In a special Christmas Eve edition of Gharbar, Rajni Kaul talks about how Asians celebrate Christmas in this country and presents a selection of music and dance by some of the well-known artists from the sub-continent.

BBC Birmingham

Starring Kathryn Grayson
also starring Mario Lanza, David Niven.

Mario Lanza, cast as a young fisherman with a powerful tenor voice, is discovered by the impresario of the New Orleans opera in a Bayou village. Brought to New Orleans to be trained, he falls in love with the leading soprano, played by Kathryn Grayson.

The last of six programmes
A banana-balancing endurance record, poet Michael Rosen and novelist Nina Bawden appear in this week's programme about children's books.
Aidan Chambers and Grace Hallworth offer a range of recent fiction from picture-books to early teenage novels.

For free booklist, send large sae to: National Book League, [address removed]
Book details on Ceefax page 275

Richard Stilgoe introduces a concert of talk and Christmas music from the Royal Albert Hall, London, featuring the London Choral Society conductor NICHOLAS CLEOBURY with The King's Singers, English Brass Ensemble, Haberdashers' Aske's School Boys' Choir
Director ALAN TAYLOR
Tristan Fry (percussion) Margaret Phillips (organ) and Fiona Hibbert (harp)
Lighting ERNIE KNIGHT Sound BRIAN STRUGNALL Producer KEN GRIFFIN

Continuing this week's theme: Outdoor Life
Renoir (1841-1919) - "Luncheon of the Boating Party" at the Philips Collection, Washington D.C.

A sense of well-being permeates this entire painting; a feeling of surfeit, a surfeit of sun, air, food and wine. Everyone is young, beautiful and happy. Renoir has captured it for ever - the memory of another, more pleasant time.
Written and presented by Milton Brown

(Tomorrow: Seurat's 'La Grande Jatte')

followed by Weather

A diversion by John Wells featuring Angharad Rees, Alison Steadman and John Savident for those who enjoy losing themselves in the world of the great masters ... and for those who don't.

'This untrumpeted show (you may use that in Radio Times when it is repeated) was made with more love than a million Mackenzies.' (Nancy Banks-Smith, Guardian)

A journey in time, that travels backwards, forwards and sideways, starting with a historic painting: The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait Jan Van Eyck (1434)

in Rhythm on 2 featuring John Williams, Herbie Flowers, Kevin Peek, Tristan Fry, Francis Monkman
Part 1 of a concert given by this popular group earlier this year.
(Part 2: Saturday 27 December at 7.50 on BBC2)

by Brian Thompson

June, an attractive divorcee and would-be songwriter, advertises for a lyricist. Don answers her ad.

with Peter Christie, David Barlow, Miles Kington, Alan Maryon-Davis.

Three doctors and a journalist make up this lighthearted vocal and instrumental group. When chance first brought them together in the heady days of the late 60s they little dreamt that in a mere ten years they would still be doing the same sort of show. It's not so much that stardom has eluded them, as that they have eluded stardom. After more than 70 television appearances, five radio series, four records, a book, and offers from British and American impresarios, nothing seems to change, usually because they can't find the letter. This film charts some of their epic journeys to the brink of success and back again.

presents Ian Dury and the Blockheads in a special Christmas Eve concert, direct from the Dominion Theatre, London
Introduced by Anne Nightingale

(For the best effect viewers with stereo Radio 1 should turn off TV sound and position their speakers on either side of the screen, but a few feet away. Stereo headphones provide a suitable alternative)

Weather

[starring] Walter Matthau.
The feature film also starring Elaine May

Having exhausted his inherited fortune, middle-aged playboy Henry Graham contemplates suicide but his resourceful valet suggests the scarcely preferable alternative of marriage to a wealthy woman.

Walter Matthau gives a characteristically brilliant performance as Henry, with the versatile Elaine May as his "victim" - and also writer and director of this delightful comedy.

Based on the short story "The Green Heart" by Jackie Ritchie
(Films: page 116)