Why Len wasn’t the only cuddly Christmas star: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS on the animated delight that was the highlight of the festive viewing

We're Going On A Bear Hunt

Score:

Strictly Come Dancing

Score:

Len Goodman might have tripped the sunshine incredible for the ultimate time for us – but it surely was one other heart-warming spectacle that scored an ideal 40 factors.

Each few years, a easy animated delight proves to be the spotlight of Christmas tv – extra satisfying and rewarding than all of the big-budget spectaculars.

It occurred in 1982, with a shimmering model of Raymond Briggs's storybook, The Snowman, on Channel 4. The kids who had been enchanted by that now have households of their very own, and The Snowman is as a lot a Christmas custom as mistletoe or foolish knitwear.

Len Goodman might have tripped the sunshine incredible for the ultimate time for us – but it surely was one other heart-warming spectacle that scored an ideal 40 factors, says CHRISTOPHER STEVENS 

Rather more lately, Julia Donaldson's multi-million-selling The Gruffalo was tailored by the BBC in 2009, with a star forged together with Robbie Coltrane, Helena Bonham Carter and James Corden. It made every little thing else on telly that Christmas really feel as if it had been accomplished on a budget.

This 12 months, we've been given one other absolute delight: We're Going On A Bear Hunt (C4). It featured some huge names in mum Olivia Colman and pa Mark Williams, in addition to grandma Pam Ferris. However they weren't the primary attraction.

As a substitute, the primary star was the wonderful English countryside, which was the backdrop for a narrative that appeared to embody the entire of childhood in a single day. 

It was uplifting and shifting, and C4 bosses will need to have recognized that they had an on the spot basic as a result of they scheduled it twice, for each Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

The unique e book was printed in 1989, written by former Youngsters's Laureate Michael Rosen, with drawings by Helen Oxenbury. Advised in bouncy verses best for bedtime studying, it appears a simple story at first: left alone by their dad and mom, 5 kids set off with their canine searching for journey and, in the event that they're fortunate, an actual stay bear. 

We're Going On A Bear Hunt featured some huge names in mum Olivia Colman and pa Mark Williams, in addition to grandma Pam Ferris

'We're occurring a bear hunt!' they chant. 'We're going to catch a giant one! What a stupendous day... we're not scared!' Once they discover one, it chases all of them the best way house, till they disguise beneath the blankets. And hidden beneath the nice and cozy layers of the story is a deeper, sadder theme: the youngsters are mourning for his or her grandfather.

'Grampa would have preferred it right here,' they are saying to themselves, as they sit on a hillside and watch the purple kites wheeling... 'together with his flask of tea, and toffees, and his e book on birdwatching.'

Eight-year-old Rosie misses him most. She's the primary to search out the bear, and she or he provides it Grampa's scarf to maintain it heat in its cave. The bear doesn't need to harm the youngsters: it chases them as a result of it desires to be with them, and naturally it will possibly't be. (Rosen himself did the bear's growls.)

Because it lollops away alongside the seashore on the finish, nonetheless carrying the headband, and stands on its again legs to heave an incredible sigh, there's a way that one way or the other the bear is like loss of life – scary, and lonely, however one thing it's higher to grasp than to concern. That's a giant notion for a kids's animation.

To search out their bear, the youngsters should journey throughout all types of landscapes. They start in a summer season meadow, surrounded by butterflies, earlier than crossing a freezing stream after which traipsing throughout mudflats. Wild animals are glimpsed in every single place, together with a curlew, purple squirrels and a stag within the mist.

They climb a hill, discover an historic wooden and eventually courageous a snowstorm, earlier than reaching the seaside the place the bear has his cave. It's like each childhood vacation reminiscence bundled into one lengthy stroll, and superbly drawn.

In the meantime, that cuddly previous teddy bear of Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1), Len Goodman, carried out his last encore after weeks of on the brink of say goodbye.

Final week, he helped Ore Oduba dance to victory together with his last-ever 'ten from Len' – now he was shaking a leg himself for the finale. 

There have been some baffling selections among the many returning dancers: former finalists Frankie Bridge (of the woman group The Saturdays) and intercourse therapist Pamela Stephenson had been there, but additionally DJ Melvin Odoom, who was dumped out of this 12 months's contest so rapidly that not one of the judges even had time to do a Dad's Military joke about how he was 'Odoomed, I inform ye... Odoomed!'

With a line-up fleshed out by the likes of TV chef Ainsley Harriott, who is not any Fred Astaire, there was a robust inkling that the massive dilemma for producers had been, not 'Who lets invite again?' however 'Who hasn't turned us down?' 

Nonetheless, it was all exuberantly heaped in sequins and glittery, with lashings of faux tan and smiles so shiny they might give a penguin snow blindness. Len acquired the send-off he deserved, after which some.

Tweet