The RTÉ Player team share their top picks to watch on RTÉ Player this week.
What’s Trending?
Baz Ashmawy’s mother Nancy is not easily impressed. With her son’s help – she’s just about seen it all at this stage meaning that Baz has yet to present her with a genuinely unexpected gift. With Nancy’s 75th birthday fast approaching, her only son Baz is determined to get her a gift that will truly impress her. Baz wants to present her with a chance to see the Pope. It’s no easy thing to meet the Pope. He’s a busy man. Setting up an audience requires real commitment, patience and tricky diplomatic navigation of a long chain of clerical contacts from local priests and bishops to Vatican officials and the Holy Father’s personal retinue. Whether Baz and Nancy meet the Pope or end up back home at Christmas watching ‘Urbi Et Orbi’ on the tellybox, Baz and Nancy’s Holy Show will be the strangest, warming, accidentally revealing, momentarily profound and downright hilarious festive offering you’ll see this Christmas. If you can’t get enough Baz and Nancy (who would!), then RTÉ Player will also have some exclusive extended scenes with Baz and Nancy as they take a long car journey, Nancy making a Christmas cake, and some time with the whole family as they try to get a nativity portrait!
What’s New?
Missing Neighbours? It’s always a shame when our favourite Aussie soaps take a break from broadcast but this time, RTÉ Player have got you covered with two separate spin-offs. Very different to each other but equally bizarre, watch Neighbours Vs Time Travel and Mrs. Robinson now on RTÉ Player! In Neighbours Vs Time Travel, Paul Robinson goes ‘back to the future’ as he lays hands on a time travelling device. No, really… The five short webisodes see Paul navigate his way through a land with dinosaurs, a parallel universe and Karl and Susan Kennedy’s wardrobe. Go back to the year when it all began as Paul meets a younger version of himself in 1985 and creates a parallel universe by making some sound investments. Then watch his new future unfold where Ramsey Street has become Robinson Street, Toadie Rebecchi is a gangster, Karl Kennedy is a rock star, Julie Martin is alive and well and Robert Robinson is, well, a nice guy! Take a trip to Heron Island with Paul Robinson and Courtney Grixti to uncover the back story to their shock engagement in Mrs. Robinson. It’s all sun, sea and schemes as they plot their revenge against Terese Willis with Paul getting down on his good knee to ask Courtney to fake marry him. As Neighbours takes a brief hiatus from our screens this December, RTÉ Player will maintain an uninterrupted soap service as it plays host to a series of webisodes in Neighbours Vs Time Travel and Mrs. Robinson. Go to RTÉ Player for more clips and extras from Neighbours including an extended catch-up of the latest episodes and this years top ten most popular Neighbours episodes
What Not to Miss?
It’s the time of year where party bites, Christmas dinner and festive nibbles are on everyone’s mind so to get you through the season RTÉ Player has the ultimate collection of Festive Food. Catch up with the brand new RTÉ One programming ‘Donal’s Christmas Meals in Minutes’, ‘How To Cook Well at Christmas with Rory O’Connell’ and ‘Neven’s Christmas Menu’, and visit RTÉ Player’s ‘Festive Food Bites Christmas Collection’ to find everything from Neven’s Buttermilk Turkey to Kevin Dundon’s Christmas Roasties.
Pick of the Week
This December, Fairytale of New York – the song Shane MacGowan calls with some glee ‘the nastiest Christmas single ever’ – will be 30 years old. RTÉ marks the anniversary with a new documentary. This documentary looks back at the making of Fairytale, now one of the most popular Christmas hits ever, in the company of Shane MacGowan who reminisces about the writing of the song over the course of two years, the importance of his family roots in Tipperary to his music and the early days of the Pogues. Christy Moore, Imelda May and Bob Geldof are among the musicians and songwriters giving their response to Fairytale in the programme. The documentary is also a portrait of another time. 1980s Britain was a decade dominated by Margaret Thatcher, by strikes and unemployment, by the IRA bombing campaign. Equally, it was a decade of great pop music, mostly bought on vinyl record, an era when the charts mattered, singles mattered, as did Top of the Pops, the BBC chart show that was must-see TV every Thursday night for teenagers and 20-somethings, and for anyone working in the music business. Ultimately, the documentary is a celebration of an iconic song and a unique songwriter, in the person of Shane MacGowan, who, as it happens, turns 60 on Christmas Day! Watch Fairytale of New York on RTÉ Player.