Would I Lie to You? At Christmas

Before I started watching this I thought, “I wonder if they’ll add some sleigh bells over the thrashy theme music” and I’m delighted to say they have. There’s also a spangly snowflake backdrop and several Christmas-themed claims/tales/festive fibs.

To wit, “These are two of the best gifts I was given last Christmas,” announces David Mitchell, flourishing a top hat and magic wand and prompting all of us to try to picture what Christmas Day might be like at the Coren Mitchells.

But the best prop arrives when Bill Bailey introduces a pet bird called Jacob, that he claims he once smuggled into the cinema with him. The fact it’s a cockatoo is heroically ignored, even by Lee Mack: no pre-watershed-unfriendly gags here (although why Mitchell’s enthusiastic mime of church bell-ringing gets a laugh might take some explaining). Kelly Holmes, Jo Brand and Ruth Jones add to the mendacious merriment.