From Downton to Dickens, the period drama steals the show

TV REVIEW:ALONGSIDE SHOPPING and dining, long hours in front of the television is the third part of the Christmas holy trinity of excess – call it the festive troika of overconsumption, if you will. Catering to this captive audience is the ubiquitous Christmas special, with every sitcom, talkshow and period drama throwing the tinsel around with gusto in a bid to get in the seasonal mood.

So it is testimony to the success of Downton Abbey(Christmas Day, UTV; St Stephen's Day, TV3) that after just two series it already feels so established that it formed the centrepiece of the Christmas schedules. And it set the tone with sparkling production design – plenty of tuxedos and gowns were swanning around in front of a Christmas tree so large the forest seemed to have invaded the ballroom.

The plot actually skipped by the festivities in fairly short order to focus on the trial of noble Mr Bates from downstairs, charged with the murder of his wife. First-time Downtonviewers might have struggled to keep up with all the dead husbands, fiancees and Turkish diplomats, fearing that as a plot device it was being somewhat overutilised, and there was a slight creakiness to the regular sessions on the Ouija board, with the servants summoning all sorts of spirits for life-changing advice.

And plenty of advice was needed, what with Bates being sentenced to hang, Mary Grantham being blackmailed into marriage by an unctuous press baron (modern-day-parallel alert) and Lord Grantham's beloved dog going missing. As expected, Maggie Smith's delightful and pithy put-downs were the highlights that everything else seemed arranged around, and while there was plenty to exercise the historical pedants – would upstairs and downstairs really congregate for some ballroom dancing? – the whole exercise was so impeccably tasteful and uplifting that the prospect of Downton Abbeyspecials becoming a Christmas standard felt inevitable.

BEAUTIFUL PERIOD costumes, pristine stately homes, a nostalgic evocation of a golden past . . . None of that was to be found in the BBC's flagship Christmas-week production, an exceptional three-part adaptation of Great Expectations(BBC1, Tuesday to Thursday), the first in a year of events to mark the bicentenary of Charles Dickens's birth.

From the opening scene, in which Ray Winstone’s Magwitch rises from the Kentish marshes, gasping for air, a nightmarish apparition about to change young Pip’s life forever, this was a haunting, grimy vision of Dickens’s most acclaimed novel. Screenwriter Susan Phelps and director Brian Kirk have taken liberties with the source material, obviously, but have infused it with a slightly baroque sadness – evident above all in the central performances.

Winstone has always been an actor of such limited range that it never ceases to amaze how compelling he usually is in such a variety of roles – the humanity in his Magwitch thrums beneath the threats and between his curses. Gillian Anderson’s ethereal Miss Havisham, on the other hand, is such an odd creation that it very nearly works, an audacious reimagining of the jilted spinster as a highly strung wraith in suspended animation, devious and despairing, her bony features hinting at the beauty that once held so much promise and, indeed, expectation.

It was the striking features of Douglas Booth as older Pip, however, that attracted most of the attention, and it was not hard to see why: to say he doesn’t look Dickensian enough sounds a bit facile, but his is a very contemporary sort of male beauty, all perpetual pout and dreamy eyes. Booth was actually quite good in the role, simultaneously self-possessed and convincingly insecure, but our willingness to invest in Pip’s journey from orphan to well-bred gentleman of great expectations hinges on the scale of his struggle, and with features like Booth’s, that struggle doesn’t seem so arduous, frankly.

Still, it says a lot about the strength of this adaptation that Pip’s beestung lips were about the most serious concern: it stands proudly alongside any of the Beeb’s esteemed Dickens adaptations of the past.

BRENDAN O'CARROLL isn't easily confused with one of the great chroniclers of the human condition, but he returned with a Christmas special of Mrs Brown's Boys(RTÉ1, Christmas Day; BBC1, St Stephen's Day). O'Carroll's creation is about as old-fashioned and populist a sitcom as has been created in the past 20 years, so it was only fitting he came up with a seasonal special episode. It has always been easy to dismiss O'Carroll – I thought Mrs Brown was tiresome when I first heard the character nearly 20 years ago – but amid the lame innuendo and tired plots and wooden acting and predictable slapstick, the Christmas special confirmed that he has created something quite unexpected with this series – it is much funnier and, indeed, more sincere than it has any right to be. If great expectations can lead to great disappointment, then low expectations can lead to, well, a fairly amusing half hour at any rate.

ANOTHER OLD MATRIARCH was on TV on Christmas Day, blathering on about the demands of family and responsibility – yes, yes, Queen Elizabeth’s speech (various channels, Christmas Day), so routinely mocked in this country for so many years, suddenly became the subject of intense interest as we waited to see if she mentioned us after her visit in May. It was another chance to bask in the year’s unexpected highlight and, finally, an opportunity to interrupt afternoon tea and enjoy, without irony, a few minutes of festive Albion.

However, it was our own head of State who provided the best TV on the big day, as Michael D: Rás go dtí an tÁras(TG4, Christmas Day) offered a skilfully arranged blend of biography and fly-on-the-wall documentary.

Following the interminable presidential election was the device, but examining his life constituted the substance. Watching Higgins stand outside the stone ruins of the Co Clare cottage in which he grew up, recalling how his father used to visit from Limerick, his voice faltering, his eyes wandering away from the camera’s stare, was to recognise what an extraordinary journey he has taken.

It’s often said that the United States is the land of opportunity, where anyone can rise to the presidency, but almost unbeknown to ourselves we have made that a reality here, too, once again. And it was so very refreshing not to have any Christmas trees in the back of every shot.

Bernice Harrison is on leave

Get stuck into

Treasure Island (tomorrow and Monday, Sky1), directed by Dubliner Steve Barron and partially shot in Ireland, stars Eddie Izzard (right) as Long John Silver – a bounty indeed.