New photo CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews the weekend’s TV

Watership Down (BBC1)

Rating:

Under The Christmas Sky (BBC2)

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Gather round, you young’uns. You won’t believe it but, when I were a little lad, we had power cuts all winter. 

Suet pudding was a rare treat. And our favourite bedtime story was all about refugee rabbits fighting to the death.

Anyone who doesn’t remember the Seventies will struggle to understand how Watership Down (BBC1) could be based on a children’s bestseller. 

Most children who snuggled up to watch Watership Down with their parents, as it began on Saturday evening, will surely have given up long before the end of the first 100-minute episode

Gloomy, gothic, often slow and portentous, this pseudo-religious parable erupted repeatedly in explosive violence.

Rabbits were shot, maimed and scarred in vividly animated detail. They had their eyes pecked by ravens in graveyards. Cats and foxes tore at their throats. 

And all through the second half, a mad, half-blind, fascist dictator (given demented voice by Sir Ben Kingsley) was urging his storm-trooper rodents on to more death and destruction.

Merry Christmas to you, too.

Most children who snuggled up to watch Watership Down with their parents, as it began on Saturday evening, will surely have given up long before the end of the first 100-minute episode. 

Any person who makes it through the full three-hour special over two days deserve medals, and probably therapy.

Anyone who doesn’t remember the Seventies will struggle to understand how Watership Down (BBC1) could be based on a children’s bestseller

It wasn’t just the relentless bloodshed, or psychic rabbit Fiver’s nightmare visions, though those will leave their mark on impressionable youngsters. 

It was the sheer pretentious weight of it — all those made-up words in guttural rabbit language (Frith, Efrafa, Hrairoo, Flayrah) — and the layers of pagan myth and Christian imagery.

That brand of arrant nonsense was fashionable in 1972, when civil servant Richard Adams published his first novel. This was the era of prog rock and platform boots, after all.

But just as you shouldn’t force small children to listen to Tales From Topographic Oceans by Yes, the Beeb’s decision to devote two solid evenings to Watership Down immediately before Christmas seems bizarre.

All the stuff about death and rebirth would be better suited to Easter. Much of the dialogue (‘You will all be dead by sunset!’) belonged in the medieval slaughter-fest Game Of Thrones.

But what any child in 2018 will make of it is hard to guess. The Gruffalo this was not

This adaptation did feature an exceptional cast of voices, including James McAvoy, Olivia Colman and Daniel Kaluuya. 

And the computer graphics were stunning, a celebration of the beauty of Britain’s countryside. Creative touches included Victorian shadow puppets and a flashback that seemed to be filmed on Super-8 cine film.

A year passed in moments, as a falling leaf became a snowflake and then a butterfly. It all combined as a faithful evocation of a classic book.

But what any child in 2018 will make of it is hard to guess. The Gruffalo this was not.

Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan stayed closer to traditional festive motifs in Under The Christmas Sky (BBC2), as their jaunt in search of reindeer and Bethlehem stars turned into a bout of competitive camping.

In Jordan, Chris spent a miserable night after his tent blew down. The following day, he attempted to ride a camel with all the grace of a sack of spuds on a rollercoaster.

Michaela mocked him mercilessly and was still laughing about it when I interviewed her earlier this month. 

In Jordan, Chris spent a miserable night after his tent blew down. The following day, he attempted to ride a camel with all the grace of a sack of spuds on a rollercoaster

‘Chris hates camping,’ she told me. ‘He didn’t get any sleep, he got up grumpy, and I thought it was so funny. But I was fair, not cruel. I took the Mickey, to an appropriate degree.’

Not surprising, then, that when Michaela overturned her dog-sled in Lapland, Chris laughed so much that he crashed, too. 

If you thought their friendly rivalry on Springwatch was just an act for the cameras, think again.

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News Pictures CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews the weekend’s TV 

You don’t have to pack away your bikini just because you’re the wrong side of 20. These body-beautiful stars reveal their secrets to staying in shape and prove you can smoulder in a two-piece, whatever your age. Read on and be bikini inspired!

TEENS
Hayden Panettiere
Size: 8
Age: 18
Height: 5ft 1in
Weight: 8st

To achieve her kick-ass figure, Hayden – who plays cheerleader Claire Bennet in Heroes – follows the ‘quartering’ rule. She eats only a quarter of the food on her plate, then waits 20 minutes before deciding whether she needs to eat again.

Hayden says: “I don’t have a model’s body, but I’m not one of those crazy girls who thinks that they’re fat. I’m OK with what I have.”

Nicollette says: “I don’t like diets – I see it, I eat it! I believe in eating healthily with lots of protein, vegetables and carbs to give you energy.”

kim cattrall

Size: 10-12
Age: 52
Height: 5ft 8in
Weight: 9st 4lb

SATC star Kim swears by gym sessions with Russian kettle bells (traditional cast-iron weights) and the South Beach Diet to give her the body she wants. To avoid overeating, Kim has a radical diet trick – squirting lemon juice on her leftovers – so she won’t carry on picking.

Kim says: “I am no super-thin Hollywood actress. I am built for men who like women to look like women.”
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