Riddle me this: Finding Father Christmas is a family-friendly comedy special, airing pre-watershed on Christmas Eve, but I would argue is too risky for some kids to sit through. So, who is it for then?
The feature-length one-off stars Lenny Rush (Am I Being Unreasonable?) as 16-year-old Chris, who still believes in Father Christmas, despite his father, Nick (James Buckley), feeling that he should have grown out of such festive whimsy.
When his dad sits him down to finally tell the 'truth', it sets Chris off on an adventure to prove him wrong, tapping into the expertise of TV's intelligentsia, including Stephen Fry, Professor Hannah Fry and Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock.
In a nutshell, Finding Father Christmas is everything you expect it to be – the jokes are a bit lame, the schmaltz is off the charts and the celebrity cameos are forced. But come on, I'd have to be a real Scrooge to give it less than three stars!
At the very least, Rush remains on track to achieve 'national treasure' status before the end of his teenage years and holds this hastily assembled ship together with another charismatic turn.
The emphasis is on 'hasty', though: this whole feature was filmed in two weeks and, as a result, often has the look and feel of a Comic Relief sketch, i.e. good enough to serve a short-term purpose, but not exactly built with a vision to last.
We can look past these shortcomings in the spirit of the season, or perhaps even in a mulled wine-induced stupor, but the misgiving that persists is my general confusion over who this is for.
Its early time slot on Christmas Eve and all-ages tone would suggest 'everyone', but surely that changes if you have any kids for whom the Father Christmas question hasn't yet come up or been definitively settled.
Finding Father Christmas sits in a strange place where it alludes to the idea that Father Christmas could – or maybe does – exist, even getting its guest experts to explain how in educational monologues (that I struggled to grasp, to be honest).
However, down-on-his-luck dad Nick readily denies the existence of Father Christmas throughout, so surely that could be confusing for any kids who are yet to even start broaching this topic.
My conclusion is that families with children can probably watch this together, so long as the children are too young to really know what's going on, old enough to be confronted with these questions, or have never believed in Father Christmas at any point.
But maybe I'm overthinking it.
After all, virtually inescapable festive films like Elf and Miracle on 34th Street have addressed the topic of disbelief in Father Christmas, so I suppose the ideas are out there and probably ignored, to some extent, by younger kids.
Ultimately, I trust that parents (a group that I am not a member of) will be able to judge for themselves whether Finding Father Christmas is the right viewing option for their child.
For Channel 4's sake, I hope my doubts are merely the ravings of a lunatic, because there isn't much reason to watch this simplistic special unless you have kids to entertain – and therein lies the real paradox that needs explaining.
Finding Father Christmas premieres on Channel 4 at 7:30pm on Christmas Eve.
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