What to watch on RTÉ Player this week? The RTÉ Player team share their top picks to watch on RTÉ Player this week.
What’s Trending?
Baz Ashmawy’s mother Nancy is not easily impressed. With her son’s help – she’s just about seen it all at this stage meaning that Baz has yet to present her with a genuinely unexpected gift.
With Nancy’s 75th birthday fast approaching, her only son Baz is determined to get her a gift that will truly impress her.
Baz wants to present her with a chance to see the Pope. It’s no easy thing to meet the Pope. He’s a busy man. Setting up an audience requires real commitment, patience and tricky diplomatic navigation of a long chain of clerical contacts from local priests and bishops to Vatican officials and the Holy Father’s personal retinue.
Whether Baz and Nancy meet the Pope or end up back home at Christmas watching ‘Urbi Et Orbi’ on the tellybox, Baz and Nancy’s Holy Show will be the strangest, warming, accidentally revealing, momentarily profound and downright hilarious festive offering you’ll see this Christmas.
RTÉ Player also have some exclusive extended scenes with the pair as they take a long car journey, Nancy making a Christmas cake, and some time with the whole family as they try to get a nativity portrait!
What's New?
Missing Neighbours? It’s always a shame when our favourite Aussie soaps take a break from broadcast but this time, RTÉ Player have got you covered with two separate spin-offs.
In Neighbours Vs Time Travel, Paul Robinson goes ‘back to the future’ as he lays hands on a time travelling device. No, really… The five short webisodes see Paul navigate his way through a land with dinosaurs, a parallel universe and Karl and Susan Kennedy’s wardrobe. Go back to the year when it all began as Paul meets a younger version of himself in 1985 and creates a parallel universe by making some sound investments.
Then, take a trip to Heron Island with Paul Robinson and Courtney Grixti to uncover the back story to their shock engagement in Mrs. Robinson. It’s all sun, sea, and schemes as they plot their revenge against Terese Willis with Paul getting down on his good knee to ask Courtney to fake marry him.
As Neighbours takes a brief hiatus from our screens this December, RTÉ Player will maintain an uninterrupted soap service - check it out here.
What Not to Miss?
It’s the time of year where party bites, Christmas dinner, and festive nibbles are on everyone’s mind so to get you through the season RTÉ Player has the ultimate collection of Festive Food.
Catch up with the brand new RTÉ One programming Donal’s Christmas Meals in Minutes, How To Cook Well at Christmas with Rory O’Connell’ and Neven's Christmas Menu, and visit RTÉ Player’s Festive Food Bites Christmas Collection to find everything from Neven’s Buttermilk Turkey to Kevin Dundon’s Christmas Roasties.
Pick of the Week
This December, Fairytale of New York – the song Shane MacGowan calls with some glee ‘the nastiest Christmas single ever’ – will be 30 years old. RTÉ marks the anniversary with a new documentary.
This documentary looks back at the making of Fairytale, now one of the most popular Christmas hits ever, in the company of Shane MacGowan who reminisces about the writing of the song over the course of two years, the importance of his family roots in Tipperary to his music and the early days of the Pogues.
Ultimately, the documentary is a celebration of an iconic song and a unique songwriter, in the person of Shane MacGowan, who, as it happens, turns 60 on Christmas Day!
