#christmas-special

#christmas-special

A one-off Christmas special must have the following traditional ingredients to be entitled to the name. First and most vitally, it must have a grumpy character to soften over the hour. (And it must be an hour 75 minutes, tops. Anything longer and we're out of letting-the-children-stay-up-and-watch-as-a-treat territory and that disqualifies it as a contender. Yes it's a hangover from the days when television was broadcast at fixed points, instead of thrown into the digital ragbag to be pulled out at any time, but what is tradition if not such harkings-back? Come on).

When taxi drivers in London started shouting punchlines at him that's when Jonathan Watson knew that Two Doors Down, the BBC Scotland sitcom set in a Glasgow suburb, had gone from slow-burn to blazing. The yelling is appropriate in itself, since Watson's character, Colin, is congenitally unfiltered. Whether it's telling his neighbours they needn't worry about a spate of burglaries because nobody'll target your place

The Heroes & Villains Christmas Special from 1996, which features Del Boy and Rodney dressed as Batman and Robin, was once voted the UK's favorite festive show.