There is no better excuse than Christmas to settle in front of the television and only move to reach for another Purple One. This year's schedule is a veritable selection box, with plenty of dramas, comedies and festive documentaries to while away the hours when you have had enough of charades and bickering.
From the annual Christmas specials of Call the Midwife, Would I Lie to You and Bake Off to one-off programmes like Guz Khan's Stuffed and Channel 4's Christmas caper Finding Father Christmas, this year's schedules are fuller than Santa's present sack. Here is your guide to what to watch this Christmas.
Peter Shaffer's decorated play about the rivalry between musical genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Will Sharp) and the lesser-known composer Antonio Salieri (Paul Bettany) makes its way to the small screen. It begins with Mozart's arrival in Vienna, hoping to make waves with his rockstar ways – much to the disgust of devout, classically minded Salieri, who is determined to throw his nemesis out of court.
Christmas is a particularly busy time for the detectives of Shipton Abbott, but this year's mystery is particularly confounding. When Esther (Zahra Ahmadi) discovers a man who seems to have lost his memory on the steps of the police station, she is surprised to find he is clutching a photograph of DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall). Meanwhile, Martha (Sally Bretton) hatches a secret plan, and PC Kelby Hartford (Dylan Llewellyn) helps someone stuck in a snowman costume.
Sally Lindsay is back as Sainte Victoire's resident antique dealer-turned-amateur sleuth. Jean's Christmas festivities get off to a good start when she is invited to a Christmas Eve event at the local museum, where she will authenticate a box once owned by Marie Antoinette. But things take a turn when Jean finds a ticking bomb inside the box. With only 90 minutes to detonation, Jean must race against the clock to crack the code and defuse the bomb.
The beloved, cosy adaptation of James Herriot's country vet memoirs has reached Christmas 1945, the first peacetime festivities since the Second World War. But that does not mean everything is easy – Christmas dinner is in short supply, Tristan (Callum Woodhouse) has forgotten he is supposed to provide the Christmas tree, and with Helen (Rachel Shenton) poorly, it falls to James (Nicholas Ralph) to organise the Nativity play. Sounds like a very chaotic Christmas – but we would not have it any other way.
