Alison Graham

Though Alan and Celia are the twin heartbeats of Last Tango, in many ways this series has been about the flourishing of another relationship, the one between their daughters Caroline and Gillian.

Last week's episode was pivotal for the women when, in vino veritas, spiky, defensive Gillian (Nicola Walker) revealed a very dark episode from her past to an unwitting Caroline (Sarah Lancashire). Tonight, in the last instalment of the series, the pair emerge from a foggy alcoholic night to take stock.

But don't run away with the idea that it's all grim. There is a wedding to organise as Alan and Celia (Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi) renew their vows on a snowy Christmas Eve. It's a lovely occasion and writer Sally Wainwright, with her gift for putting her finger exactly on a drama's emotional pulse, brings us an occasion to cherish.

Quizmaster Stephen Fry, resplendent in a deep red, Noël Coward-ish dressing gown, hosts a sparkly QI Christmas special with guests, Mrs Brown's alter ego Brendan O'Carroll, Phill Jupitus, Jo Brand and Alan Davies. It's the Feast of Stephen, of course, and Fry introduces a young lady who's invented what she describes as an "unknitting machine" which is operated behind the scenes in the studio by her brother, much to everyone's ribald delight.

Fry, a man who loves gadgets, is thrilled as the machine unravels Alan Davies's festive scarf. Meanwhile, the guests wonder what presents we can expect from the Queen, and why Father Christmas is no longer on a Rich List.

We all have our comedy secret, and Citizen Khan is mine. (Not any more, obviously.) I shouldn't love it - it's unsophisticated, silly and broad, with an inept man-child who's a self-important buffoon in a cheap suit at its centre. But it's good-hearted, optimistic and entirely without side, and reminds me of sitcoms of my childhood like Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and Terry and June (and kids love Citizen Khan).

In this Christmas special Khan's long-suffering wife wants to celebrate Christmas while Khan (Adil Ray) yearns to be named Muslim of the Month for donating more tat than anyone to the local mosque. There's no plot as such, it's just a series of pratfalls and nonsense involving a badly cooked turkey and Mr Khan playing Santa for entirely self-seeking reasons.

By the end of the episode you'll probably be so overwhelmed by some big poignant moments involving Derek Jacobi that you'll have to be helped up the stairs to bed. Make sure there's someone to plump your pillows and take care of you, you're going to need it, as Alan (Jacobi) comes to terms with loss. Jacobi is so heartbreakingly good it's hard not to stand back, nod sagely and say to yourself, yep, that's acting, proper acting, all while you're having a good old cry.

Absence is very much a theme as Caroline (Sarah Lancashire) embarks on her weekend with girlfriend Kate (Nina Sosanya), a mini-break that proves unexpectedly lonely when Caroline has a failure of nerve. They meet the old friend who Kate wants to sire her child, and he's a self-centred, garrulous bore.

Too many people give too much away in Sally Wainwright's masterly drama, as Last Tango in Halifax takes some very dark turns. Emotional scabs that have never healed are ripped away by unwitting hands and the families at the heart of the drama pulse with the pain of open wounds. Celia (Anne Reid) inadvertently, though very thoughtlessly (and typically, as Reid told RT recently, because Celia is not a very nice woman), throws light on a bleak corner in the grim farm on the hill that illuminates a past sadness.

Soon relationships start to sunder under the pressure of exposed secrets and long-buried lies. Even that absolutely gorgeous house in Harrogate (oh, that kitchen! Those gardens!) is quietly starting to foment when it appears that lovers Caroline and Kate (Sarah Lancashire and Nina Sosanya) might want very different things, and a moment of tenderness sparks a crisis.

Poor Alan and Celia. Getting married secretly without telling their families is meant to be "just a bit of fun," say the hapless, happy couple. But their rash romanticism falls on stony ground as chippy, glum Gillian sees it as a betrayal. Oh, Gillian. It's tempting to yell at her, "Why don't you just cheer up, love?" but she has much to be anguished about. She thinks her lovely dad's common sense-filled head has been corrupted by his new association with sinfully bourgeois Harrogate, and her son delivers an emotional torpedo that threatens to blow up that gloomy family farmhouse on the moors.

It's another carefully calibrated episode of Sally Wainwright's smashing drama, as her characters push the frontiers of their lives into new and uncharted territories. For Alan and Celia (Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid), Gillian and Caroline (Nicola Walker and Sarah Lancashire) so much is about to change....

Radio Times review

Bustling Denise is off to a training weekend, leaving husband Joe and granny Dot home alone. The pair are under strict instructions not to set foot in the sanctified "Good Room" but, of course, the temptation proves overwhelming. Soon the pair are enjoying the delights of this forbidden place, but the arrival of Dot's persistent and embarrassingly inappropriate suitor Arthur (played by the wonderful John Woodvine) brings only destruction. As for expectant parents Jack and Sarah (Chris Ramsey and Kimberley Nixon), they are suffering the petty humiliations of an antenatal class.

Hebburn and its ramshackle cast of cheerful Geordies are sweet and have a certain charm. But the humour is so low-key it's barely audible.

At the end of the first series of Sally Wainwright's winning, warm-hearted drama, dear Alan was hovering between life and death after a heart attack. Obviously he survives, or there wouldn't be much point in returning to Yorkshire for a second helping.

It's great to see everyone again in a drama where pensioners are loved, cherished and never dismissed as inconvenient, and this time the masterly Wainwright has broadened the drama to dig deeper into other characters, notably Caroline (Sarah Lancashire, who's excellent) the newly-confident and newly out lesbian. While Alan and Celia (Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid) mend the relationship that almost fractured for ever, there's a shift in the tectonic plates in the romantic lives of their families. Just look at poor Gillian (Nicola Walker), who is made to pay for her terrible mistake in sleeping with John (Tony Gardner), Caroline's pathologically hopeless estranged husband. No one does bleating wretchedness like Gardner - no one.

Massive man-child Dan (Greg Davies) secures a date with the mother of one of the kids in his class during parents' evening. But he's so out of practice with the ladies he dragoons best mate Brian into going on a "mock date". Thanks to Dan's social tin-ear and pathological lack of charm, he has a meltdown in a Chinese restaurant that shouldn't be funny but it really is. In fact you could say that about every second of Man Down. It's puerile, silly, crude and offensive but it's so daft it's hard to resist even the twitch of a smile. And comedian Roisin Conaty is monstrously awful as Dan's brassy friend Jo, who sets up a gig for the mysterious "Mickey Two Face." Don't ask.

It's good to be back in the Tyneside town of Hebburn again, with the chaotic, rambling and well-meaning Geordie family nestled in its warm heart. Young married couple Jack and Sarah (Chris Ramsey and Kimberley Nixon) are still unwilling lodgers with Jack's parents Pauline and Joe (Gina McKee and Jim 'Vic Reeves' Moir). But Sarah's nesting instinct is overpowering now that she's pregnant, hormonal and desperate for a home of her own.

Jack is editing the hopeless local newspaper ("Dog Burns Down Factory") and Jack's mother, the magnificently passive/aggressive Dot (Pat Dunn) is still hurling barbs at Pauline. There are some great satellite characters - deluded wannabe popstar Gervaise and brassy care home worker Denise - and though the laughs might not be hearty, you'll smile a lot.