Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British-themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!
My post last week reviewed the Irish film Jimmy’s Hall and revealed the modern radical thoughts it inspired in me. Sim’s fantasy walk in London took us through her family history and to The Star and Garter. Tina declared two British mystery series among her reading goals for 2016. Heather reviewed Where Women are Kings and Becky reviewed two books from a mystery series that features Beatrix Potter as the sleuth, The Tale of Hill Top Farm and The Tale of Holly How.
A modern Christmas tradition in Great Britain is watching the Doctor Who Christmas Special. According to this list in Wikipedia, 2015 will be the 11th year of running the Christmas specials. All were originally broadcast on Christmas Day and garnered millions of viewers.
I watched several of the Christmas specials back-to-back while working on my holiday newsletters this year. My Facebook friends assured me that, while that was pretty geeky, they loved me anyway. I watch Doctor Who on Netflix. If you have a cable package with BBC America, you should be able to get access through this Christmas Specials page.
You can tell how excited the British are for this year’s edition, airing on BBC One at 5:15 local time. A search of Google news on the Doctor Who Christmas Special reveals dozens of articles from reputable British news sites, just since December 1st. They can hardly contain their glee and curiosity, which is amusing to see.
There will be showings in cinemas across the US shortly after Christmas. Check the Fathom Events page to see if one is playing near you. Unfortunately, St. Louis theaters don’t seem to be participating in this.
Are you a fan of Doctor Who? Who was your first Doctor? Mine was Tom Baker, the one who wore the long scarf. His episodes were being shown on US PBS stations when I was in college in the early 1980s.
