forgive me, I don't think I put this on the list. But let's talk about The Snowman. ⁓ That is the epitome of Christmas nostalgia. it's now, ⁓ it's not part of the BBC, it's from Channel 4, but it's now a pillar of the British television holiday season. Tom Salinsky (30:44) Yeah, I I remember reading the Raymond Briggs book when I was a little kid. Raymond Briggs was just an absolute genius, could turn his hand to anything. And in fact, wrote a book called Father Christmas, which was a slightly cheeky, slightly cynical look at like, what would it actually be like to be the guy who had to do this and imagining him as somewhat of a curmudgeon? Unlike Scrooge, he doesn't really get a moment of transformation, but just a few little chinks come through. And then in fact, same team that The Snowman later did an adaptation of this earlier book by Raymond Briggs. And The Snowman is just a labor of love. It's this beautiful hand-drawn animation that I don't actually know how it was created. It looks as if it's all been drawn in pencil. I mean, it looks sensational. And then they were fortunate enough to have the world's most famous boy soprano, Ali Jones, come in and do that wonderful rendition of Walking in the Air. Jonathan Thomas (31:22) Yeah. Yeah, it was, yeah. Tom Salinsky (31:42) So just everything aligned for that one. And yeah, no wonder it's been repeated and repeated and repeated every year since. Jonathan Thomas (31:49) I remember the first, we spent Christmas in England and back in 2013 and it was the first time I'd been there during the Christmas time. And I kept hearing this haunting melody everywhere on the Christmas music being played on the, on the over, on the PAs. And I'm like, what is that song? I've never heard it before. And then I finally, I finally heard that it was called The Snowman. And I'm like, what's The Snowman? And I looked it up and then saw it on the radio times that it's on. And I watched it and I was like, my God, I was literally in tears when it was over. I'd never seen it before, but like, it just hit me. It's yeah, it's so effective. There's no words, no, I mean, even the book has no words in it and it's, it's incredible story. Tom Salinsky (32:22) Such a simple story, but it's so effective. I might need a little bit of fact checking to your listeners. I think I've said there that it's Aled Jones. I'm 90 % sure that it's Aled Jones who had a hit single with it. I don't think it's him on the movie, is it? It's somebody else. ⁓ Jonathan Thomas (32:40) Peter Auty Yeah. No, it's Peter Auty in the show. And then, the song became famous when Aled Jones did a rendition of it. And then that became the Christmas song, not the original Peter Auty version, which is strange. Cause then it's funny when you listen to the, know, Aled Jones is a radio host for Classic FM. So you can hear him talking about himself when he, about The Snowman And then one year he even did a rendition ⁓ with himself. ⁓ Tom Salinsky (32:59) Yes. haha Hmm. Jonathan Thomas (33:16) He did a, as him doing the deeper adult sounding parts of the song with his younger child version from 30 years ago. It's interesting. It's yeah. Snowman's great. I love it. ⁓ Let's move on to only fools and horses. ⁓ Those Christmas specials became events themselves. ⁓ What made the shows Christmas episodes work so well, even when some of them weren't even set at Christmas? Tom Salinsky (33:21) haha What was, ⁓ only for horses in particular, it was sort of a, what, what a, ⁓ a marketing guru would call a scarcity play. It wasn't on, ⁓ it became so successful that they could afford just to do one Christmas special every year. ⁓ and, so any opportunity to be back in the company of Delboy and Rodney was warmly appreciated. But if you've, if you've got into that pattern, I don't know. what extent this was deliberate. Again, Only Fools and Horses is one we're going to cover and I haven't done the research yet. I still don't know if I'm going to be able to do a complete rewatch of Only Fools and Horses. That seems like quite a mountain to climb. Yes. ⁓ But ⁓ certainly, ⁓ once you've decided, okay, we're just going to try and get the gang back together once a year, if every single one of those is Tinsel and Holly and Turkey and present, it's going to get samey. Jonathan Thomas (34:25) Yeah, 77 episodes, yeah. Tom Salinsky (34:42) There's only so many times you can go back to that well. So yes, it does seem odd that one of them has them running around in the sunshine in Margate, but I totally understand why they would make that creative decision. And I don't think anyone would complain because we get to see Del Boy and Rodney again. Jonathan Thomas (34:59) So one of the more modern Christmas Day fixtures has been called The Midwife, which has pretty much had a Christmas special every year for almost the last, 13 or 14 years. Why do you think that show has become sort of the syrupy Christmas fixture? Tom Salinsky (35:18) Well, it's that word again, it's nostalgia. So this is simultaneously a very long running show, which has had hundreds of episodes. So people have a long association with it and with at some of those characters. And it's set in the past. So it can air in brand new episode, and we can find out what's happened to the characters that we love. But we get that warm glow of nostalgia because it's such a long running show and we're being taken back in time as we watch it. Jonathan Thomas (35:19) Yeah. Tom Salinsky (35:44) So that again, that makes perfect sense to me, much more sense than something like Line of Duty. Line of Duty Christmas Special is nonsensical, right? Even though a lot of those same things are in place, know, long running series, beloved characters, scarcity, but it would be insane to try and do a Christmas Special with them. And it's also because it's not a warm show. It's a cynical show. It's a doer show. Jonathan Thomas (35:56) Yeah. Yeah. Tom Salinsky (36:13) ⁓ which again, you could say the same about EastEnders, but he's in this is going to be on anyway. So that's where you want to do something really exciting, really special, ⁓ with a soap, ⁓ call the midwife has that that same kind of soapy feel. ⁓ and yeah, I can absolutely understand why that's a fixture. Jonathan Thomas (36:26) Yeah. Maybe like Midsummer Murders having a Christmas themed episode doesn't really work. Tom Salinsky (36:32) Yeah, yeah. Well, Mittalmer's better maybe than Line of Duty, but neither is the one I would go to first. Jonathan Thomas (36:41) So British sitcoms seem to kind of save their best or most ambitious episodes for Christmas. Why do you think that is? Do you think there's pressure on the producers to make a big blockbuster Christmas special or do think it just kind of comes along with the territory? Tom Salinsky (36:58) By the way, Stephen Moffat's talked about this in connection to Doctor Who, not a sitcom, I understand, but ⁓ he said the difference between writing a regular episode of Doctor Who and a Christmas special is there will be non-fans watching at Christmas. So, know, the 14-year-old says, everybody has to shut up so I can watch this. And then uncle and auntie and grandma and grandpa and little sister and so on are all in the room anyway. And they're all going to watch and keep. Jonathan Thomas (37:12) Okay. Tom Salinsky (37:27) the 14 year old Doctor Who fan company. So they need to be a bit more accessible, I think. They need to be fairly typical. You want to see the characters at their best doing the things that they're known for. You want to have something in there that's going to pay off some of the things that the devoted fans expect or maybe subverts one of those expectations. And ideally it wants to have some kind of Christmas flavor without, as we said, being further further iterations of the same thing. I know you talked about the the Vicar of Dibley before and again I haven't rewatched that sufficiently recently to be able to talk about that with any kind of real insight but I think that's a good example. They weren't putting out a dozen episodes a year, they're putting out only a few and only occasionally so was a nice opportunity to catch up with beloved characters again. then they're using that episode to do something special. So a little bit of extra pressure on the creative team, but get it right and it will really pay off. Jonathan Thomas (38:32) Yeah, and would argue, and this is good segue into Gavin and Stacey, which when they come back very rarely for a Christmas special, they kind of have to have the seeds of anybody can watch this. you kind of the way they structure the episodes, they do make it comprehensible to someone who may have never watched Gavin and Stacey before. You usually get within five minutes what's going on. ⁓ And what do you think it is about Gavin and Stacey that made it such a juggernaut and so popular. It's a fun show. like it, but the amount of social media posting about it when they had the final special, I say final, final special last year was just, it was nuts. Tom Salinsky (39:13) Yay! Well, there's quite a long answer to this, but I'll give you the one word answer, which I think is serialization. So back in the day, in the 80s and before, it was assumed that not everybody would watch every episode of every show. was pre-home VCRs for one thing. And then also, especially in America, what you wanted was a syndication package. And then you wanted to be able to show shows in any order. So there were a few shows in the early 80s that experimented with serialization. ⁓ Cagney and Lacey on American television did, for example. There are a couple of sitcoms. in the UK like Just Good Friends, don't know if you've ever seen that, which like Gavin and Stacey was a romance and there was a continuing storyline. But they was asking a lot until VCRs came along. And now suddenly you could say to your audience, actually have to watch every episode of this. And we know that you will if you're into it, because even if you're out or the football's on or whatever, you can tape it and watch it later. So that enabled this soap-style cliffhanger structure to develop. And as Alfred Hitchcock so wisely said, there is no suspense like that of a delayed coition. So when we're waiting for two characters to get together, we're incredibly invested in whether that will happen or not. And then even after it has happened, we're interested in the ramifications. And that's what Gavin and Stacey, I think, got so right. Also, Gavin and Stacey is a lovely combination of warm and cynical. There are characters in there who are very cynical, but at its heart, it's a very warm show. We like hanging out with those characters and we're really invested in seeing them get together. so having them reunite, how long ago was it that the previous episode was on? was something like eight or nine years, wasn't it? Yes. Yes. So you had this sort of valedictory lap, which is probably never going to be one of the series all-time greats, but it's just nice to see everyone again, you know, like it is. Jonathan Thomas (41:04) Yeah, it was a long time. The love child was an adult by the finale. Yeah. Tom Salinsky (41:20) seeing family members at Christmas that we haven't seen maybe for several years. Jonathan Thomas (41:25) And you mentioned sport there. ⁓ that's on, on our topic list, but I, I want to, ⁓ is British, is there sport on Christmas and during the Christmas season? Cause here in the U S they, because of the reruns that oftentimes there will be special sports fixtures that people will sit around the TV for. mean, Thanksgiving here in the U S for example, there will be three or four football games on the entire day. Men, most men, manly men who love sports will spend all day watching football while Tom Salinsky (41:50) Yes. Jonathan Thomas (41:53) while their wives slave away in the kitchen for the dinner. So is there sport on British Christmas TV? Tom Salinsky (41:59) You're asking the wrong person. I I assume so The family I usually spend Christmas with are all cricket mad But I tend to leave the room and they put the cricket on so I've never noticed whether they've put the cricket on on Christmas Day or not Probably probably this cricket cricket and football No Yeah, that probably is there's probably a game every Saturday the way that there would be most Saturdays, but yeah, sorry you're asking the wrong person Jonathan Thomas (42:12) Yeah. Crooked doesn't sound very, doesn't sound very Christ-assy to me. So. Tom Salinsky (42:29) You can cut that out if you want. Jonathan Thomas (42:29) So, it's fine. ⁓ So not every Christmas special is a triumph. Can you think of any Christmas episodes that particularly missed the mark or had bewilderingly odd choices? Tom Salinsky (42:41) Well, I don't think we talked about, we talked about the origins of the Christmas special. I don't think we talked about A Christmas Night with the Stars. You ever seen A Christmas Night with the Stars? This ran almost every year for 15 or 20 years from the early 60s. some well-known TV personality, actor or comedian or somebody would host and would introduce, they're often little clips of, so for example, Jonathan Thomas (42:49) No. No, okay, please tell me. Tom Salinsky (43:11) there would be a 10 minute segment of Dad's Army, which had been specially written and shot to go in this special. It lasted about an hour and a half and there'd be music and comedy and so on. And it was sort of the beginning of Christmas specials, but rather than the Dad's Army team doing a 60 minute Christmas special, they'd do a 10 minute sketch that could be dropped into this longer show. In 1994, this was resurrected with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie as the hosts. Jonathan Thomas (43:40) Okay. Tom Salinsky (43:41) And there's some good stuff in there. You can see the whole thing on YouTube, but I remember watching it in 94 and being excited because these were some of my comedy heroes. And I just remember thinking, especially the linking stuff from Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, who couldn't virtually do no wrong in my eyes. But I just remember thinking that the whole tone was off and it didn't know when to be nostalgic and when to be cutting edge. And some of the best stuff in there actually is clips from the old black and white shows from the sixties. And it's trying to capture that. Nostalgic air. There's a really terrible bit. I would just scrub through a few bits on YouTube and this jumped out at me is ⁓ Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie doing a sort sub-Morkham and Wise routine where they're waving cereal packets behind Sandy Shore. And, you know, it so wants to be Morkham and Wise behind Shirley Bassey. And it's so far from that. The experiment was not repeated until I think 2003 and it hasn't been repeated since. So that leaps instantly to mind as a Christmas special, which really didn't work. And I think, to be honest, I think it's hard to know a Christmas special that doesn't work because there's so much goodwill coming from the viewers. Now we're all full of turkey and full of brandy and just want to be passively entertained. And if we see old familiar faces, we're generally in a very good mood. But that Christmas night with the stars in 94 is pretty, pretty badly misjudged in my view. Jonathan Thomas (44:50) Yeah. Well, and there's always, you know, not every Doctor Who curses special could be considered great. There's quite a few that missed the mark and I'm sure there's other comedy specials ⁓ that have been, you know, maybe let's just pretend that one didn't happen. So ⁓ you mentioned EastEnders. ⁓ So EastEnders is famous for having absolutely miserable, devastating curses episodes that Tom Salinsky (45:18) Yes, absolutely. Hey Mmm. Jonathan Thomas (45:39) sometimes involve murders and revelations and disasters. And as you said, they've been dripping it through the whole year. Why does British television think crisis is the perfect time for maximum drama and misery? Tom Salinsky (45:52) I suppose at Christmas, when you're a Christmas special, what you want to the viewers is more of what they liked about the show in the first place. So it was only Fools and Horses. It's not just going to be here's Del Boy and Rodney pulling a scam. It's going to be here's Del Boy and Rodney pulling an enormous scam in a fabulous location ⁓ with all these guest stars. It's everything you like and more. So now apply that to Exentus. It's not just going to be people pulling crackers and passing tinsel. It's going to be, if what we tune in for is misery and torment and betrayal, then at Christmas it needs to be maximum misery and maximum betrayal. And I can absolutely see how that works. And it's partly because it is on all year round. If that was our only opportunity to catch up with these characters, I think we want something a bit sweeter at Christmas. But because There will be lightness and there'll be funny episodes and darker episodes. we get however many we get these days. Is it three episodes a week now? Four, five? I don't watch EastEnders anymore. Yeah, but a lot. No one is starved of EastEnders. So when it comes around for Christmas, we just want to take that lever and throw it as far in the direction of ⁓ drama as we possibly can. Jonathan Thomas (47:02) not sure, don't watch it either. So streaming has completely changed how we watch television here in the US and in the UK. Do you think the Christmas specials are the last appointment viewing? Or do you think that's the last day that people will sit around TV at specific times? Or do you think that it's people still want us to go to the BBC on Saturday night at 7 PM to watch Strictly Come Dancing? Tom Salinsky (47:40) I think the big reality shows are the ones that are still emptying the pubs, as they used to say. The final of Strictly, the final of The Celebrity Traitors recently was real event television and people were absolutely going nuts for that. ⁓ We had a live comedy show just the other day and even though on paper it was sold out. there was like empty seats. We couldn't figure out, not a huge theater, and we couldn't figure out where everyone got to. And someone said, it's the final of Bake Off tonight. Now I have no idea if that was in fact the cause, but it does make sense. So it is those reality things or sporting fixtures. ⁓ those things where you can't predict the outcome. And so it's really difficult now for drama and comedy to do that. Jonathan Thomas (48:17) Hahaha. Tom Salinsky (48:36) That serialization helps where you've been following a storyline over multiple episodes, sometimes multiple years, and now it's all going to come to its conclusion. ⁓ But ⁓ we're just now used to using our television sets as jukeboxes where we select what we're going to watch. We're out of the habit of treating them like radio sets where ⁓ the broadcaster determines what we are sent at what time. And that habit, I don't think is going to reverse. That trend isn't going to change. But there will still be a few things. I think it's one of the nice things about Christmas that we just get a little bit of that communal viewing experience back again. Jonathan Thomas (49:22) Well, that's a good another good segue into talking about the radio times Christmas double issue. Was that an essential part of your childhood growing up getting the double issue and highlighting what you wanted to watch? Or do you still do that? Tom Salinsky (49:31) Absolutely. ⁓ I don't still do that. Finally, I was at Friends a couple of Christmases ago and they had the Radio Times bumper Christmas special, which I hadn't seen for about 10 years. And I did spend a very pleasant half hour leafing through it. then because it's now the 21st century, taking pictures of pages of the listings with my phone. Also, I don't think they were able to thank me for circling the listings or ripping out pages. So I was able to use a technological solution instead. But yeah, when I was 10, I would have read about National Velvet and that old Curiosity Shop musical film in the radio times and probably opted not to circle them. We were a very middle class household, Jonathan, so we didn't get the TV times because that was vulgar. But we got the radio times for the BBC shows. And yeah, absolutely. Is this irrelevant? don't know. For some people, maybe. I mean, presume it still sells, although I wouldn't still be making it. Jonathan Thomas (50:42) It's still relevant for me. I order one and have it shipped all the way across the Atlantic. And I get my Sharpie out and I circle what I want to make sure that we I download I download on the pirate website later. Not that I would ever condone such behavior or usage of of the web in any way. I wait Tom Salinsky (50:44) Yeah. Amazing. there. No, no. If I say the two words to you, get iPlayer, does that mean anything to you? Okay, just checking. Jonathan Thomas (51:07) Yeah. ⁓ what you're talking about. Tom Salinsky (51:12) I don't know why those two words happened to come out of my mouth. Jonathan Thomas (51:17) So, well, so let's, ⁓ before I go into my outro, ⁓ why don't you give another plug for your brilliant new podcast? Tom Salinsky (51:22) Mm. All British comedy explained and we tried to do as the British advert slogan has it, what it says on the tin. So if you have a British comedy show that you think we should discuss, please let us know. Anything that's been left off, has any been left off at the moment because we've elected to do eight episode seasons and we, whatever the show you're thinking of, we will get to it at some point. And we will also include some shows as time goes on. we have enough listeners to make this worthwhile, would include shows maybe that I don't particularly like. I'll be interested in showing Abigoliah Mrs Brown's Boys, which is not the kind of thing that appeals to me, but it appeals to an awful lot of people. Or maybe some old dinosaur shows. Maybe I'll show her the Benny Hill show and see what she makes of that. But there's tons and tons there. And what we're trying to do is strike that balance between on the one hand, some fairly detailed research. Jonathan Thomas (52:08) Ha. Tom Salinsky (52:23) So give you some interesting behind the scenes facts, how these shows came to be, how they got on the air, what happened. And then also a really fun and lively conversation with someone who's never seen this material before. And some of it she loves and some of it she's completely confused by. But I think either way, it makes for an entertaining show. And as I said, we are going to start stirring in some interviews. So we have interviews with Jeff Posner, who directed Victoria Wood as seen on TV. ⁓ Next week I'm recording an interview with Andrew Gilman who directed The Day Today. I hope to get someone on from I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and next week we're putting out our interview with Ben Elton. Jonathan Thomas (53:01) Excellent. Well, it's available wherever you listen to your podcasts and we will link to it in the show notes. What a wonderful conversation and what a perfect reminder that British Christmas wouldn't be complete without the telly on in the background, whether it's the King speech, a classic sitcom on repeat, the latest Gavin and Stacey reunion or the newest Wallace and Gromit film. Thank you for joining us on the Anglotopia podcast, Tom, and for sharing your encyclopedic knowledge of British television with us. Be sure to check out Tom's new podcast, All British Comedy at allbritishcomedy.com where he explores the rich history and enduring appeal of British comedy in all its forms. And if you haven't already pick up his books on Red Dwarf, Discovering a TV Series, Volume 2 has been released so you can get Volume 1 and 2 and get a deep dive into one of Britain's most beloved sci-fi cult classics. ⁓ If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, and leave a comment where you can listen to your podcasts. And if you'd like early access to do episodes and help support independent long form writing about British history, culture, and travel, please consider joining the Friends of Anglotopia Club. From all of us in Anglotopia, we wish you a very happy Christmas filled with quality television, good company, and maybe even a repeat of Morecombe and Wise if you're lucky. Thank you again, Tom, and thank you for listening. Tom Salinsky (54:18) Thank you. Happy Christmas.