Only Fools and Horses Christmas Special
- Credit: BBC
Like turkey and tinsel, advent calendars and carols, cracking TV programmes are a tradition for most of us during the festive season. With your selection box and port at the ready, here is a countdown of 10 of our best-loved Christmas TV moments, from jaw-dropping revelations to cuddly cartoon characters, vicars to a Royle baby.
1. Dirty Den and Angie’s divorce (EastEnders, 1986): The Granddaddy of them all and the benchmark for anyone striving for a truly miserable Christmas, 30.2 million people tuned in to watch Den Watts hand Angie the divorce papers after finding out that she’d been lying about only having six months to live (in lying terms, this is a really difficult one to pull off). “Happy Christmas, Ange…” said Den, shortly after telling her he’d overheard her confessing her “big black lie” to, of all people, a waiter on the Orient Express.
Only Fools and Horses Christmas Special
- Credit: BBC
Like turkey and tinsel, advent calendars and carols, cracking TV programmes are a tradition for most of us during the festive season. With your selection box and port at the ready, here is a countdown of 10 of our best-loved Christmas TV moments, from jaw-dropping revelations to cuddly cartoon characters, vicars to a Royle baby.
1. Dirty Den and Angie’s divorce (EastEnders, 1986): The Granddaddy of them all and the benchmark for anyone striving for a truly miserable Christmas, 30.2 million people tuned in to watch Den Watts hand Angie the divorce papers after finding out that she’d been lying about only having six months to live (in lying terms, this is a really difficult one to pull off). “Happy Christmas, Ange…” said Den, shortly after telling her he’d overheard her confessing her “big black lie” to, of all people, a waiter on the Orient Express.
TV Editor
On a busy night there s Queens of the Street, which focuses on the female stars in Coronation Street, Christy Ring: Man and Ball, Far from the Madding Crowd, as well as some Christmas specials and season finales . . .
Pick of the Day
Queens of the Street, 9.00pm, Virgin Media One
Of all the Corrie specials, this could be the best - a programme celebrating the Weatherfield women over the years, since the very first episode aired in December 1960.
There’s never been a shortage of great female characters on The Cobbles: Ena Sharples, Elsie Tanner, Hilda Ogden, Vera Duckworth, and Bet Gilroy are just some of the show’s finest. The great Sarah Lancashire cut her acting teeth here as Rovers barmaid Raquel.
The television institution has held on to a unique identity across six decades
A scene from Coronation Street in 1974. ‘Over its six decades the show has dealt with subjects ranging from teenage pregnancy to assisted dying.’ Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock
A scene from Coronation Street in 1974. ‘Over its six decades the show has dealt with subjects ranging from teenage pregnancy to assisted dying.’ Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock
Fri 11 Dec 2020 13.23 EST
Last modified on Fri 11 Dec 2020 23.37 EST
In the Coronation Street writers’ room at Granada Studios, a magnificent black and white photograph of Ena Sharples used to adorn the wall. Wearing her signature hairnet, the legendary denizen of the Rovers Return snug is looking out at grimy 1960s Manchester. According to the onetime scriptwriter, Frank Cotterell Boyce, someone wrote a caption for it: “When I was a lass there was Coronation St, Inkerman Street, the Red Rec. And the rest of the world was all talk.”
Rating:
Coronation Street does enjoy a good birthday. Landmark dates are treated with all the pomp and circumstance of a state occasion there s more fuss than a royal jubilee.
Its 60th anniversary has been celebrated with a book, spectacular storylines and a life-size portrait commissioned in tribute to William Roache, who has played Ken Barlow since the soap s very first episode.
Bill Roache declared that Corrie was a serious intellectual business from the start
On Monday, Joanna Lumley narrated a 90-minute highlights reel, and now here was Salford boy John Thomson (who played children s entertainer Jesse on the show) paying tribute to the grandes dames of the cobbles, in Queens Of The Street (ITV).