Special

9:00pm Saturday 22 December on BBC FOUR

In this BBC Four Christmas special, Arena: Screen Goddesses charts the Hollywood studio era from its beginning through to its collapse in the early 1960s, and through the meteoric rise and fall of the screen goddesses that made it.

With the beginning of Hollywood around 1910, the star system was born, with an archetypal bad girl – the vampish Theda Bara – and the good girl – the blazingly sincere Lillian Gish. From the 1920s, the female stars most remembered today are the vivacious ‘It’ Girl Clara Bow and the seductive siren Louise Brooks; but none made the impact of German born, Marlene Dietrich, an icon of mystery or the ‘Great Garbo’ with perfect features and gloomy introspection.

From the power of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis to the beauty and seductiveness of Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner, Hollywood studios produced their own brand of beautiful, sassy and confident women. But it wasn’t to last.

Arena: Screen Goddesses uses film extracts and archive footage to chronicle an era that drew to a close with the supreme fame of Elizabeth Taylor and the tragic death of Marilyn Monroe. It will chart those final days of the reign of the goddess on the big screen – screen queens whose images will last forever.

Narrated by ?Elizabeth McGovern

11:40pm Friday, December 28 on C4

Rich Fulcher introduces an insane look at the big news events of 2012 through totally original commissioned media mash-ups made by the internet’s most famous names including Dan Bull, David Schneider, Cassetteboy and Rob Manuel. News events covered include Barclays Bank Libor-fixing, Kate Middleton, Fifty Shades of Grey and Lonesome George the Galapagos tortoise, which are all given the mash-up treatment.

9:00pm Friday, December 28 on C4

Stacey Solomon, Russell Kane, Rob Beckett, Katherine Ryan and a sackful of comedians and celebrities take a look back over 2012 at the funniest, most outrageous and quite frankly wrong moments that made 2012 what it was: everything from Boris Johnson dangling from a zip wire to the phenomenon of the hit single Gangnam Style.

10:00am Tuesday, December 25 on C4

Gordon Ramsay serves up an action-packed, entertaining guide to cooking a fool-proof Christmas dinner – live on Christmas Day. Gordon invites the nation’s families to cookalong together. Don’t leave it all to mum this year – Gordon challenges everyone to muck in and help create the perfect three-course festive feast. Plus, special lunch guests pop in to share Gordon’s feast.

Both the BBC and Sky will be airing the Queen’s Christmas Day message in 3D.

This year’s message will air simultaneously on the BBC HD and Sky 3D channels from 3pm alongside the standard and high definition broadcasts.

“The BBC is thrilled that viewers will be able to watch the Queen’s Speech in 3D for the first time on the BBC HD Channel,” a BBC spokesperson said.

John McAndrew, associate editor of Sky News said: “Sky News is delighted to be producing the Queen’s Christmas Message in 3D this year. When we approached the palace with the idea we were thrilled to find they were as keen as us. It seems a fitting way to end a very special Jubilee year.” Continue reading »

Sunday, 23 December 2012, 9:00PM – 10:30PM

Joanna Lumley embarks on an epic journey overseas to investigate one of the oldest and most famous stories in the world – Noah’s Ark.

Joanna sets out across two continents to investigate the origins of this ancient tale. Was there a global flood and where did it happen? What was the ‘Ark’ ship like and where is it now? Perhaps most importantly – why does this story hold such resonance and significance for people across so many religions and cultures around the world?

The story of Noah has fascinated many adventurers and explorers who have gone in search of the Ark – from Marco Polo to Sir Walter Raleigh, and more recently NASA astronaut James Irwin. But beyond a physical search for the ship, Joanna is also keen to unearth the symbolism of the story – from the dove as a sign of peace to the rainbow as a sign of hope.

Joanna’s epic adventure takes her from nomads on the slopes of Mount Ararat in Turkey to an ancient Sumerian flood tale on the Mesopotamian flood plain – now on the Turkish/Syrian border. In India a lost civilization, ancient trade routes and the Hindu faith turn up more clues, as do the sinking mountain ranges and maritime history of Oman.

The twists and turns of Joanna’s detective story provide a fresh perspective on how myth, legend, religion and science have come to play their part in understanding a story far older than the Bible itself. The journey to uncover the origins of one of the most enduring tales of all time is a surprising one.

Wednesday, 26 December 2012, 9:00PM – 11:00PM

Mike Mackenzie (Dougie Henshall,) is a self-made businessman with too much time on his hands. Bored by the comfort of his millions and grieving for the woman who walked out on him five years previously, he’s got an adventurous side just waiting to get him into trouble. When he hears the love of his life, Laura Stanton (Lenora Crichlow), art consultant and auctioneer, has returned to Edinburgh, his whole world is turned upside down and he’d risk anything to get her back.

Alongside close friends art expert Professor Gissing (Stephen Fry) and banker Allan Cruickshank (Kenneth Collard), Mike plots to rip-off one of the most high-profile targets in the country – Edinburgh’s private art collection owned by a national bank. Incensed by wealthy patrons hiding works of art away in private collections, the trio devises a plan to swap priceless masterpieces stored in the gallery’s warehouse with brilliantly accurate forgeries.

Fortuitously, Edinburgh’s buildings of special interest are open to the public for a single day under the ‘Doors Open’ scheme. It’s the nation’s celebration of public access, the perfect opportunity for these three to pull off the perfect art heist and for Mike it’s too good a challenge to pass up. It might just help him to get Laura back into his life.

Mike enlists the help of Charlie Calloway (Brian McCardie), old school friend and small time gangster, to beef up their criminal know-how, but Charlie’s involvement comes at a price: he brings the unwelcome attention of some less-than-friendly outlandish gangsters. By the time the gallery warehouse doors are flung open to the public, there’s no going back.

DOORS OPEN has been adapted from Ian Rankin’s novel by James Mavor and Sandi Toksvig. The two-hour film is produced by Sprout Pictures, the company founded by Stephen Fry and Gina Carter, for ITV1.

Speaking about his character, Stephen Fry says: “Professor Gissing is a Professor of Art at Edinburgh College, and naturally, therefore, loves art, and hates the high prices that are put on it. It upsets him that nobody knows where the Matisse is, so he looks upon the heist as liberating the paintings.”

Doors Open was filmed in Edinburgh. Speaking about filming in the city Scottish born Dougie Henshall says: “I like Edinburgh a lot because it is a great city. I really enjoy being up there and I don’t get the opportunity to film in Scotland as much as I’d like. Edinburgh is truly a city of Jekyll and Hyde. It has got the Old Town and the New Town and there is so much of that duality about it. It’s beautiful place to be and I’ve got lots of really good memories.”

Stephen, Dougie and Kenneth’s characters don disguises for the art heist. Kenneth reveals his look was similar to a famous 1970s sports presenter: “The disguises we wore added an extra dimension to the heist. We worked closely with the costume, hair and make-up teams to arrive at a certain ‘look’. That lifted it to something else. Not only was it a heist, it was a dream heist! The disguises are 70’s retro, and Allan has a kind of Dickie Davies look.”

Saturday, 22 December 2012, 8:00PM – 9:00PM

Welcome to the beginning of the end of 2012. A mighty year of TV by any standards, some are saying the best since they cut Bread. Not content to let the televisual events of the last 12 months go without a bang, Take Me Out host Paddy McGuiness is here to show us the best of the best, the worst of the worst and to find out whether we’ve all been paying attention.

Paddy’s 2012 Show and Telly pits three celebrity pairs – Denise Van Outen and Nicky Byrne, Kate Garraway and Nicholas Owen and Antony Cotton and Chris Fountain – against each other in this end of year TV quiz. We’ll see the most talked about clips from the biggest dramas, documentaries, comedies, sporting moments and game shows that TV has to offer and put the very people who have helped to make it such a spectacular year to the test.

Who were our biggest winners – and losers in TV land this year? Which TV stars fell apart under pressure and who carried on regardless? The answers are all here if the celebrities are equal to Paddy’s questions!

Contestants face a series of three exciting elimination rounds before they reach the grand finale and the chance to win up to £20,000 for their charity of choice.

There’ll be no better way to round off an unforgettable year of TV than with a night to remember on Paddy’s 2012 Show and Telly!

Tuesday, 25 December 2012, 3:00PM – 3:10PM

The Queen delivers her annual Christmas message to the nation.

Monday, 24 December 2012, 10:15PM – 11:15PM

Aled Jones is joined by William Roache and others from the cast of Coronation Street to celebrate and tell the Christmas story from St James Church in Didsbury, Manchester – Coronation Street’s “home” church.

Tenor Russell Watson, Jonathan and Charlotte, British army singing trio The Soldiers and Corrie’s very own Catherine Tyldesley also join the celebration.

Along with everyone’s favourite Carols, the service also includes Christmas readings from Coronation Street cast members William Roache (Ken Barlow), Sally Dynevor (Sally Webster), and Shobna Gulati (Sunita Alahan)

The programme is a celebration of family and community spirit at Christmas. We follow Corrie cast members Julie Hesmondhalgh (Hayley Cropper) and Samia Ghadie (Maria Connor) away from the cobbles of Weatherfield, as they spend time with their families, friends and help out their local communities over the festive period.