Things To Watch This Christmas: The Lost Christmas

Sunday December 18th 5.30pm BBC 1

"Starring Eddie Izzard, with Jason Flemyng, Geoffrey Palmer and Larry Mills, this CBBC family drama is an urban fairytale from the backstreets of Manchester.

It is Christmas Eve and everyone is getting ready for the big day; everyone that is, except for Anthony, a strange, enigmatic being who wakes up in the street, not knowing where he is or what he’s here to do. But Anthony has a remarkable ability: the power to find the lost.

Is Anthony’s ability real, or just an illusion?"

Now that's a hell of a cast

DR WHO Christmas special press release

Images and a press release are available on the BBC website regarding the DOCTOR WHO Christmas special. Here's the press release

 

 

"Date: 21.09.2011

Category: TV Drama; BBC One

Production has started on the 2011 Doctor Who Christmas Special in which the Doctor (Matt Smith) finds himself in war-torn England embarking on a magical and mysterious adventure with a young widow and her two children.

A stellar guest cast including Claire Skinner (Outnumbered), Bill Bailey (Black Books), Arabella Weir (The Fast Show) and Alexander Armstrong (Armstrong & Miller), join Matt Smith in the emotional festive special, packed full of Christmas thrills and chills.
Steven Moffat, Lead Writer and Executive Producer, commented: "The Doctor at Christmas – nothing is more fun to write. Maybe because it's so his kind of day – everything's bright and shiny, everybody's having a laugh, and nobody minds if you wear a really stupid hat. Of all the Doctors, Matt Smith's is the one that was born for this time of year – so it's the best news possible that he's heading back down the chimney."

The special, set during the Second World War, sees Madge Arwell and her two children, Lily and Cyril, evacuated to a draughty old house in Dorset, where the caretaker is a mysterious young man in a bow tie, and a big blue parcel is waiting for them under the tree. They are about to enter a magical new world and learn that a Time Lord never forgets his debts.
Claire Skinner said: "I am thrilled to be in Doctor Who playing Madge who is a bit of super-mum. It's a magical part."

This marks Matt Smith's second outing as the Doctor at Christmas time and will follow hot on the heels of the successful 2011 series, currently airing on BBC One until October.

The Christmas Special was commissioned by Ben Stephenson, Controller, BBC Drama and Danny Cohen, Controller BBC One. Steven Moffat is Lead Writer and Executive Producer with Piers Wenger and Caroline Skinner, also executive producing.

Filming on the Christmas special will continue until mid-October 2011. "

Let's hope the Steven Moffat can come up with something better than last year's THE CHRISTMAS CAROL which was good without being great.

DR Who Does A Dickens

"Amy and Rory are trapped on a crashing space liner, and the only way The Doctor can rescue them is to save the soul of a lonely old miser, in a festive edition of the time-travelling adventure, written by Steven Moffat. But is Kazran Sardick, the richest man in Sardicktown, beyond redemption? And what is lurking in the fogs of Christmas Eve? "

That's the synopsis of the Doctor Who Christmas special, the first to presided over new showrunner Steven Moffatt. Since Dickens and crashing space liners have already been covered during Russell T Davies' tenure as the master of the TARDIS, we can't help but wonder what the Moff is up to.

I guess that we'll find out on Christmas Day when the BBC's flagship science fiction show once again anchors the festive programming.

The last versio of this tale that the BBC produced was a comedy  version starring Doctor Who actress Catherine Tate Nan's Christmas Carol in which previous Doctor David Tennant also appeared.

BBC's Christmas Ghost Story

The BBC has a tradition of seriously scary ghost stories for Christmas and the new one is a remake of 'Whistle and I'll Come To You', based on a tale by MR James and originally filmed starring the inestimable Michael Hordern.

The BBC press release states:

"John Hurt, one of Britain's most esteemed and prolific actors, stars as James Parkin in Whistle And I'll Come To You, the haunting story of a man's encounter with an apparition on a desolate British beach.

Updated for 2010 by screenwriter and novelist Neil Cross (Luther), Whistle And I'll Come To You is a thoroughly modern adaptation of MR James's atmospheric Edwardian ghost story. It focuses on one man, James Parkin, and his separation from his wife Alice, whom he has just left in the care of a nursing home.

John Hurt says: "Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad is MR James's most evocative, and possibly best-known ghost story, and I'm thrilled to be involved in this contemporary reworking of it. I've not done a ghost story before, and I'm always looking for new challenges and different stories to tell."

Pensive and in emotional turmoil, Parkin travels to their favourite old rambling destination in an off-season British seaside town. There he encounters an apparition on a desolate beach which begins to haunt him, with terrifying consequences.

Providing a cinematic, unsettling and spooky addition to the Christmas schedules, Whistle And I'll Come To You delves into themes of ageing, hubris and the supernatural, adding a terrifying psychological twist in the tale to this family hearthside favourite.

Neil Cross says: "For reasons I don't quite understand, I always enjoyed tales that terrified me. I grew up loving ghost stories, classic and modern. But I never got to tell a ghost story ... until this opportunity."

John Hurt plays James Parkin, Gemma Jones plays his wife, Lesley Sharp plays Hetty the nurse and Sophie Thompson plays Carol, the hotel receptionist. "


John Hurt and Lesley Sharp together? We're there.