You’re Dead To Me returns for a Christmas special, with comedian Russell Kane and historian Dr Fern Riddell joining host Greg Jenner to explore how the Victorians celebrated Christmas (and why their Christmas cards were so weird!)

BBC Asian Network Asian Network Comedy Live Friday 5 December, 9 – 10pm

Asian Network Comedy returns to the BBC’s Radio Theatre on Thursday December 5th for a night of cutting-edge laughs from some of the hottest names in stand-up. Featuring performances from Sunil Patel, Athena Kugblenu, Jamie D’Souza, Isma Almas and Ria Lina. Hosted by BBC Asian Network DJ Yasser, the show will be broadcast live on BBC Asian Network from 9pm, with highlights available to watch on BBC iPlayer following broadcast. 

Asian Network Comedy (Part 1) Thursday 26 December, 10pm – 12am

Harpz Kaur and Yasser relive the best of the Asian Network Comedy nights in 2019. Recorded at the BBC Radio Theatre and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the show will highlight performances from some of the hottest comedy stars including Mawaan Rizwan, Rahul Kohli and Charlie Lee George.

Presenters: Harpz Kaur and Yasser 

Joe Lycett for Sara Cox

Thursday 26 - Friday 27 December, Monday 30 – Friday 3 January, 5pm – 7pm

Award winning stand-up comedian Joe Lycett sits in for Sara Cox to keep listeners entertained across the festive season on Radio 2.

Christmas is usually the time for relaxing, but Joe will be raiding his phone contacts to get some off duty celebrities to help listeners out. Whether they’ve forgotten to buy their other half a present or want to say sorry to their mother-in-law for falling asleep or missing Christmas dinner. Listeners can email the show on [email protected] and he could be getting someone famous to do the hard work for them.

The show will broadcast from Birmingham every day, so Joe's only 10 minutes away from his mum and dad's house and the mountains of leftover food.

Joe Lycett said: "Normally during the week between Christmas and New Year I’m slumped in a chair in Birmingham, eating, farting and spouting total nonsense. The only difference this year is that it’ll be broadcast live on BBC Radio 2."

Matt Lucas presents Christmas With The Stars and TV Themes

Wednesday 25 December, 2pm – 4pm, Thursday 27 December, 2pm – 5pm

Comedian Matt Lucas returns to BBC Radio 2 for a special live show on Christmas Day joined by celebrity friends and listeners. He will have phone calls from celebs to talk about what they are up to on Christmas Day, plus Matt’s International Christmas Quiz returns, along with his ‘Lack Of Gratitude’ Top 10 where he goes through the ten most unloved presents opened that day.

Matt Lucas is multi-talented entertainer, and his roles in the likes of Little Britain to Doctor Who and Alice Through The Looking Glass have made him one of the nations most loved stars. But Matt has a secret passion, a musical obsession that he's desperate to share with the Radio 2 audience, which is TV Themes. In this programme Matt will take the audience on a journey through the theme tunes he grew up with in the late 70s and 80s, through to the 90s and up to the present day. Matt will share his memories, observational wit and clever sense of humour, with input from some of the big composers from the TV world. Matt will also take a retrospective look at the amazing works of BBC composer Ronnie Hazlehurst. There will also be a quiz where Matt will test two listeners on their knowledge of TV themes.

The Shuttleworths

Sunday 22 December, 7.15pm – 7.45pm  John Shuttleworth in ‘Your Very Good Elf’

John Shuttleworth’s wife, Mary, has cancelled Christmas because their children, Karen and Darren, have decided to spend Christmas Day elsewhere, so instead of preparing for the big day John finds himself taking down the Christmas tree and putting away the chocolate brazils. He is naturally upset at this turn of events so when Joan Chitty phones for help because her Christmas tree is broken, John happily offers to take the Shuttleworth tree around to Joan’s as a replacement.

John is happy that he is able to decorate a tree after all and has taken his spirit level to ensure the tree is straight. Once the fairy lights are switched on John is happy to enjoy a mince pie with Joan and have a sing-song. However, Joan, wearing a rather skimpy fairy outfit, gets a little too over excited during the music and falls over breaking the tree!

John beats a hasty retreat to the garden centre where he is enjoying some solitude in one of the garden chalets when Ken Worthing turns up wearing an elf outfit. Apparently there is chaos in the grotto and Santa has run away. This could be the perfect chance for John to finally enjoy Christmas by playing the role of Santa – as long as Ken can secure his petrol money as a fee.

Written and performed by Graham Fellows Producer: Dawn Ellis
A Chic Ken Production for BBC Radio 

Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show Christmas Special!

Wednesday 25 December, 11.30am – 12pm

Arthur sets about launching Malcom's singing career. Starting with some Christmas caroling, a bigger stage awaits as the much loved radio sitcom returns to Radio 4 on Christmas Day. The attempted musical festivities are served up by Count Arthur Strong's Radio Repertory Company and their host of regular characters.

Steve Delaney stars as Count Arthur, supported by Mel Giedroyc, Alastair Kerr, Dave Mounfield and Terry Kilkelly as Malcom.

Count Arthur Strong’s Radio Show! has comprised seven series and nine specials since first airing in December 2005. Highlights include winning the Sony Radio Award for Best Comedy in 2009 and being voted as the Best Radio Sitcom by the British Comedy Guide in 2016, and again in 2018. The long running radio series broadcast until 2012 when the character stepped on to BBC TV for three series of the BAFTA nominated and critically acclaimed TV sitcom Count Arthur Strong. Since then, Count Arthur has returned to BBC Radio 4 annually with his celebrated Christmas specials. In August 2019, Count Arthur Strong's TV sitcom featured in the top three of the Most Missed TV Shows of the 21st Century poll conducted in the Radio Times.

Producer: Richard Daws
A Komedia 7 Digital production for BBC Radio 4

A Very John Kearns Christmas

Wednesday 25 December, 5 – 5.30pm

Christmas might be the only time of year you set fire to your pudding - but isn’t it just another day?

A programme about home, memory and ritual. Two-time Edinburgh Comedy Award winner John Kearns pulls up his sleigh to share genuine audio recordings of his family’s Christmas dinners gone by. Listen as his family picks over the bones of Midnight Mass, dissects jokes with abandon, mourns the quality of fish and chips and pays its respects to discontinued bus routes.

The tapes are interspersed with Kearns’ singular stand up, running through the litany of his Christmas morning, pondering Gary Lineker signing a Christmas card to his wife, and marvelling at George Ridgeley writing Last Christmas in front of Match of the Day.

Light up the fire, extinguish the pudding, pop the kettle on and settle into a Very John Kearns Christmas.

Christmas Meditation with Sally Phillips

Thursday 26 December, 12.15 - 12.30am

Just after midnight on Boxing Day, actress and comedian Sally Phillips reflects on the meaning of Christmas at the end of a special day.

For some, it will be quiet and spent alone; for others, it will be a long day spent entertaining family and friends. In a personal reflection on what it means to Sally, she’ll capture some of her thoughts and feelings at this festive time of year.

Puckoon

Saturday 28 December, 2.30 – 3.30pm

A mad-cap satire on the division of Ireland, by the godfather of British comedy, Spike Milligan.

Starring Ed Byrne, Pauline McLynn, Kate Harbour, Jane Milligan and featuring Barry Cryer as "The Author". Adapted from Spike Milligan's classic comic novel by Ian Billings.

Published in 1963, Puckoon became a publishing phenomenon, has never been out of print and has sold more than 6 million copies. It's a satire on the futility of national borders and inadequacy of bureaucrats, filled with wonderful one-liners and madcap scenes which fall into one another, and remind us of the author’s great days writing the Goons.

In 1924, the Boundary Commission is tasked with creating the new official division between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Through incompetence, dereliction of duty and sheer perversity, the border ends up running through the middle of the small town of Puckoon.

Houses are divided from outhouses, husbands separated from wives, bars are cut off from their patrons, churches sundered from graveyards. And in the middle of it all is poor Dan Milligan, our feckless protagonist (played by Ed Byrne), who is taunted and manipulated by everyone to try and make some sense of this mess.

Cast:

Ed Byrne
Barry Cryer Pauline McLynn Kate Harbour
Jane Milligan
Wilf Scolding
Colm Gleeson Tom Alexander David Shaw-Parker

Adapted by Ian Billings
Director: Dirk Maggs
Producer: David Morley
A Perfectly Normal production for BBC Radio 4 SH2

Jeeves Live

Wednesday 1 January, 11.30am – 12pm

Award-winning Martin Jarvis performs the first of two PG Wodehouse comic classics, live on-stage. Jeeves as ‘stand-up’!

Bertie is pressurised by his intimidating Aunt Agatha to "save the family reputation" and prevent an Uncle from making a potentially embarrassing marriage. Bertie fails in his mission. Can the inimitable Jeeves come to the rescue?

A packed house at The Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, Surrey rocks with laughter as Martin Jarvis entertains playing Jeeves, Bertie and the rest.

Ho Ho Seven: From Russia With Love

Saturday 21 December, 6 – 7.30am

A festive season of Bond begins on Radio 4 Extra with this 2012 dramatisation, starring Toby Stephens as the British Secret Service agent.

In Ian Fleming’s fifth adventure, its 1955 and the Russians plan to assassinate Bond with ignominy. A major sex scandal will leave his reputation, and that of MI6, in tatters.

Colonel Rosa Klebb of the KGB devises a plan to lure Bond into their trap, using beautiful Corporal Tatiana Romanova as bait - plus a Spektor, the latest Russian decoding device.

Also starring John Standing as M, Janie Dee as Moneypenny, Julian Sands as Q, John Sessions as General, Mark Gatiss as Kronsteen, Eileen Atkins as Rosa Klebb, Tim Pigott-Smith as Kerim and Martin Jarvis as Ian Fleming.

From Russia With Love was adapted by Archie Scottney and directed by Martin Jarvis, with specially composed music by Mark Holden and Michael Lopez.

From Russia With Love is followed this week by Thunderball, Goldfinger, and Moonraker. The afternoon dramas will be followed by three documentaries: James Bond: Licence to Kilt, which explores 007’s Scottish roots; The Woman Who Invented James Bond? Where Miles Jupp investigates whether the novelist Phyllis Bottome could have inspired Ian Fleming; and The Soviet James Bond, where Jupp returns to look at Russia’s own fictional super-spy Colonel Maxim Maximovich Isayev.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012

Memories Of A Cad

Thursday 26 December, 11.15am – 12pm

Martin Jarvis and Alistair McGowan star in this affectionate comedy drama by Roy Smiles about the relationship between Terry-Thomas and Richard Briers.

While holidaying on the island of Majorca in 1984, Richard Briers - then 50 and at the height of his TV sitcom fame - decided to visit the comic movie actor Terry-Thomas, at his home on the other side of the island.

At the age of 73, Terry-Thomas has been suffering from Parkinson's disease for ten years. His memory is fading, his body deteriorating and the work has dried up. He lives in quiet seclusion with his adoring wife Belinda.

He is delighted by the visit of “young” Richard Briers, who he recognises from the telly. Briers cheers him up by telling him facts about the life Terry has long forgotten - from his cabaret years in the 1930s, to his work in the movies of the Boulting Brothers, which brought him worldwide fame as a “bounder.”

Also stars Laura Shavin as Belinda and Lewis Macleod as Spencer Tracy. First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014

Puss-in-Boots

Friday 27 December, 10 – 11am

Arthur Askey, Anita Harris, Kenneth Connor and Alfred Marks star in this traditional pantomime, recorded in front of a live audience, and first broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on Christmas Day 1979.

Happyland is being terrorised by a giant ogre and his tax-collecting henchman Baron Skinflint.

Tom, the miller’s son, falls in love with Princess Rose Petal, and dreams of winning her heart. His recently widowed mother, Dame Flora, has her sights set on the King.

Then a magic sunbeam transforms his cat into the clever Puss-in-Boots. Can Puss help Tom defeat Baron Skinflint and his greedy ogre and win the princess’ heart?

Featuring rousing songs and terrible jokes, it's the perfect seasonal entertainment for all the family. Oh, yes it is!

The orchestra, cast and Charles Young Singers are under the musical direction of Graham Ripley.

Cast:
Dame Flora ..... Arthur Askey Puss-in-Boots ..... Anita Harris
Tom ..... Billy Boyle
Princess Rose Petal ..... Julie Dawn Cole King Tickle ..... Kenneth Connor
Baron Skinflint ..... Alfred Marks
Giant ..... Ian Wallace
Town Crier ..... Bob Todd
Head of BBC Jokes ..... Fred Harris
Fairy ..... Liza Flanagan

Book and lyrics by Chris Emmett

Producer: Martin Fisher

Elis James and John Robins

Friday 20 December, 1 - 3pm

Comedians and best friends, Elis James and John Robins joined BBC Radio 5 Live in May. To celebrate their first Christmas on the BBC and the success of their popular Friday afternoon show, they are heading to the pub.

Along with some very special guests and a handful of lucky listeners, they’re seeing out the year with a festive flourish, as their last live show of the year comes from a central London public house in front of a live audience. Having first made friends on the comedy circuit over 15 years ago, Elis and John are loving their new 1-3pm slot on Friday afternoons. Not an obvious pairing – Elis is a football mad, upbeat Welshman and John is the Freddie Mercury obsessed natural born cynic– the pair’s on air chemistry and honest anecdotal content have gathered an army of loyal fans both from their time on the comedy circuit and on 5 Live.

The Elis James and John Robins Show is An Audio Always Production

Jessica Hynes – Christmas Day

Jessica Hynes is a BAFTA award winning actress who first appeared on screens as Cheryl in the hit sitcom The Royle Family for the BBC. In 1999, she co-wrote and starred in Spaced and has since starred in television shows such as Doctor Who and Years And Years. She has also starred in films such as Shaun of the Dead and Paddington 2. Plus, she has worked in theatre shows such as The Norman Conquests at The Young Vic and was nominated for an Olivier for Best Actress for The Night Heron at the Royal Court.