TV picks: Boxing Day
Worzel Gummidge
BBC One, 6:20pm
(Credit: BBC)
(Credit: BBC)
At the broadcaster’s Upfront 2017 event, they announced a brand new comedy series from Peep Show writer Simon Blackwell, to star David Mitchell and Robert Webb; named the first celebrities to take part in this year’s The Jump; and promised a massive content investment increase for 2017 on All 4
The stars of Peep Show Mitchell and Webb are returning to Channel 4 in Back.
Back comes from Emmy-award winning writer Simon Blackwell, who worked with Mitchell and Webb on Channel 4’s popular comedy Peep Show.
When Stephen’s (Mitchell) father Laurie dies, it is finally Stephen’s time to take over the family business, a local pub. His mother and sister (Julie Deakin and Louise Brealey) are too busy aligning positive energies to take an interest in the family business.
This year’s famous cohort of willing amateur bakers features comedians, singers, sports personalities and politicians.
One face that you will not be seeing however, is regular host Sue Perkins who is leaving her long-time performing partner Mel Giedroyc to host it alone for one episode.
Comedians Ed Byrne, Jennifer Saunders and Sarah Millican will also each take a turn at helm.
BBC Two has commissioned a new sitcom from writer and comedian Ben Elton about William Shakespeare's early career.
Upstart Crow is due to be broadcast on BBC Two in 2016 as part of the BBC’s Shakespeare Festival, marking 400 years since Shakespeare's death.
The series follows a young Will Shakespeare, played by actor and comedian David Mitchell, as he begins his extraordinary career, finding inspiration from the most unlikely of sources.
Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney's acerbic comedy about a couple who get pregnant after a one-week-stand was one of this year's funniest new sitcoms. The second series has just started on Channel 4, and it's just as sharp, vulgar, and uproariously funny as the first. In the opening two episodes, the pair are adjusting to family life - and try to rekindle their romance with an ill-fated minibreak to Paris.
Channel 4 has announced that the ninth and final season of Peep Show will begin on Wednesday 11 November at 10pm.
The critically-acclaimed comedy is a standout favourite, and stars David Mitchell and Robert Webb as Croydon flatmates Mark and Jez. It has won a spate of awards, including Baftas and a Royal Television Society Award for writers Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain.
Alastair Stewart may have hosted British television’s first political leaders’ debate in April 2010 but, more often than not, it was Jeremy Paxman who had the last word at a rumbustious RTS Legends lunch in May.
Steve Hewlett was the ringmaster at this highly entertaining event, which sought to bring an insider’s perspective to the recent general election.
For much of the time, the two TV anchor men agreed to disagree. Paxman was as cynical as Stewart was enthusiastic. Maybe he’d recently attended a positive-thinking course.