Tabla de contenidos para 20-2nd January 2026 en Radio Times

Judi Dench: Shakespeare, My Family and Me Saturday 27 December 9.00pm C4 ‘Shakespeare wrote about everything that we might fear or love’DAME JUDI DENCH THE SNOW is falling sluggishly, barely settling, as we drive down ever-more-winding country lanes and draw up to Dame Judi Dench’s fairy-tale cottage, with its heavy wooden door. It emerges beyond a barn and outbuildings, a lake, swimming pool and six acres of her beloved woodland in which, each time a dear friend dies (and there are a lot of them by now), a tree is planted with their name attached: recent additions being Maggie Smith and Diana Rigg. The grounds are tended by a friendly young man (the son of one of the longstanding group of women who help the actor), dressed in tweeds, a…

Joanna Lumley and Lucy Punch first played mother and daughter in the 2004 film Ella Enchanted. Some 20 years later, Punch plays social climber Amanda with Lumley her scenestealing mother Felicity, first in Motherland, and now in its spinoff Amandaland. While filming the festive special, the pair reflected on their reunion, Christmasses past and present, and what gift they’d buy for each other… Lucy, what were your first impressions of Joanna? LUCY In Ella Enchanted, we played a ghastly stepmother and stepsister to the heroine, then we were reunited for Motherland, which was lovely, and now this. All this time later, I’m a very different person, but I believe Joanna’s exactly the same: so smart and funny. She charms everyone. When you’re doing comedy, you need lots of good energy,…

Goodbye June In cinemas from 12 December and from Christmas Eve on Netflix I PROMISE YOU, I didn’t plan it this way,” exclaims Kate Winslet, and for a second, her slightly brisk response leads me to wonder if she has taken umbrage at my suggestion that, as Christmas approaches, she seems to have achieved full omnipresence. As we speak, a TikTok trend to land her the coveted Christmas number one spot is well under way, thanks to hundreds of clips of millennial Winslet fans miming to What If, the ballad featured on the soundtrack of her 2001 animated film Christmas Carol: the Movie. Another milestone from her past that looms large at this time of year is her 2006 romcom The Holiday, whose wholesome succour has turned it into something of…

Wild London New Year’s Day 6.30pm BBC One IT’S APPROACHING 11pm on a May evening and in a west London garden Sir David Attenborough is stretched out on a picnic rug, swaddled in a heavy coat to protect him against the nighttime chill. He’s almost nose to snout with a humble suburban hedgehog and the joy on his face, illuminated by TV lights that puncture the darkness, wouldn’t be any greater were he in Papua New Guinea observing his favourite bird of paradise. Instead, he’s in Ealing, and clearly relishing the moment. In a world that’s unsettled by division and disharmony, there’s something deeply comforting watching Attenborough, a man who will be 100 next year, talking to the animals. “I think they’re lovely things,” he chuckles as the hedgehog shuffes past…

Amadeus Sunday 21 December—Christmas Day 9.00pm Sky Atlantic/Now PAUL BETTANY IS far from being too cool for Yule. “I love Christmas so much,” he enthuses in advance of the festive celebrations at his home in the USA. “Our Christmas Day is a very English affair with crackers and turkey, and then, when people start showing up after Boxing Day, the party just continues. Last year we had 40 people.” Bettany, co-star of Amadeus, Sky Atlantic’s five-part adaptation of Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play, lives with his wife, actor Jennifer Connolly, in a timber house in rural Vermont, New England, where “it snows every year”. So, the 54-year-old Londonborn actor will be having a picturesque Christmas – but also a loud one. “I have a band room with drums and piano and PA…

Tinsel Town Available now Sky Cinema IT’S CROISSANT O’CLOCK in Paris. Kiefer Sutherland is up early, 24 hours away from the start of filming on a job that lets him do one of the things he does best: kick some butt. Father Joe is a “full-on, really violent, aggressive movie” written by Luc Besson. Sutherland plays the titular priest who wages holy – and actual – war against a ruthless mob boss, played by Al Pacino. It’s set in 1990s Manhattan, but the French capital and Bulgaria are standing in for New York. Yes, admits this action star who turns 59 four days before Christmas, the script calls for physical exertion “that’s going to be a real challenge” – even if you spent a decade taking down terrorists against a merciless clock…

Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: Is There Life beyond Earth? Sun 28—Tue 30 Dec 7.00pm BBC Four/iPlayer DAME DR MAGGIE Aderin-Pocock has been blown off course by cancelled trains. She has finally arrived at the Royal Institution in London to rehearse her Christmas Lectures on the furthest reaches of the known cosmos, but the journey was challenging. She laughs at the irony: “I was stranded. I was like, ‘Beam me up, Scotty’, but no one was listening.” The Sky at Night presenter – whose dream of becoming a space scientist took root after watching an episode of Clangers – has slept for just three hours, but she’s fizzing with the energy that both fuels her insomnia and has made her a household name. “I have dyslexia and ADHD, my head is…

Charles Dickens Ghost Stories Podcast available now Nothing brings us together like a festive ghost story and, since its publication in 1843, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol has never been out of print. It is the seasonal chiller. Sir David Suchet is delighted to be narrating it, alongside some of the author’s lesser-known tales, for a new podcast series. “These aren’t merely creepy stories — they’re ghostly reflections of the human soul.” We know about your devotion to Agatha Christie, but how well do you know Dickens? I don’t claim to be a Dickens expert, but he has always held up for me as the master of the English language. Reading these ghost stories has just been one of the most enjoyable and exciting pieces of audio work I’ve done. I’ve…

GOTHIC HORROR Frankenstein ★★★★★ 15 Netflix Starring Oscar Isaac as the tortured scientist who creates life, this is a daring reinvention of Mary Shelley’s timeless tale — a dark triumph that fuses horror, romance and philosophical depth. Under Guillermo del Toro’s visionary direction, every frame drips with macabre beauty: fog-shrouded streets, flickering candlelight and hauntingly scored scenes that thrum with despair and longing. Jacob Elordi is magnetic as the Creature, balancing vulnerability with raw, aching passion. Between this recent release and his upcoming lead role in Wuthering Heights, perhaps the greatest gift this Christmas was young Elordi finding his gothic-romantic niche. IFRA KHAN POLITICAL THRILLER A House of Dynamite ★★★★15 Netflix White House officials face a terrifying race against time as a nuclear missile is launched towards the US in…

ENTERTAINMENT Strictly Come Dancing: the Final 7.00pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer SERIES FINALE It’s been an interesting year for Strictly Come Dancing. It began with a line-up that — more than ever — elicited cries of “who?”, and it has struggled to pick up. There were a record number of contestants who withdrew along the way due to injury, even more alarming headlines in the press relating to the show, and Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman announcing, mid-run, that this would be their final series (their last appearance will be in the Christmas Day special, see page 162). A mammoth two-hour-ten-minute final brings the curtain down with the finalists each performing three times in a bid for Glitterball glory. They will revisit one of their previous routines, perform a show…

FILM P The Great Escaper ★★★ 12 9.30pm BBC Two Catch up via iPlayer Bernard Jordan hit headlines around the world in June 2014 when, without the knowledge of staff at the Hove care home where he lived, he headed to Normandy to attend a D-Day commemoration ceremony. His carers thought the 89-year-old was off to meet friends in Portsmouth — but he was heading further afield. The home’s manager was quoted as saying: “He left his home and did what he wanted to do, just the same as you and I.” It was a story just begging to be made into a movie, and here it is, with Michael Caine as Bernard and fellow British cinema titan Glenda Jackson making her final screen appearance as his wife Irene. The 2023…

REALITY The Celebrity Apprentice 9.00pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer Have the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future decided to visit Lord Sugar? This two-part festive special finds the usually Scrooge-esque mogul in buoyant form; he even puts a call in to Father Christmas in the opening of this episode. Yes, really. It sets the tone for a knockabout task where two teams of celebrities, including Rob Rinder, AJ Odudu, Angela Scanlon and Sarah Hadland, must make and market gingerbread biscuits. Despite their starry status, they still manage to fall into every Apprentice pitfall: bickering, burning their bakes and instigating a bizarre brainstorm (the latter of which Karren Brady says in her 10 years of doing the show, she hasn’t seen the like). Still, it’s all for a good cause:…

DRAMA The Night Manager 9.05pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer “I am the man who will not explode,” Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) says to his MI6 psychiatrist in a reassuring tone of voice, yet the nails digging into the flesh of his hand tell a different story. For despite many years having passed since Pine infiltrated the coterie of arms dealer Richard Roper, he’s still scarred by that undercover mission. Hence his current low-risk role overseeing a night-time surveillance team in London. Only, a quiet job with unsociable hours does not a spy drama make, and it isn’t long before a chance glimpse of a former Roper collaborator is upending Pine’s life of seclusion. What ensues makes for, on the basis of this opening episode at least, an engaging enough espionage…

How will you be spending Christmas Day this year? At my son Tom’s, with his wife Sarah and their family. I bring the turkey – I have it ready by 11am and then I wrap it in foil, old clean towels and a sleeping bag without a zip, and put it in the boot of the car for the drive to my son’s house. It stays piping hot and the meat is rested, even after four or five hours, because of the bulk of the thing. Sarah’s mother will bake the Christmas cake and her father will do a topical quiz with pictures, all about what has happened during the year. After the King’s Christmas message at 3pm we will all go for a walk, with torches for the way…

1 TV Call the Midwife Christmas Day 8.15pm, Boxing Day 8.30pm BBC One Trixie (Helen George) is Poplar’s angel of mercy in this year’s two-part special when colleagues dash overseas to Hong Kong following a disaster. INTERVIEW P18 2 TV Amandaland Christmas Day 9.15pm BBC One Amanda (Lucy Punch) is in search of the perfect family Christmas, but the icing on this sitcom cake is the fact that Jennifer Saunders is guest-starring as Aunt Joan — sister of Felicity (Joanna Lumley). INTERVIEW P24 3 TV All Creatures Great and Small Christmas Eve 9.00pm 5 It’s all smiles now for Tristan (Callum Woodhouse) and Charlotte (Gaia Wise), but problems sourcing a tree could end up ruining their Christmas. 4 TV Shaun the Sheep: Fleece Navidad Christmas Day 4.35pm BBC One A…

Dame Helen Mirren is a huge fan of The Repair Shop. “It’s heart-warming and brings such positivity in what sometimes is a very negative world,” she says before arriving at the barn with a cello that had belonged to her late friend, the theatre impresario Martin Landau. It was broken by Nazi guards when he fled to Britain, aged 14, on the Kindertransport. Even though its neck had been snapped in two, Landau looked after the cello before gifting it to Denville Hall, a care home Dame Helen supports, for those who worked in the entertainment industries. Luthier Becky Houghton explains how she got the instrument singing again. How was the cello when you received it? My heart sank. It’s a beautiful piece of wood, made in the early 1800s,…

Making miniatures is no small task. Hannah Lemon and Abi Trotman, who star in The Marvellous Miniature Workshop (iPlayer) spent a combined 200 hours creating the Christmas snowscape for our feature. Trotman, from south Wales, specialises in 1/12th scale miniatures for doll’s houses and dioramas and started making miniatures with her gran for her doll’s house when she was 11. Lemon, who’s from Japan and now based in the UK, started making tiny houseplants in lockdown on a break from work. Both have now made it their full-time career. Using toolkits containing tweezers, brushes, paints and glues — not to mention a steady hand — Lemon explains that RT’s snowy scene (all compiled and photographed by her in her living room) is Styrofoam, so it’s light and easy to stick…

Tom Fletcher (below) has been having a bear-y busy year. “I must have been manifesting bears!” says the McFly singer and bestselling children’s author, who has not only written the music for Paddington the Musical, but has also brought another very special bear to life, Children in Need’s mascot, Pudsey. “Both of them stand for wonderful things: Pudsey for hope and Paddington for kindness. My version of Pudsey is a bit clumsy and is driven by a desire to help children.” The animation and book Pudsey and the Thread of Hope is based on Fletcher’s story about a boy called Jai who has lost his dad. He meets other kids who have been supported by Pudsey, with the thread of hope tying them together. Fletcher has three sons, aged 11,…

On the day we meet, Johnny Flynn confesses to feelings of anxiety about the prospect of his family attending the premiere of Goodbye June, in which the 42-year-old turns in a quietly devastating performance as youngest brother Connor, who simply cannot cope with his mother’s terminal illness. As Flynn sees it, “This is somebody who doesn’t have a mask to put on in those situations. His mum is his guiding star, whereas his sisters have their kids and families.” Which brings us back to Flynn’s anxieties about the premiere. In attendance will be his own mother — “and for anyone of that generation, you know this is something that’s not far away”. This feels like new territory for Flynn, perhaps best known for his roles as Ian Fleming in Operation…

Secrets of the Conclave Monday 22 December 9.00pm BBC Two FOR A MAN who helped inspire Ralph Fiennes’s masterful performance in the Oscarwinning movie Conclave, Cardinal Vincent Nichols is remarkably relaxed about watching himself on screen. “I haven’t seen the film yet,” says the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, to give the spiritual leader of the four million Catholics in England and Wales his full title, as he welcomes me into his study, an enclave of tranquillity tucked behind the neo-Byzantine grandeur of Westminster Cathedral. “But we did have a long chat before he played the part. He came here and we talked for three hours. Then I said, ‘Do you want to try on the kit?’ I went to get it and he got dressed, looked in the mirror and…

Wake Up Dead Man Available from 12 December Netflix I AM HOPING TO get out of Narnia in time for Christmas,” says Daniel Craig. We’re supposed to be talking about the former James Bond star’s performance as Benoit Blanc, the mannered, sometimes manic, private detective from the Deep South of the US in Rian Johnson’s Netflix Knives Out mysteries. The new film, Wake Up Dead Man, is set in and around a neo-Gothic church in upstate New York where Benoit enlists the help of Josh O’Connor’s Catholic priest Father Jud Duplenticy to solve “a classic impossible crime”. But Craig’s mind is already a movie ahead of me. He’s presently filming The Magician’s Nephew, Greta Gerwig’s take on CS Lewis’s Narnia novel, in which he plays the eponymous magician, Uncle Andrew. It’s a…

That’s Not How It Went Down Available from 15 December Was Scrooge a real person? The podcast debunking films based on a true story gets festive as it examines the 2017 biopic The Man Who Invented Christmas, about how Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. Katherine Ryan’s Christmas Intervention Available now on Audible Katherine Ryan assembles her family — and obligatory celebrity guests — to work their way through their worst Christmas disasters, and perhaps in the end, find some way to make it through the festive chaos this year. CBeebies Christmas Panto From 6 December on BBC Sounds You can’t have Christmas without a panto. If you want to keep the kids quiet on the drive to the relatives, this audio version of CBeebies’ 2025 production, Cinderella, may well be…

DOCUMENTARY Secrets of the Conclave 9.00pm BBC Two Catch up via iPlayer As Cardinal Vincent Nichols sat with colleagues gathered in the Sistine Chapel, he thought to himself: “Someone in here has been chosen by God from birth to be the Pope, like he has the word ‘Pope’ written on his heart, and all we have to do is find him.” It’s a vivid way of putting it, worthy of Robert Harris’s novel Conclave or its film adaptation — both of which loom large over this fine documentary about how a real conclave works. You don’t have to be religious to find the process fascinating and peculiar — a centuries-old ritual with all the creamy Catholic ceremonial of vestments, processions, marble halls, incense — and Latin, lots of Latin. Cardinals recall…

DRAMA All Creatures Great and Small 9.00pm 5 Catch up via 5 streaming With the war only recently over, Darrowby is still more used to blackouts than fairy lights, so the opportunity to make Christmas 1945 feel extra special is ready to be seized. But events are conspiring against the Skeldale House regulars, thanks to lingering memories of battlefields, a national shortage of turkeys and Tristan forgetting to source a pine tree for the Drovers pub. But this golden glow of a festive special reminds us that happiness can be wrested from what may appear the glummest of circumstances. And indeed, all that’s required is something as simple as a malapropism from a small child — in this case, young Jimmy saying “Hebden” instead of “Heaven” when playing an angel in…

DRAMA Death in Paradise 8.30pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer Some consider him no-nonsense, others believe he borders on the insensitive, but whatever your take on DI Mervin Wilson (Don Gilet) — when it comes to Christmas, he’s about as festive as turkey leftovers in January. So, when a dead body is found in suspicious circumstances in the pool of a Caribbean villa, the Saint Marie detective thinks nothing of cancelling his colleagues’ annual leave so that they can crack on with the case. True, he may have personal reasons for wanting to lose himself in work, but compared with the amiable social fumbling of his predecessors, Mervin is a hard taskmaster. Having said that, it’s not hard to see why he’d be so obsessed with this mystery, what with the…

DRAMA Midsomer Murders 8.30pm ITV1 Catch up via ITVX At the centre of this episode is a puzzle book that sparked a nationwide treasure hunt, the inspiration for which must surely be Kit Williams’s Masquerade from 1979. Viewers of a certain vintage will no doubt recall the prize of a jewelled golden hare that remained hidden until someone was able to decipher the clues found within the pages (those who aren’t old enough should perhaps imagine a rather more primitive Pokémon Go). Here in Midsomer, though, the bounty promised in the bestselling Seeker has never been located. Only now, a decade on from its original publication, writer Bertram Jewel (Dead Ringers’ Jon Culshaw) is hoping to reignite the search with a new illustration featuring fresh pointers. But the trail is set to be tainted…

FILM P Operation Mincemeat ★★★★ 12 9.00pm BBC Two Catch up via iPlayer Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen bring a wealth of period drama talent to this polished 2022 movie by director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love). It depicts the fanciful but amazing real-life wartime plan to fool the Germans about the proposed site of an Allied attack in 1943, which sent them to defend Sardinia, when the landings were made in Sicily.Previously filmed more prosaically as The Man Who Never Was in 1955, the story sees Firth and Macfadyen working together to prepare a back story and false papers to be left on a dead body, helped by assistant Kelly Macdonald, who becomes a romantic focus for both men. Although they had not met previously, the two men had both…

Don Gilet and Don Warrington DEATH IN PARADISE As we prepare to unwrap the eagerly anticipated festive instalment of Death in Paradise — Don Gilet’s second as DI Mervin Wilson following his debut this time last year — fans will be hoping that, by some Christmas miracle, it’s not the last we’ve seen of Commissioner Selwyn Patterson, played by series stalwart Don Warrington. At the end of the last series, the long-serving commissioner was unceremoniously replaced, in a bid to cut costs, by an arrogant young upstart, causing major upset among Honoré’s police officers and locals, not to mention Death in Paradise viewers. RT brought the two Dons together to mull over their time on screen together and their yuletide plans. What were your first impressions of each other? DW Well,…

Shaun the Sheep: Fleece Navidad Christmas Day 4.35pm BBC One THIS YEAR, RT’s Christmas cover stars are two award-winning film and TV favourites. But unusually in the cut-throat world of showbiz, they are also old pals going back 30 years. In fact, the cover, conceived and designed by Nick Park, celebrates Shaun’s screen debut in A Close Shave. Back then, Shaun walked into Wallace and Gromit’s home and ate everything in sight. Now he has a taste for Radio Times… hopefully, without swallowing any crucial TV listings! It’s a busy time for Aardman Animations. There’s a Christmas Day episode of Shaun the Sheep on BBC One called Fleece Navidad, and in 2026, to mark the studio’s 50th anniversary, a big Aardman exhibition at London’s Young V&A, plus a film outing…

A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Room in the Tower Christmas Eve 10.00pm BBC Two WHAT ARE THE ingredients of A Ghost Story for Christmas? For me, it’s a combination: finding an appropriate and contained story with a richness, a patina of antiquity, that makes it feel Christmassy. It’s a pleasing terror, not upsettingly ghastly or gory, but one that still produces the right kind of shiver. Above all else, it has to be scary with a slow accumulation of dread. This year, we start during the Blitz. Roger Winstanley – played by Tobias Menzies – is taking shelter from the bombs in a Tube station, and falls into a conversation with a Wren, played by Nancy Carroll. He tells her about a dream he’s had since childhood, in which he…

The Celebrity Apprentice Monday 29 & Tuesday 30 December 9.00pm BBC One Merry Christmas, Sugar Claus! If you were Father Christmas, which public figures would you put on your naughty list? I would have to say no comment on this whatsoever, my friend. As you will know, the BBC has guidelines. I have to keep my big mouth shut and not make personal or political comments like that. In that case, can we assume the contestants in your Celebrity Apprentice Christmas specials went straight on the nice list? Nah! That’s the excitement of it. Most of the time, they’re schmoozed by everybody, told how marvellous they are. Then they get a gig where I’m telling them what a load of rubbish they are. They’re masochists, really. Still, it’s worth remembering they don’t…

AFTER 26 YEARS at the BBC, Mishal Husain left in 2025 to join Bloomberg. It’s been the greatest challenge of her career. “I have had to reinvent myself and that’s scary because you wonder, ‘Am I going to make a success of it?’” Husain presented the Today programme on Radio 4 for her final 11 years at the Beeb and was my favourite presenter on the show. While others tried to shout down interviewees, she researched meticulously, listened intensely, probed forensically and got results. Husain exposed inconsistencies, hypocrisies and plain old lies, fairly and without fanfare. But now she’s swapped short-form interviews for a weekly 40-minute podcast called The Mishal Husain Show, which started in October. Husain insists they’re worlds apart. “I’m discovering that doing one deep, really thoughtful interview…

ANDREW SCOTT PLAYS LEE ROSS Could you get away with the perfect murder? I don’t think I would be very good at murder – I suppose I’m the type, but I just don’t like blood. I have many faults, but I think I’m going to get away in this life with not murdering anybody. That’s the way it’s looking, anyway. Do you have a favourite detective… Sherlock Holmes, perhaps? Actually, it’s Hercule Poirot. One of the films that had a real influence on me was Evil under the Sun with Peter Ustinov as Poirot, made in the 1980s. I remember watching him, Diana Rigg and Maggie Smith and thinking, “Wow!” I’d never seen a film like that. GLENN CLOSE PLAYS MARTHA DELACROIX Do you have a favourite detective? I loved…

TO ENTER Find the 50 programme titles or events represented in the picture and send your list, along with your name, address and daytime phone number, to: Christmas 2025 Picture Quiz, PO Box 501, Leicester LE94 0AA or enter online at: radiotimes.com/picturequiz2025 Promoter Immediate Media Co London Ltd. Closing date: Friday 9 January 2026 at 11.59pm. Entrants must be UK residents aged 16 or over. For full terms and conditions, visit radiotimes.com/picturequiz2025. Entrants’ data will be used in accordance with our privacy policy (immediate.co.uk/privacy). The answers and winner’s name will be published in RT in February 2026.…

AS WELL as this year’s biggest TV juggernauts – Adolescence (Netflix), The White Lotus (Sky Atlantic), The Celebrity Traitors (iPlayer) et al – we have been spoilt with some relatively undiscovered gems. Here’s my Deserving Dozen… 12 Confessions of a Brain Surgeon iPlayer Pioneering neurosurgeon Henry Marsh quotes French doctor René Leriche, who wrote, “Every surgeon carries within himself a small cemetery… a place of bitterness and regret.” Now retired, Marsh’s regrets are both professional and personal, humble and honest. 11 Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action Netflix How did the former Mayor of Cincinnati create a TV phenomenon that pitched itself as a champion of free speech yet stood accused of ruining US culture? Comparing himself to Oprah Winfrey, Springer said, “She does a talk show, I do a circus. Just no…

FILM P Oppenheimer ★★★★ 15 9.00pm BBC Two Catch up via iPlayer It’s not exactly cheery, but Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning 2023 biopic of J Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who managed the creation of the atomic bomb, is one of the rare modern films that can truly stand next to those classic Hollywood epics in the Christmas schedules. It’s three hours long; its cast is stuffed with headline stars; its visual scale and grand musical score are second to none. Yet, this is still a movie from the director of time-jumbling thrillers Memento and Tenet, and Nolan works to make it probably the artsiest film to have grossed (nearly) a billion dollars. “We have to find a way into this guy’s head,” said the film-maker of his unusual screenplay, which was written in the…

DOCUMENTARY Inside the Christmas Factory 8.00pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer Paddy McGuinness pops on his hairnet once more to explore the family business in Market Drayton, Shropshire, that churns out an astonishing four million biscuits every year to see how they produce that traditional Christmas treat — gingerbread figures. There’s a blizzard of fun festive statistics and facts to go with all the shots of happy workers on the production line and it’s all very jolly as he helps — or, more accurately, hinders — them piping on Santa’s beard or Rudolph’s red nose. And having the occasional nibble too, of course. “Ooh, ground ginger,” Paddy says appreciatively, taking a big sniff of the biscuit mix. “That smells like Christmas right there!” Meanwhile, historian Ruth Goodman learns what it’s like to spend…

DRAMA Call the Midwife 8.15pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer The Nonnatus House regulars are trading in their bicycles for rickshaws this Christmas, with the likes of Sisters Julienne (Jenny Agutter) and Veronica (Rebecca Gethings) seen making a mercy dash to Hong Kong following a disaster at the Branch House in Kowloon. But, as it turns out, the aftermath of this horrendous building collapse brings with it some unforeseen dangers, most notably the threat posed by organised crime in the neighbourhood. Dr Turner (Stephen McGann) may have stitched wounds inflicted by the Kray twins back home, but how will he fare with the Triad? Credit ought to go to writer Heidi Thomas for finding fresh ways of taking her characters way out of their comfort zone, though any viewer seeking the…

1 DRAMA Sense and Sensibility Saturday 20 December 3.15pm/Sunday 21 December 3.00pm Radio 4 Jane Austen’s first published novel came out anonymously. Now, 250 years since her birth, her witty tale of the contrasting Dashwood sisters (one prudent, the other passionate and sentimental) is celebrated as a triumph of literary irony and sympathetic wisdom. In Claudine Toutoungi’s dramatisation, Tamsin Greig is Austen, leading listeners through the romantic adventures of Elinor (Madeleine Mantock) and Marianne (Rose Basista). VANESSA THORPE 2 INTERVIEW Desert Island Discs Sunday 21 December 10.00am Radio 4 Despite the megawattage of movie stardom that Titanic thrust upon Kate Winslet at the age of 22, she’s always retained the appeal of an ordinary girl from Reading. From her Oscarwinning Nazi guard in The Reader to a detective in Mare of Easttown,…

COUNTDOWN with Rachel Riley Using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, try to get the target number in 30 seconds. You can use each of the six numbers only once, but you don’t have to use them all. Rachel’s solution is on the opposite page. SUPER SUDOKU 1041 How to play Complete the grid so that every row, column and 3 x 3 box contains the digits 1 to 9. Difficulty: 13/20 SUDOKU NO 1040 SOLUTION Solution in the next issue of RT ONLY CONNECT with Victoria Coren Mitchell The connecting wall from BBC2’s Only Connect combines general knowledge, word play and lateral thinking. How to play Your task is to sort the 16 seemingly random words/phrases below into four groups of four connected words. You may find some clues fall…