Red Riding Hood: After Ever After
8pm, Sky Max
Little Red Riding Hood is all grown up and still bringing in the tourists to Wolferton with her organic wolf burgers. But when she sends her granddaughter, Red Riding Boots, out on the hunt, a wise owl (voiced by Dawn French) tells her mother nature isn’t very happy about all the wolves being killed – so Boots decides to head off on an adventure to save them. A fun family fantasy with some easy laughs. Hollie Richardson
A Ghost Story for Christmas: Count Magnus
10pm, BBC Two
Another refined MR James adaptation from Mark Gatiss, aided by a very game Jason Watkins. He is voluble 19th-century flâneur Mr Wraxhall, nosing around the archives of a noble Swedish family. Despite some weird vibes from his host (MyAnna Buring), he becomes obsessed with unearthing the real story behind a cursed family tomb. Graeme Virtue
Alison Hammond in at the Rich End: The Riviera
9pm, ITV1
The magic of This Morning’s Alison Hammond is that she will chat to a Hollywood movie star with the same warmth, wit and ease as she would with the postie. That puts her in good stead for this low-stakes but high-entertainment documentary, in which she explores how the 1% lives in the French Riviera. “My mum always said never to speak about money … but are you doing well for yourself?” she casually asks a boutique owner who sells bags for £68,000. Later, she spits out a mouthful of caviar and says she’d prefer a bit of cheese to nibble on instead. HR
Motherland
9.30pm, BBC One
As ever, a cheerful antidote to festive sentimentality: the Motherland gang are having a typically (and recognisably) fraught Christmas. Julia has an awkward full house of guests including Liz; Meg has received a present from her husband that has made her doubt the foundations of her marriage; and Amanda is stuck with her ex. Satisfyingly sour. Phil Harrison
The Cleaner
9pm, BBC One
Greg Davies’s Paul “Wicky” Wickstead returns as this sharp, silly black comedy gets a Christmas special. As ever, Wicky is supremely unsentimental about his work as a crime-scene cleaner: tonight, it’s Christmas Day but our hero finds himself facing the aftermath of carnage at an ice-cream parlour. Still, he might get a tasty peach melba out of it … PH
Meet the Richardsons at Christmas
10pm, Dave
Married comedians Jon Richardson and Lucy Beaumont deliver a two-part special of the meta comedy exploring what it is like living with Richardson, or at least the drainingly fastidious man who forms his comic persona. Jon wants a quiet vegan Christmas, but Lucy has other ideas: Johnny Vegas is coming, and she may even have been drunk enough to invite Jason Donovan as well. Jack Seale
Film choice
Shaun the Sheep Movie (Richard Starzak and Mark Burton, 2015), 9.55am, BBC One
In the WGCU (Wallace & Gromit cinematic universe), Shaun the Sheep is the equivalent of Marvel’s Loki or Star Wars’ Rogue One, a quality spin-off from a much-loved franchise. For his first big-screen outing – and in similar fashion to the Babe sequel – Shaun finds himself in the Big City after the farmer goes missing. He’s joined by the rest of the flock and Bitzer the dog, and they have to pose as humans while seeking their owner. Aardman’s Heath Robinson approach to plot and design is, as ever, a delight, and gives the film a distinctively British feel. Simon Wardell
Live sport
Premiership Rugby Union: London Irish v Saracens, 7.45pm, BT Sport 1 At Gtech Community Stadium, London.
• This article was amended on 23 December 2022. An earlier version used an image from A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon instead of from Shaun the Sheep Movie.
