Stephen McCarty

What A View | Christmas Bake Off, seasonal Netflix offerings and Santa Claus on Disney+: what to watch over the festive weekend

Call the Midwife makes a return, this time at Christmas in 1967, and 2021’s The Great British Bake Off: Christmas Special is airing for the first time in Asia

Lindsay Lohan and Chord Overstreet star in Netflix festive film Falling for Christmas, while Tim Allen puts on the big red suit in Disney+’s The Santa Clauses

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Call the Midwife Christmas Special dishes up more delights from London, this time at Christmas in 1967, for viewers to enjoy this weekend.

Stephen McCarty

Published: 7:45am, 23 Dec 2022

Two thousand years ago, a heavily pregnant mother-to-be arrived in a strange town looking for lodgings, only to be let down by a combination of private-landlord greed and local-government-flunkey incompetence.

A similar theme is one of several explored in the Call the Midwife Christmas Special (BBC First, from tomorrow), in which the long-running period drama dishes up more delights from the deprived East End of London, this time at Christmas in 1967.

The saintly nurses of Poplar are again led by Jenny Agutter as Sister Julienne, who is also a nun, and assisted by Stephen McGann (of the McGann acting clan) as Dr Patrick Turner. Times are hard for most, not least the returning Rhoda Mullucks (Liz White) and daughter Susan, crippled pre-birth in the Thalidomide drug catastrophe.

In such circumstances, a talent show is clearly called for: cue Poplartunity Knocks!, inspired by a real, cherished television show to ratchet up the goodwill.

A still from Falling For Christmas with Chord Overstreet (left) and Lindsay Lohan. Photo: Netflix

Less mawkishly sentimental than might be expected is festive film Falling for Christmas (Netflix), which had the budget to attract stars Lindsay Lohan and Chord Overstreet as a couple at cross purposes who are obviously bound for the mistletoe.