Christmas '10: the family gathering and the Doctor Who special

Well, Christmas was lovely. We did our usual stuff - a leisurely breakfast, presents in front of the fire, a buffet-style grab-whatever-you-fancy lunch, dinner prep, Doctor Who and then the dinner itself in the evening. I got some great presents, including two Doctor Who DVDs (The Time Meddler and New Who season 3), various books which will get reviewed here eventually, two boxes of chocolates and some vouchers for Next and Marks and Spencer. And the presents I got for other people seemed to go down well, too. I gave Charlotte some posh tea-cups and a huge pampering lotions & potions set; Mum a voucher for concerts at the Town Hall and Symphony Hall in Birmingham and a waterproof radio which you can listen to in the shower; and Dad two jazz CD sets which he wanted. Plus a general package of chocolates, a Lindt Santa and a Saturnalian beeswax candle for each person.

A Christmas Carol ( took us to a different kind of Christmas )

( Overall impression and favourite bits )

( TV screens and meta-referentiality )

( Blurring the line between recording and reality )

Obviously you can't actually have Matt Smith popping up for real in every living room up and down the country, even on such a magical day as Christmas. But showing him within the story flipping back and forth between being a recording and a reality at least gave the boundary between the two a good old shake-up, and helped to create a thrilling little frisson of the feeling that, after all, he might just tumble down our chimneys too. That sort of stuff is at the absolute heart of why I like Doctor Who so much, and I was very happy to get a good hefty helping of it before tucking into my turkey.

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33. Lo Sceicco Bianco (a.k.a. The White Sheikh, 1952), dir. Federico Fellini

This film was directed by Federico Fellini, which is reason enough to watch a film in my book. But that wasn't why I watched it.

It's also set in Rome, which is reason enough too. But again, that wasn't why I watched it.

I watched it because it features ( the one and only screen appearance by a certain Giulio Moreschi: nephew and adopted son of my beloved Alessandro Moreschi )

As for the actual film, the plot revolves around a small-town newly-wed couple, Ivan and Wanda, who have come to Rome for their honeymoon. He is conventional, fastidious, and obsessed with honour, status and prestige. He has come to Rome mainly to show off his new wife to his well-connected uncle, who has an important position at the Vatican and can get them in to meet the Pope. She is sensitive, idealistic and innocent, and has come to Rome hoping to meet the star of a photo-strip which she follows: the dashingly handsome White Sheikh.

At the first opportunity, while he thinks she is taking a bath, she sneaks out to the office from which the photo-strip is produced, where she ends up accidentally getting swept off to the day's location shooting on a beach outside Rome. There she meets her hero - but discovers that he is nothing like the dashing romantic figure she had imagined, and ends up disillusioned and stuck miles away from Rome with no way of getting back to the city. Meanwhile, the husband is desperately trying to hide the fact that his wife has gone missing from his uncle's family, and pretend that she is simply ill in bed.

It's a gentle social comedy with a healthy dose of farce, but some sombre notes as well. For Fellini, it is an early effort - his first time as sole director, in fact. But his later signature touches are definitely recognisable - the caricaturing of ordinary everyday eccentricity, the ribbing of the pompous and the bureaucratic, the interest in sexual hypocrisy, Catholicism and the process of cinematic production. For me, the funniest scene was one set in a police office, where the husband had come to report his wife missing, but was terrified of the whole story ending up in the papers and bringing his name into disgrace. As one policeman questioned him, and he gradually and reluctantly divulged the details of the whole torrid affair, another sat close by with a typewriter, thundering out every name and sensitive personal disclosure in stark black and white, as the husband writhed with discomfort.

Obviously there won't be that many people out there who will be as excited as me by Giulio Moreschi's role in the film. But I know there are a few Fellini fans on my flist - and I would definitely recommend this film to them.

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