A critic's yuletide preview: "Eat, drink and be merry, and enjoy your Christmas telly" by HILARY FANNIN

APART FROM the movies that most of us traditionally catch up on during the long yuletide sprawl in front of the box, there are also – tucked into this year’s festive schedules like hopeful cocktail sausages peeping out from under the diminishing turkey – plenty of interesting and watchable bites to keep the TV juices flowing.

RTÉ is, rather optimistically, gifting its viewers a comedy selection box for Christmas, though whether we gasp with delight at its contents or chuck it onto the blaze remains to be seen. As with chirpy seasonal jumpers, comedy can be a hit-or-miss affair.

Worth a look, however, is

Pat Shortt’s Mattie

, the pilot for a new comedy detective series, which airs on Christmas Day and sees the reliable entertainer playing a country detective who comes up to the city for a spot of urban sleuthing. The industrious Shortt also presents a mockumentary about a hapless radio presenter,

Pat Shortt: Inside the Crystal Ball

(Sunday). Also pulling the comedy cracker are PJ Gallagher, Podge and Rodge (in their grim Stickit Inn), and the likeable if vaguely kooky Maeve Higgins, who, between them, mop up most of St Stephen’s night on RTÉ2.

Comedian Neil Delamare’s sharp and amusing

Republic of Telly

is now well-established, and continues on Wednesday, as does Arthur Mathews’s

Val Falvey TD

, with Ardal O’Hanlon and Owen Roe, which limped out of the starter’s gate but is now beginning to hit its stride. The controversial and often bracingly funny Tommy Tiernan hijacks an hour of New Year’s Day television with

Tommy and Hector’s Craic House

, a madcap comedy chat-show which he co-presents with his friend Hector Ó hEochagáin, and which could prove a stimulating, possibly contentious, start to 2010.

Beyond the tentative reach of those comic fingers, some other offerings from the national broadcaster also beckon.

John Huston: An American in Galway

(RTÉ1, Christmas Day) and

Stephen Gately: A Picture of You

(RTÉ1, Sunday) look to be two documentaries worth attention. Kicking up the baubles in the entertainment department, Ryan Tubridy rounds off a successful year on

The Late Late Show

with a guestlist which includes the President, Mary McAleese (RTÉ1, Monday). Will Leahy presents

The Great Noughties Quiz

(RTÉ1, Tuesday), while on the following evening that warm and skilful old trouper, Marty Whelan, looks at businesses that have bucked the trend in

Things That Went Boom in the Bust

.

New Year’s Eve and the national broadcaster have never been easy bedfellows and now, as one decade yawns into the next,

The All-Ireland Talent Show

has the dubious honour of ringing in the new – a strange, somewhat parochial decision that doesn’t make my bell peal.

TG4 has a couple of interesting documentaries under her gúna, including

The Kennedy Brothers

(Christmas Eve), a deconstruction of the myth behind those glamorous, ill-fated lads, and, on Christmas Day, the spooky offering,

Diabhal ag an Damhsa

, a beguiling-looking piece about the night the devil was said to have turned up in a Co Mayo dancehall (those lassies must have been sitting on their fellas’knees without a telephone directory under their skinny posteriors).

St Stephen’s Day sees TV3 up to its warbling tonsils in

X Factor: The Winner’s Story

and

Ant and Dec’s Christmas Show

, both soporifically watchable, while on Tuesday, the station broadcasts

Having A Laugh! Great Irish Comedy TV Moments

(though I’ve a funny feeling I might have something on that evening).

BBC has a platter of jolly nuggets on offer, among them

Clive Anderson’s The Funny Side of Christmas

(BBC2, Christmas Eve) and

Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special

(BBC1, Christmas Day). And for pure nostalgia and great, great comedy,

The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show: 1973

(BBC2, St Stephen’s Day) should be on all our Christmas lists.

Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw

(BBC1, Wednesday) looks entirely palatable, but it seems comedy will dominate over at Auntie’s place this season too.

Steve Coogan: The Inside Story

(Sunday) and

Dara O Briain Live at the Theatre Royal

(Monday) should amuse, while a highlight of the week is O Briain’s

Three Men Go to Ireland

(BBC2, Wednesday), in which he, Griff Rhys Jones and Rory McGrath go to the dogs. Meanwhile,

Jools’s Annual Hootenanny

, in its usual slot on New Year’s Eve on BBC2, is always a reliable backdrop to the popping of the corks.

UTV and Channel 4, like lonely fir trees in a blizzard, appear from the listings to be creaking under the weight of Best Of . . . shows, with endless out-takes and what-happened-next takes featuring the various spider-eaters and warbling wannabes that have littered this television year. There are, however, occasional blasts of a different reality:

Tsunami – Where Was God?

(Channel 4, Sunday) looks thought-provoking, while

The South Bank Show: The Royal Shakespeare Company

(UTV, Monday) sees Melvyn Bragg go behind the scenes at one of the world’s most prestigious theatre companies.

As the Bard is bound to have said somewhere in his great canon: eat, drink and be merry, and enjoy your Christmas telly. Season’s greetings.

DRAMA

Taggart

Christmas Eve, UTV, 9pm

The police drama set on Glasgow’s mean streets reaches its landmark 100th episode tonight.

Hamlet

St Stephen’s Day, BBC2, 5.05pm A filmed version of the acclaimed Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of the Bard’s great tragedy, starring David Tennant of Doctor Who fame.

The Day of the Triffids

Monday, BBC1, 9pm New two-part telling of the John Wyndham novel, starring Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson, Brian Cox, Vanessa Redgrave and Eddie Izzard. Concludes Tuesday

An Englishman in New York

Monday, UTV, 9pm John Hurt reprises his role as writer, raconteur and gay icon Quentin Crisp, whom Hurt first portrayed in the 1975 adaptation of Crisp’s autobiography The Naked Civil Servant.

The Turn of the Screw

Wednesday, BBC1, 9pm Michelle Dockery stars in Sandy Welch’s adaptation of Henry James’s chilling ghost story.

Sleep With Me

New Year’s Eve, UTV, 9pm A new adaptation of Joanna Briscoe’s sexually charged bestselling thriller starring Adrian Lester and Jodhi May.

Agatha Christie’s Marple

New Year’s Day, UTV, 9pm Julia McKenzie returns to the role of the ageing sleuth Miss Marple for a new Agatha Christie mystery. Penelope Wilton, Brian Cox and Joan Collins co-star.

COMEDY

Victoria Wood’s Midlife Christmas

Christmas Eve, BBC1, 9pm Actress and comedian Victoria Wood is back with a one-off special along with long-time collaborator Julie Walters.

Pat Shortt’s Mattie

Christmas Day, RTÉ1, 9.05pm Following the success of Killinaskully, the ever-popular Pat Shortt returns in this pilot for a new comedy detective series.

Diabhal ag an Damhsa

Christmas Day, TG4, 9.55pm Shot in docudrama style, this film investigates the fateful night of June 6th, 1958, when the Devil Incarnate may or may not have appeared at a rural dancehall in Tooreen, Co Mayo.

Late Night Lock Inn

St Stephen’s Day, RTÉ2, 11.10pm The redoubtable Podge and Rodge have decided to celebrate Christmas at their new haunt, the Stickit Inn.

Ant and Dec’s Christmas Show

St Stephen’s Day, UTV, 7.30pm Cold turkey and ham sandwiches already made, it’s time to take your places on the couch as Ant and Dec prepare to open the doors to their celebrity Christmas bash.

Inside the Crystal Ball

Sunday, RTÉ1, 8.30pm Pat Shortt, in his second outing over the festive season, stars in this comedy mockumentary about a community radio presenter.

The Big Fat Quiz of the Year

New Year’s Day, C4, 9.05pm, Jimmy Carr chairs as three celebrity teams – made up of Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell, Claudia Winkleman and Rob Brydon, and Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross – take an irreverent look back on the highs and lows of the past year.

ENTERTAINMENT

X Factor: The Winner’s Story

St Stephen’s Day, TV3, 6.45pm The story of this year’s winner, Joe McElderry, featuring a look back at his journey from the auditions to the triumphant final.

The Great Noughties Quiz

Tuesday, RTÉ1, 9.30pm Will Leahy has control of the questions, as captains Simon Delaney and Pat Spillane take control of the two teams made up of Lorraine Keane, Tom Dunne, Shane Byrne and Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin.

DOCUMENTARY

The Kennedy Brothers

Christmas Eve, TG4, 10.30pm Catherine Ní Ghuairim, exposes the scandals, personal recklessness and dashed hopes of America’s Kennedy family.

An American in Galway

Christmas Day, RTÉ1, 7pm An affectionate portrait of John Huston, as remembered by the locals who crossed his path in Loughrea, Co Galway.

Ballybrando

Tuesday, RTÉ1, 10.35pm The story of the greatest movie that Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp never got to make, as remembered by locals in Ballycotton, Co Cork, and by the producer Barry Navidi.

Summer of 69

Monday, RTÉ1, 6.55pm Forty years ago, Jim Sugar, a photographer for the National Geographic came to Ireland on an assignment. He now returns to revisit his photographs and explore the changes that have occurred in the intervening decades.

Stephen Gately: A Picture of You

Sunday, RTÉ1, 10.30pm Those who knew former Boyzone star Steven Gately best, talk openly about the loss of their friend.

Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol

St Stephen’s Day, Channel 4, 9pm Tony Robinson sets out to find the truth behind Brown’s claim that all the rituals, science, artwork and monuments in his latest blockbuster, The Lost Symbol, actually exist.

The Turin Shroud

Wednesday, Channel 4, 8pm New evidence is uncovered which may make scientists rethink the authenticity of the shroud, declared a 700-year-old hoax in 1988.

RINGING IN THE NEW

New Year Countdown TV

Various channels As usual, it’s a mixed bag of TV to help viewers usher in the New Year. RTÉ1 presents the results show following on from the live quarterfinal heat of

The All-Ireland Talent Show.

On TG4,

Sharon Shannon

and her Big Band ring in the new at the INEC in Killarney with guests Shane MacGowan, Imelda May and Mundy. On BBC1,

Mylene Klass

introduces the London fireworks display, while on BBC2, Jools Holland has his

Hootenanny on Two

, with performances by Tom Jones, Boy George, Roger Daltrey, Kasabian, Lily Allen andmore. UTV closes its year-end news round-up of 2009 with a cut to London’s fireworks. Meanwhile, Channel 4 repeats Tuesday’s episode of

Chatty Man

, featuring Davina McCall, David Tennant and Catherine Tate.