A Christmas television special is as much a staple of the big day as the Queen’s (and, later, the King’s) speech. This year, millions are expected to watch the long-awaited return of comedy Gavin and Stacey, while the cast of Outnumbered reunites on Boxing Day.
Their creators hope the shows, which are often years in development and whose plots are closely guarded secrets, will earn a place in the pantheon of holiday television greats alongside that Batman and Robin episode of Only Fools And Horses.
Now the never-before-told stories behind some of our best-loved festive specials can be revealed, as part of Channel 5’s documentary Britain’s Favorite Christmas Comedy Moments. The programme, which will be broadcast tonight at 9pm, describes how Martin Clunes almost set fire to Men Behaving Badly, how Milton Keynes doubled as a Moroccan desert in Birds Of A Feather and how a real-life lord broke into the filming of Keeping Up Appearances, much to the delight of the character Hyacinth Bucket.
But first, to the 2003 Absolutely Fabulous special in which the painfully thin Patsy, played by Dame Joanna Lumley, chews on a slice of turkey as if it were the only food passing her lips that year.
Dame Joanna rehearsed the scene at home, such was the suspicion that the joke (so integral that the episode was called Cold Turkey) would be leaked before the show aired.
Snooty Dorien Green, played by Lesley Joseph, in the festive special Birds Of A Feather in 2016
“She went home and rehearsed it in front of a mirror,” reveals executive producer Jon Plowman on Britain’s Favorite Christmas Comedy Moments, on Channel 5 at 9pm tonight. Dame Joanna had to imagine “what it would be like if Patsy ate, and the expressions are the funniest thing about the show”. It was a feat he accomplished “quite marvelously.” But Plowman says the scene wasn’t revealed until the last minute, as Ab Fab creator Jennifer Saunders kept it fiercely secret. He said: “I would call her and say, ‘When are we likely to get the script?’
‘And she said, ‘Well, hopefully next week.’ And she knew she was lying and I knew she was lying. Twelve pages arrived and he said: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll put in some jokes later.’ ‘
Counting down the 30 best moments from the Christmas specials, the Channel 5 show features many unforgettable episodes, including a set from Birds Of A Feather in which snooty and over-sexed neighbor Dorien Green straddles a camel.
Having jetted off to Morocco with sisters Tracey Stubbs (Linda Robson) and Sharon Theodopolopodous (Pauline Quirke) for 2016’s There’s a Girl in My Souk, Dorien finds herself stranded in the desert with only a camel for company. But the best of Chigwell did not, in fact, leave the United Kingdom. Instead, thanks to the ingenious sandscape created by the production team, the scenes were filmed in Milton Keynes.
Lesley Joseph, who played Dorien, said: “I actually rode a camel, it wasn’t a stuntman, it was me. A little secret I’ll share with you, you’ll look into the distance, there’s the desert, here she comes, and around the corner! Around the corner is Milton Keynes! We filmed it in Milton Keynes, there you have it, that’s television for you.”
In 1997, it was Gary and Tony’s puerile antics on Men Behaving Badly that sent millions into hysteria on Christmas Day. In a typically juvenile attempt at cooking turkey dinner, Gary (Martin Clunes) cuts the bird into pieces to put in the oven. He rewards himself with a skin of Baileys and falls asleep in a drunken stupor.
Men behaving badly sent millions into hysteria on Christmas Day 1997
The Heroes And Villains episode of Only Fools And Horses was shown in 1996.
Leslie Ash, who played Deborah, explains: “She wakes up to smoke in the kitchen. She opens the oven and the amount of flames that shoot out – no one was prepared for that at all. It was a huge surprise that, when the fire came out of that oven, it wasn’t meant to be like that.’ Actor John Thompson, who played a guest character, added: ‘It was a real fire! It would probably be CGI flames now.’
And few will forget the most revered Christmas special: the Heroes and Villains episode of Only Fools And Horses. In 1996, nearly 20 million watched Del Boy and Rodney (David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst) unknowingly stop a street robbery while dressed as Batman and Robin. Like the rest of us, Jason couldn’t stop laughing at the sight of his co-star as Robin.
But actress Sheree Murphy, who played one of the robbers, didn’t see Lyndhurst in costume, because the show’s producers were so afraid of their scene becoming public beforehand that they filmed Del Boy and Rodney running down the street. separately from the robbery. She said: “We only received part of the script, so it didn’t make sense.” The reactions we gave (on camera) to seeing Batman and Robin, well, we didn’t have Batman or Robin there, we had to react to nothing! It was that secret.’
Production designer Donal Woods added: ‘We blocked off the streets where we filmed. We had hundreds of security people. We wanted Christmas Day to be a surprise for the nation.’
Another holiday favorite was Keeping Up Appearances.
This year marks the long-awaited return of the comedy Gavin and Stacey.
Another holiday favorite was Keeping Up Appearances, the beloved social satire that follows Hyacinth Bucket’s enduring quest to keep up with her suburbanites. Their 1993 special, Sea Fever, saw Hyacinth (Patricia Routledge) and her husband Richard (the late Clive Swift) take a cruise on the QE2.
Two of the hoi polloi on board are revealed to be Hyacinth’s terrifyingly ordinary sister Daisy (Judy Cornwell) and her careless husband Onslow (the late Geoffrey Hughes), however the most exclusive passenger they encounter, Lord Lichfield, was missing. in the original script. The real-life aristocratic photographer was on board the ship during filming. Production assistant Susan Smith said: “Lord Patrick Lichfield was on board, he was a guest lecturer on photography.
“Harold (Snoad, the director who died in June aged 88) thought it was wonderful.” She remembers him saying, “I’ll ask him if he wants to participate,” which he did, and “joining Harold, Patricia and Clive for dinner.”
One of the first specials was The Good Life in 1977. It followed the story of how Christmas dinner was not delivered to the Leadbetters, so Margo (Penelope Keith) and Jerry (Paul Eddington, who died in 1995) spend the day with Tom (the late Richard Briers) and Barbara Good (Felicity Kendal).
Keith tells how they discussed whether, given the sexual tension between them, their characters would ever have swapped partners. “Margo wouldn’t, I mean, she wouldn’t have gotten into bed with Tom Good at all.” But I prefer to feel that Jerry would have done it.
That would have been a Christmas special to remember.