A premature maternal loss featured in The Giddy Kipper - Victoria Wood's contribution to Little Crackers, Sky's season of short festive dramas, which she'd introduced by saying, "It is - in a lot of ways - my childhood." In fact, Wood's mother didn't die when she was a child, so this account of a solitary little girl excluded from the Sunday school treat by a vindictive teacher can't have been directly autobiographical. It included a lovely moment of fantasy, when winter dark transformed into daylight and the central character found herself briefly reunited with her mother. Touching enough anytime, but particularly poignant if you'd seen Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story.

Running nightly this week are this year's seasonal shorts little crackers from Sky One, which annually tries to make up for the dearth of decent original drama and comedy from January-November by gorging us with a festive selection box featuring some of the best-known names in the business.

This time they've got the likes of Victoria Wood, Catherine Tate, Stephen Fry, Kathy Burke, Julian Barratt, Jo Brand, Bill Bailey - oh, the list goes on, basically anyone who's ever appeared on a panel game is either appearing in, writing or directing one of these 12-minute films, mostly based on autobiographical stories about their childhoods.

And like a selection box, there are a few yucky praline noisette ones. David Baddiel's film is as annoying as he is, though it does feature a good impersonation of Record Breakers star Norris McWhirter by Alastair McGowan, who must have been delighted to get a chance to do an impression he probably last did as a child. Chris O'Dowd has a dull grumpy Santa story and Dawn French oddly casts herself as the late Queen Mother.

But there are some nice strawberry cream ones too: Victoria Wood's is a sweet, nostalgic tale, Julian Barratt's teenaged heavy metallers are quirky and Kathy Burke's memory of meeting Joe Strummer is endearing. Anyway, they're all over so quickly that even the ho-hum ones are watchable enough - shame though that for Sky, decent original programmes come barely more than once a year.

Christmas may have peaked too soon because Little Crackers (Sky1), a set of short films loosely based on the theme of childhood and featuring top comedy writer/performers, got off to a, er, cracking start with a brace of offerings from Victoria Wood and The IT Crowd's Chris O'Dowd.

Wood's Lancastrian meander down a dark memory lane was touching and familiar, O'Dowd brought a cheeky lump to the throat with a tale about a lad who always wanted Subbuteo yet got lumbered with a hand-me-down Barbie (with moustache).

As an idea for a Christmas series, it's right on the stocking. Kathy Burke channelling X-Ray Spex and The Clash is still to come and tonight's offering from Catherine Tate, featuring a shock-headed ginger of painful shyness who wees herself at frequent intervals is laugh-out-loud funny.

You have been warned.

Victoria Wood directs this loosely autobiographical story about a Lancashire girl whose dismal Christmas is transformed upon visiting a merry neighbour. Hers is the first of a dozen bite-sized films written by and starring the cream of British comedy - Stephen Fry, Bill Bailey, Jo Brand - shown in double bills. Next up tonight is Chris O'Dowd's impish tale about the time he ambushed that white-bearded, milk- and mince pie-pinching trickster in red. Nine-year-old Chris is as lippy a rapscallion as you might expect, while O'Dowd takes the role of disgruntled supermarket Santa and Sharon Horgan is terrific as harassed Mum.

The cream of the British comedy crop come together for this series of brand new comedy shorts for Sky1 HD. Following a season of dramatic 10 Minute Tales last Christmas, this December it's Comedy's turn to shine in an anthology of short films, written by and featuring 12 of the nation's biggest and most loved comic stars. With the likes of Stephen Fry, Catherine Tate, Julia Davis and Bill Bailey flexing their creative muscles they're the perfect bite-sized morsel of entertainment for you and your family this Christmas. Tonight it's the turn of Victoria Wood and Chris O'Dowd who get the season underway.

A season of autobiographical comic shorts, where top names in British comedy write, narrate, star and sometimes direct dramatisations of their pasts. It opens with Victoria Wood's film about Eunice, an eight-year-old who is spending a rather gloomy Christmas with her dad in 1961. A visit to Mrs Whitefield's home changes things, as Eunice realises that precious memories can never be forgotten. Chris O'Dowd's story relates his childhood fear and distrust of Santa Claus and his plan to sabotage the big guy in the red suit's visit. It's gentle, nostalgic comedy that aims to leave you with a suitably glowing, festive feeling.

A nightly season of short autobiographical films featuring some of Britain's best comic talent opens tonight with stories by Victoria Wood and Chris O'Dowd. Dawn French, Stephen Fry, Bill Bailey, Kathy Burke, Jo Brand and Catherine Tate are among those writing, narrating and starring in these seasonal dramatisations of their lives, often with stories recalled from their childhood. It's a bit hit-and-miss. Wood's is on first, though hers is the only story not to feature a younger version of herself. The IT Crowd's O'Dowd follows with an amusing story of why as a boy he thought Santa was a "big weirdo".

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