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Lucy Worsley reveals the surprising stories behind our favourite Christmas carols. From pagan rituals to religious conflicts, French dances and the First World War, carols reflect our history.
Lucy Worsley

2024

Leipzig, December 1734: Christmas brings the Bach family together. The first snow has fallen and the children Gottfried and Elisabeth are delighted about the arrival of their older brothers Friedemann and Emanuel. The Thomaskantor has retired to his music room. Anna Magdalena supports her husband, as there are only a few days left and his latest work, the six-part "Christmas Oratorio", must be finished on time. It is awaited with suspicion by the city council and the gentlemen of the consistory, who have long found Bach's waywardness a thorn in their side and fear that, after the premiere of the St. Matthew Passion a few years earlier, the St. Thomas Church will once again be filled with "operatic" music. With the oratorio, Johann Sebastian Bach hopes that he will finally become court composer in Dresden. And, as always, he demands that all members of the family join forces to help him. But differences of opinion are increasingly delaying the completion of Bach's most famous work.
2024

Through archival footage of his parents' wedding, the filmmaker reflects on love and marriage in contemporary Serbia. Observing traditional Balkan rituals, he questions his own place as an LGBT individual in a society resistant to equality. The film explores the tension between tradition and modern love, and the hope for a future where everyone can experience love freely. Through his personal journey, he confronts family expectations and dreams of acceptance.
2024

Dame Mary Berry travels to her mother’s homeland of Scotland, where she’s joined by friends Andy Murray, Iain Stirling and Emeli Sandé to cook indulgent Christmas dishes.
2023

Does the supermarket offer the cheapest Christmas cheer? The Wynne family put the store through its paces, to find out whether it offers the cheapest turkey and trimmings.
2020

Recreating festivities from Henry VIII's era, Lucy Worsley dresses, eats, drinks, sings and parties like it is 500 years ago - discovering long-lost traditions as well as familiar customs.
2019

Gathering for a Christmas lunch, the film critics and writers of Discovering Film discuss the merits of 20 films from Bill Murray's star turn in Scrooged, the James Stewart classic It's a Wonderful Life, Ingmar Bergman's Fanny & Alexander, to Bruce Willis' memorable Die Hard.
2018

Hope Valley is buzzing from the introduction of the Wishing Tree, with all the townspeople eagerly placing their wishes on its branches in the hopes they will be granted. Elizabeth wishes for Jack's return. Meanwhile, Abigail spearheads the town's first Christmas parade, featuring an energetic band, led by Bill. Abigail's newly adopted son, Cody, tries to make their first Christmas together special, connecting her past with their future. Rosemary and Lee discover the importance of Christmas traditions and treasured memories. Meanwhile, Doctor Carson Shepherd exhibits faith and resilience in trying to heal and inspire a guarded woman who has given up on the spirit of Christmas. Also, disgraced former mayor, Henry Gowen, gets a second chance at redemption.
2017

An offbeat, irreverent musical documentary that tells the story of a group of Jewish songwriters, including Irving Berlin, Mel Tormé, Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, Gloria Shayne Baker and Johnny Marks, who wrote the soundtrack to Christianity’s most musical holiday. It’s an amazing tale of immigrant outsiders who became irreplaceable players in pop culture’s mainstream – a generation of songwriters who found in Christmas the perfect holiday in which to imagine a better world, and for at least one day a year, make us believe.
2017

In 1843, despite the fact that Dickens is a successful writer, the failure of his latest book puts his career at a crossroads, until the moment when, struggling with inspiration and confronting reality with his childhood memories, a new character is born in the depths of his troubled mind; an old, lonely, embittered man, so vivid, so human, that a whole world grows around him, a story so inspiring that changed the meaning of Christmas forever.
2017

A look behind the scenes as the world's most profitable toy maker opens its biggest ever Lego store, in London. Designer Justin's first ever kit finally hits the shelves, and Lego pro Duncan prepares to make the largest model ever - a replica of Tower Bridge.
2016

This Christmas, step into the magical world of The Nutcracker. For the first time in many years, the Royal Ballet has given full access behind the scenes for a landmark 90-minute documentary as they prepare for this season's yuletide production.
2016

An intriguing peddler comes to Hope Valley selling the townspeople his wares and teaching them valuable lessons about joy and giving. When the townspeople realize that the recently displaced settlers in the area will not have a proper Christmas, they come together to create a special holiday celebration — including a Nativity presentation from the schoolchildren — that will infuse everyone with the true spirit of Christmas.
2016

Simon Russell Beale takes a journey through Italy, Britain, Germany and Austria as he explores how the sound of Christmas has evolved in response to changing ideas about the Nativity. His story takes us through two millennia of music, from a fragment of papyrus preserving the earliest known piece of Christian music to the stories behind Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Silent Night and In the Bleak Midwinter, and the work of popular Christmas composer, John Rutter. Music is performed by Harry Christophers and his choir, The Sixteen.
2010

BluScenes The Classic Fireplace was shot with a RED One™ 4K camera and is the first and only Fireplace Blu-ray Disc to offer a true 1080p HD experience with 3 different sizes to fit your aesthetic needs, so that you can choose the shot that is most appropriate for the size of your screen. Select from 3 soothing ambient tracks in your choice of stereo, 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround, or 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. In addition to continuous playback, BluScenes Fireplace also includes a full fire and a special bonus Yule Log with beautiful ambient Christmas music digitally recorded in 5.1 and 7.1 Surround.
2009

France, 1914, during World War I. On Christmas Eve, an extraordinary event takes place in the bloody no man's land that the French and the Scots dispute with the Germans…
2005

In 1944 France, an American Intelligence Squad locates a German Platoon wishing to surrender rather than die in Germany's final war offensive. The two groups of men, isolated from the war at present, put aside their differences and spend Christmas together before the surrender plan turns bad and both sides are forced to fight the other.
1992

The Hanna family sit around the Christmas tree and reflect back on scenes from the show Hanna's Ark. Co-starred Jack Hanna and his daughter Kathaleen – with regular appearances by his wife Suzi and younger daughters Suzanne and Julie.
1982
Surrounded by his children, his wife Ethel, and Sammy Davis, Jr., RFK visits schoolchildren around the city, and is every bit the good patriarch and dutiful public servant. But it’s the films’ fleeting, in-between, moments where Pennebaker most precisely hits the mark, offering reflection on the possibilities that Robert Kennedy’s all too brief life foreclosed. Set against the pageantry of a long ago Christmas, the film speaks to tragic contingencies of history lying far beyond the ken of politics that continue to circumscribe the tortured destiny of our country.
1977

Henry II and his estranged queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, battle over the choice of an heir.
1968