TV Picks: 23rd December
Mary Berry Saves Christmas
BBC One, 6:30pm
Mary Berry is here to give you the best Christmas possible, even if it looks a little different to what you’re used to.
Mary Berry is here to give you the best Christmas possible, even if it looks a little different to what you’re used to.
The four-part series has been written by RTS-Award winning writer Danny Brocklehurst (Brassic).
No Return follows Kathy (Smith) and Martin who are enjoying a blissful holiday in Turkey with their son Noah and younger daughter Jess. Unbeknownst to the family, a horrific ordeal is about to tear their worlds apart.
Sky One original Jack and The Beanstalk: After Ever After was created and written by The Dawson Brother and David Walliams.
Walliams will take on the role of the feared giant, with Sheridan Smith playing The Woman with No Name, who is known as the best giant-slayer in the village, and Blake Harrison stars as Dodgy Dave, a sneaky market stall trader who originally sold Jack the magic beans.
The one-off Christmas special will tell the story of what happens after the ‘happily ever after’, with the original story ending with Jack seeming to have defeated the giant.
Actress and singer Sheridan Smith offers viewers unprecedented access to the intimate and personal journey of her becoming a mum for the first time, in a new one-off documentary.
Comedian Mo Gilligan is the latest star to broadcast his own show from home, with Mo Gilligan’s All Star Happy Hour.
Speaking to the RTS he said: “It meant that people came to me with their ideas. Steve Coogan came to me with Philomena (Coogan and Pope’s screenplay was nominated for an Oscar and won best screenplay at the Venice Film Festival).
“Success gets you meetings, but it still doesn’t get something past the finishing line if it’s not good enough…It also means you can be more ambitious and more expansive.”
The factual drama focuses on the families of the victims of serial killer and rapist Stephen Port (Stephen Merchant), and their fight to find the truth about what happened to Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor.
Now a widely criticised police investigation, the series will shed new light on the case and tell the story from the perspective of the victims’ families including Anthony Walgate’s mother Sarah Sak (Sheridan Smith) and Jack Taylor’s sister Donna Taylor (Jaime Winstone).
Based on Juckes’s real-life experiences, Care follows Jenny (Smith) a single mother of two, raising her children with the help of her widowed mother Mary (Steadman). When Mary suffers a devastating stroke and develops dementia, Jenny’s world falls apart, and everything changes for her and her sister Claire (Keenan). Torn between caring for her mother and following her own path, Jenny soon discovers that there could be another option, but it’s one she’ll have to fight for.
Clean Break follows the story of single mother and cleaning lady Sam (Sheridan Smith), who becomes caught up in the dangerous world of insider trading.
The drama focuses on the struggles of the working class protagonist leading a dual life in online gambling whilst acting as devoted mother fighting for custody of her two daughters.
She soon realises she has access to powerful stock market information and sees it as her opportunity to get her life back.