BBC's Christmas specials announced for the festive period

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Specials of Call the Midwife, EastEnders, Bad Education, Ghosts, Malory Towers, Motherland, Inside No 9, Detectorists and The Cleaner will also be left under the TV tree. The TV adaption of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials novels will conclude, while another part of JK Rowling’s Cormoran Strike series – called Strike: Troubled Blood – will be broadcast.

Les Dennis and Derry Girls actress Siobhan McSweeney have been announced as the guest stars in the second festive special of crime drama Death In Paradise.

Happy Valley is back for its third and final series, starring Sarah Lancashire – while Sherlock actor Mark Gatiss stars as Jacob Marley in a televised stage production of A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story.

Music fans should tune in for a Top Of The Pops Christmas special, as well as Cliff At Christmas with the one and only Sir Cliff Richard.

Jools Holland’s popular Hootenanny and The Graham Norton Show will come back to their regular New Year’s Eve slots.

Insisting that festive TV for 2022 won’t be letting anyone down, Charlotte Moore, BBC Chief Content Officer, said: “Get ready to escape and be entertained with an incredible range of new festive shows across every genre.”

Quiz shows Blankety Blank, The Weakest Link, The Hit List, QI, A Question Of Sport, Pointless, University Challenge and Would I Lie To You are getting a dusting of festivity, as is Richard Osman’s Festive House Of Games.

The Great British Sewing Bee will meanwhile find out which celebrity – Strictly’s Johannes Radebe, EastEnders’ Natalie Cassidy, podcaster Rosie Ramsey or TV personality Penny Lancaster – is the finest famous seamster.

Meanwhile, Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse will leave Britain behind for the first time in Gone Fishing’s history, to visit Norway.

Dame Mary Berry will share her ultimate Christmas feast with chefs Angela Hartnett and Monica Galetti – while MasterChef judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace are back tasting grub in two specials.

Fans of The Repair Shop and Antiques Roadshow should also look out for their Yuletide specials.

Nature lovers can get stuck into Sir David Attenborough’s Dynasties II and Frozen Planet II – as well as Snow Dogs: Into The Wild hosted by Gordon Buchanan.

There’s also a one-off documentary In My Life At Christmas presented by actress Sally Phillips, plus the annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards and, as Santa draws nearer, traditional hymns will be belted out on Songs Of Praise.