MY ANNUAL commiseration prize for failing to have a bunch of cool friends to spend New Year’s Eve with is that I must endure Jools’ Annual Hootenanny (BBC 2, New Year’s Eve), while sitting at home on my sofa, watching Jools Holland pretending to enjoy New Year’s Eve with all of his cool friends.
It’s hard to pinpoint what makes this staple show (still going strong since 1994) so annoying. Is it the self-congratulatory faux chumminess as Jools mingles with his celebrity guests? Or is it the awareness that it’s filmed weeks before the big day and is, therefore, a performative sham? After a brief switchover to BBC 1 to catch the Big Ben bongs and fireworks, it was straight back to the Hootenanny, to watch until the bitter end, just to satisfy myself that, no matter how bad 2025 turns out to be, it can’t be as bad as it started.
Lockerbie: A search for truth (Sky Atlantic, all episodes available now) was grim and, at times, harrowing viewing. This is based on the story of Jim Swire, who has campaigned relentlessly for the past 36 years to uncover the truth behind the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. His daughter, Flora, was on board when the plane exploded over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, killing all on board and 11 more people on the ground.
Colin Firth puts in a characteristically pained performance as Mr Swire, but it’s Catherine McCormack’s stunning turn as his wife and Flora’s mother which provides the true heart of the drama. At its kernel, this is a story about the gruelling pursuit of truth and the price that victims pay while seeking it. Another Lockerbie bomber suspect will stand trial in May; and so, for Mr Swire and the other families, the search for truth goes on.
A new series of The Traitors (BBC 1, New Year’s Day) has begun, promoted as “the ultimate game of deception”. It’s not so much feel-good as feel-grubby viewing. It involves lies and back-stabbing, which make it a stressful watch with a distasteful premise; so, obviously, I was hooked within the first two minutes. The contestants gather at a Scottish castle, where the host, Claudia Winkleman, secretly selects a small number of Traitors. The rest are then designated as Faithfuls, and the purpose is to root out the Traitors before they “murder” everyone else. If the Traitors can pass themselves off as Faithfuls, they win. The prize? Money, of course.
One of the contestants this year is an Anglican priest, the Revd Lisa Coupland, who hoped to blend in and hide her ordained status from the others by removing her clerical collar. “I am one of the faithful, as God is my witness,” she stated earnestly. That’ll throw them off the scent! “Can you lie?” Claudia asked her. “Yes. I’m a priest, not a saint.”
The Traitors contains pretence, faux friendliness, cliques, and poisonously dysfunctional group dynamics. This ought to be all too familiar for someone who works for the C of E.