From Sherlock to The Sound of Music...

Looking back on what now seem like distant memories, I must admit my festive televisual viewing consisted of the usual smorgasbord of mis-matched programmes that I'm sure most of us feast upon at that time of year - a mixture so strange we could do with reaching for indigestion relief for the senses, if such a thing existed.

Stand-out quality shows for me included the unmissable Sherlock - truthfully though, I'm still not really sure what happened, so please don't ask - closely followed by the three-part 'And Then There Were None'.

Quite what dear Aunt Agatha would have made of this re-telling of her novel is perhaps best left a mystery.  I've read quite a few Christie thrillers in my time, but don't remember the use of strong swear words and drug-fuelled parties - perhaps I just haven't got to those yet.

The ending for this also left me scratching my head a little, as I couldn't work out how that particular outcome had been achieved, but perhaps not over-thinking it is the best policy.  It was brilliantly acted and maintained a menacing air throughout - and it did of course feature Aidan Turner (of Poldark fame) wearing just a bath-towel.  Poor Aidan must get very chilly filming all these programmes with no vest on.

In complete contrast to the murder and mayhem, my film of the Yuletide season was 'High Society', the musical re-telling of the sublime Philadelphia Story, which was shown as part of the Frank Sinatra at 100 season.

It featured Cole Porter songs, Louis Armstrong and his band, Grace Kelly looking radiant, and Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra crooning their way through two-hours of great music, classy dialogue and 1950s style and etiquette.

This was closely followed by 'The Sound Of Music' on New Year's Day - it transpired that neither husband or daughter had seen this before, so I encouraged them sit down and watch it with me. 

They both really enjoyed it, despite their original protests that they didn't want to watch a film about singing nuns!