With his usual publican threads enhanced by a festive sparkly belt buckle, Al Murray's thundering landlord hosts easily the most entertaining ITV Christmas special set in a fake East End pub since Chas and Dave's boozy knees-up in 1982. The boisterous audience of civilians and C-list celebs includes Love Island's Marcel and Georgia, East 17's Tony Mortimer and cheeky Liam from Bake Off, while Richard E Grant cameos as a sad-sack Santa.

Al Murray's Make Christmas Great Again review

A few years ago, the Pub Landlord's xenophobic conceit seemed to be wearing thin. In the light of recent politics, he seems fresh and even prescient. The effect is unsettling: in the laughs and cheers there are traces of the emotions he is ostensibly subverting. Is he teasing those who mock the French? Or us, the crowd who laugh slightly too loudly when he mocks the French? It's no coincidence that in the best moments last night, as Murray claimed that Christmas was a British creation, he brought to mind other boisterous populists on both sides of the Atlantic.

Aled Jones dropped from Al Murray's ITV Christmas show

Aled Jones has been dropped from Al Murray's ITV Christmas show after sexual harassment claims.

Al Murray interview

Al Murray on making comedy out of Brexit and cooking Christmas dinner in the back garden.

Al Murray: I'm amazed nobody's punched me in the face

There's a single moment's silence during my breakfast with Al Murray - and that's as we both ponder why nobody has ever punched him in the face. "I'm amazed it hasn't happened," he concludes blithely.