TV highlights

David Walliams Celebrates Dame Shirley Bassey (Christmas Eve, BBC1, 9pm)

BBC/KING BERT/RAY BURMISTON

You’ve got to laugh
Walliams & Friend ends its BBC1 run with guests Miranda Richardson (Friday 23, 9.30pm) and Hugh Bonneville (Tuesday 27, 10pm), and a pompous thespian flounders in the chaos of his own making in Count Arthur Strong’s Radio Show! (today, Radio 4, 7.15pm). There is more comic oddness with Harry Enfield and gang in The Windsors (Friday 23, C4, 10pm), while Outnumbered returns for a festive one-off (Boxing Day, BBC1, 10pm), the kids now doubtless in their mid-thirties; and Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith (plus Rula Lenska) terrify and delight in equal measure with an Inside No 9 entitled The Devil of Christmas (Tuesday 27, BBC2, 10pm).

It’ll be the death of us
Murders galore this Noel, with a daily Miss Marple (Monday 19 – Friday 23, ITV3, 7pm), Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of Four (Monday 19, ITV3, 11pm), DCI Banks (Monday 19, ITV Encore, 9pm), plus new tinsel-tweaked instalments of Father Brown (Friday 23, BBC1, 1.45pm), Grantchester (Christmas Eve, ITV, 9pm) and Jonathan Creek (Wednesday 28, BBC1, 9pm). Rowan Atkinson returns for a second laconic outing as Maigret (Christmas Day, ITV, 9pm) while the BBC hopes to repeat the success of last year’s And Then There Were None with another all-star Christie, The Witness For The Prosecution (Boxing Day and Tuesday 27, BBC1, 9pm).

A classical Christmas
Set your alarms! At 8pm every night from Monday 19 to Friday 23, Sky Arts is showing an Andre Rieu special. Oh, all right, readjust alarms for Tuesday 27, when the dancer, choreographer and director Peter Wright gives his first significant TV interview in The Ballet Master (BBC4, 7pm). BBC4 goes aria mad today with Danielle De Niese — The Birth Of An Opera (7pm), The Barber Of Seville From Glyndebourne (8pm) and Mozart’s London Odyssey (10.45pm). For Christmas Eve you have a difficult choice: Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann (Radio 3, 6.30pm) ... or Andre Rieu — Christmas In London (C5, 6.55pm).

Box set binge
Christmas is perfect for catching up on all the drama you missed in the previous twelve months. Nexflix must-sees include Stranger Things, Luke Cage, The Get Down and The Crown, while Amazon Prime has Goliath, Start Up, Life In Pieces and Preacher. ITV Encore is screening triple-bills of Him (today, from 9pm), The Trials Of Jimmy Rose (Tuesday 20, from 9pm), Cilla, with Sheridan Smith perfect as the singer (Wednesday 21, from 9pm), and the terrifying Midwinter Of The Spirit (Friday 23, from 9pm). BBC1 is wisely reshowing BBC3’s dark comedy drama Fleabag in three double-bills (from Boxing Day, 12.25am).

Comedy classics
Theoretically, you could exist on nothing but old jokes this Christmas. The highlight is Bob Monkhouse — The Last Stand (Boxing Day, BBC4, 9pm), an unearthed 2003 recording of the TV host entertaining fellow comedians just months before his death. The 2015 drama We’re Doomed — The Dad’s Army Story (Monday 19, BBC2, 7pm) heralds three classic episodes on BBC2 (Christmas Eve, 7pm; Christmas Day, 8pm; Tuesday 27, 7pm), while the Morecambe and Wise doc Look Back In Laughter (Friday 23, C5, 9pm) is immediately followed by the duo live at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls in 1973. Their 1976 Special (with Angela Rippon) is on Christmas Day (BBC2, 5.40pm) and an edition of The Good Old Days from 1959 (Boxing Day, BBC4, 10pm) features a young Eric and Ern, plus bygone luminaries Cardew Robinson and Betty Jumel.

Do the locomotive
Don’t let dad see this or there’ll be nothing but train docs on all Christmas. The Xmas Express (Monday 19, C5, 9pm) finds Chris Tarrant speeding through Scandinavia to Santa’s grotto, while Flying Scotsman — From The Footplate (Thursday 29, BBC4, 9pm) rides on the nation’s favourite steam engine from Bridgnorth to Kidderminster. There is also a week of the Victoriana steam treat Full Steam Ahead (Monday 19-Friday 23, BBC2, 4pm) and Indian Hill Railways (Monday 19-Friday 23, BBC4, 7pm).

Cilla, with Sheridan Smith perfect as the singer (Wednesday 21, from 9pm)

STUART WOOD/ITV

The same old song
Recorded at London’s Royal Albert Hall, Disney’s Broadway Hits (Wednesday 21, Sky Arts, 9pm) feels like a festive throwback, as does Katherine Jenkins — Home For Christmas (Thursday 22, BBC1, 11.15pm), while Andy Williams — Happy Holidays (Tuesday 20, Sky Arts, 9pm) just is one. Similarly, in David Walliams Celebrates Dame Shirley Bassey (Christmas Eve, BBC1, 9pm), our ubiquitous friend salutes the career of the Welsh singer (who is 80 in January) with an evening of lavish entertainment.

Fizzy pop
With Slade, Wizzard and all the usual suspects in Top Of The Pops Christmas Hits (Christmas Eve, BBC4, 9pm), you can check out more unusual festive tunes with Danny Baker’s Christmas Hits (Christmas Eve, Sky Arts, 6.30pm). Most peculiarly, in Pop Quiz — The Comeback (Wednesday 28, BBC4, 9.30pm), DJ Mike Read tries to revive his awkward panel game with bemused veterans Toyah Willcox, Mari Wilson and Leee John.

Hollywood glamour
Of two festive engagements with Ol’ Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra At The Royal Festival Hall (today, Sky Arts, 8pm) captures a 1962 performance in London while A Man And His Music (Christmas Eve, Sky Arts, 11.15pm) shows his 1965 TV special. Every weekday at 10am, from Monday 19 to Friday 30, Radio 4 Extra is broadcasting classic crime dramas, beginning with Humphrey Bogart in James M Cain’s Dead Man and featuring noir turns from Orson Welles, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Tallulah Bankhead and Peggy Lee.

... and the turkey
Oh, ITV. We have seen the Harry Potter films a dozen times, so why are you screening them again, on a daily basis from Christmas Eve? Did you just forget to make enough new programmes?

WHAT YOU WATCHED THIS YEAR
(figures in millions)
1 Great British Bake Off BBC1 October 14.8 Bidding farewell in style
2 Eating Well C4 May 0.3 Hemsley + Hemsley = turn off
3 Olympics BBC1 August 11.1 Kenny and Trott triumph
4 Wimbledon BBC1 July 13.3 Murray at the double
5 England v Iceland ITV June 16.9 Geezers 1 Geysers 2
6 Wales v Portugal ITV July 9.6 Diolch i chi, Chris Coleman
7 The X-Files C5 February 5.1 The truth is still out there ...
8 The X-Files C5 March 1.6 ... but the viewers aren’t
9 The Voice BBC1 April 4.5 BBC1 has lost its voice ...
10 Britain’s Got Talent ITV April 8.8 ... but why would ITV want it?
11 Victoria ITV September 5.2 Beating Poldark on the night
12 Happy Valley BBC1 March 9.3 The best drama rules
13 Game Of Thrones Sky Atlantic May 3.8 But 4.8m on all platforms
14 Versailles BBC2 June 1.3 Zut alors! C’est très rubbish
15 Countryfile BBC1 November 6.8 Thumping The X Factor
16 Cold Feet ITV September 6.1 “Have you got more hair?”
17 Wallander BBC1 May 4.0 Goodbye to nordic noir’s king
18 The Night Manager BBC1 March 6.6 Hiddleswift? Swiddleston?
19 Top Gear BBC2 July 1.9 Evans. The Cenotaph. Idiots
20 Upstart Crow BBC1 May 1.3 Then 0.92, then 0.8, then ...

WHAT YOU WATCHED LAST CHRISTMAS
(figures in millions)

BBC1
1 Call The Midwife 10.1
2 Stick Man 10.0
3 Mrs Brown’s Boys 9.8
4 Then There Were ... 9.6
5 Strictly 8.8
6 Doctor Who 8.0

BBC2
1 Masterchef Pros 3.9
2 Dad’s Army Story 3.7
3 Univ Challenge 2.8
4 Shopping Fever 2.8
5 Dragons’ Den 2.5
6 Only Connect 2.4

ITV
1 Downton Abbey 8.7
2 Coronation Street 6.0
3 Emmerdale 5.2
4 The Love Of Dogs 3.2
5 The Chase 2.6
6 You’ve Been Framed 2.5

C4
1 Gogglesprogs 3.6
2 Big Fat Quiz 3.3
3 Home Alone 22.8
4 Inside Lego 2.5
5 The Supervet 2.3
6 8 Out Of 10 Cats 2.2

C5
1 Can’t Pay? 1.6
2 Strongest Man 1.3
3 One Chance 1.2
4 Michael Bublé 1.2
5 Celebrity Moments 1.2
6 Benefits Britain 1.1

AND THE REST
1 Big Bang Theory 2.4
2 Skyfall 1.9
3 Big Hero 61.7
4 Casino Royale 1.5
5 Fungus Bogeyman 1.6
6 Stoke v Man Utd 1.5