Ben Baker

Ben Baker's Festive Double Issue

Christmas invariably means excess - be it through food, drink or television. Whether it's Morecambe and Wise recreating Singin' In The Rain, the Trotters dressed as the Dynamic Duo or EastEnders running over a baby for light relief, TV is our very pal throughout the entire turkey and tinsel period. This book pays tribute to forty years of festive programmes with over 250 viewed and reviewed in mini-essays by Ben Baker. Alongside the classics there's the likes of Kid Creole's strange post-watershed musical about racism, Roland Rat going to Switzerland, Skeletor learning the true meaning of Christmas, Doctor Who's original spin-off, The Bee Gees teaming up with Frankie Howerd for a medieval comedy and Feargal Sharkey having a nightmare on a Concorde whilst the Krankies watch on in helpless bemusement high above the Telecom Tower. Plus much much more."Ben Baker's Festive Double Issue takes us back to the simpler times before the boom of multi-channel TV, covering the forty year period from 1955 to 1995 when Christmas TV was truly a shared national experience.... Baker writes wittily but informatively throughout. This is a subject that he obviously knows a great deal about but what shines through is a love for the subject. Although at times he's slightly irreverent about the programmes he's covering, there's still a deep love for the subject matter." - Simon Hart, We Are Cult