Michael Sheen

Though overlong and episodic, this 2006 drama based on Kenneth Williams's diaries is worth sticking with for a tour de force from Michael Sheen as the tormented comedian. He has the trademark flaring nostrils and almost insane, leering campness beautifully nailed down, but his real skill lies in the delicate unpeeling of the many layers of Williams's complicated personality. There are flashbacks to his dreary childhood but Fantabulosa! homes in on Williams's glory years in Hancock's Half Hour and Carry On films. Thanks to his unsparing, posthumously published diaries, there's little private left of Williams's private life. We know, for instance, of Williams's fear of his own homosexuality, and Sheen portrays the comic's unsatisfactory encounters with great poignancy.

Alison Graham, Radio Times, 10th April 2011

After seeing Ruth Jones play Nessa in Gavin & Stacey on BBC1, switch channels to catch her in this charming comedy about a child's Christmases during the 1980s.

She plays a mum so houseproud she stacks her towels in order, measures sliced carrots and washes the soap. Back then her OCD was better known as housekeeping.

Michael Sheen narrates as her now grown-up son, Owen. He looks back at three Christmases, when his mum fussed, his dad vegged out on the sofa, his competitive uncle Huw bragged about his latest success, and his other uncle, Gorwel, lived up to a waste-of-space reputation.

For anyone who grew up in the 80s, it's a nostalgic reminder, especially when Huw gives Maurice a state-of-the-art Sinclair ZX Spectrum then spends the day trying to load a game from temperamental and nerve-shredding shrieking tapes.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 17th December 2009