What’s the most awkward conversation a father can have with his teenage son at Christmas? Well, it isn’t the one you’re thinking of. It’s this: telling a 16-year-old that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. In Finding Father Christmas, Channel 4’s peculiar cocktail of conspiracy thriller and grief memoir wrapped in festive Cellophane, that revelation doesn’t quite go to plan.
When Chris (Lenny Rush) learns that his widowed father (James Buckley) has been behind the presents, the fake snow on the roof and the soot in the grate, his response is blunt. “You?” he asks, incredulously. “You bring joy and happiness to billions of children all over the world?” His father tries to explain that there’s no Father Christmas full stop, but Chris isn’t having any of it. He’s going to prove Santa exists, and you can feel the film click into place like a music box winding up for its inevitable melody.
Armed with a photograph from a celebrity party, Chris bunks off school with his cousin Holly (Ele McKenzie) to pursue his mission. His leads? Stephen Fry, mathematician Hannah Fry, space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock and SAS: Who Dares Wins star Jason Fox – all of whom Chris believes are part of a vast Christmas conspiracy. The investigation culminates in a hilarious break-in at a secret facility in Milton Keynes, where Greg Davies puts in a deadpan turn as Santa himself.
The celebrity cameos work well enough, particularly when explaining how Santa manages his logistical impossibilities. Fry invokes “macroscopic quantum tunnelling” to explain passing through walls, while Aderin-Pocock mentions the Alcubierre drive and its ability to fold space and time.
Rush, a Bafta winner for his breakthrough performance in Am I Being Unreasonable?, is the gravitational centre holding this curio together. He brings infectious optimism to Chris without ever tipping into the mawkish – a high-wire act when your entire character is predicated on teenage belief in Santa Claus. It’s a performance that locates the fine line between endearing and insufferable and walks it with the confidence of a seasoned pro. Buckley, meanwhile, navigates the role of bereaved father with pleasing restraint, conveying grief and gradual joy without straying into cloying territory. It’s a reminder that he’s so much more than Jay from The Inbetweeners, lifting what could have been hackneyed into something genuinely affecting. Their scenes together have real warmth to them.
What stops the show from floating off into festive fantasyland entirely is the darkness underneath. Chris’s mother is dead, and that grief colours everything. As with the best seasonal fare – It’s a Wonderful Life, say – there’s a thread of melancholy running through Finding Father Christmas. The story does feel saccharine at times, while the plot contrivances pile up, and not every comedic beat lands. But mostly it finds an appealing balance between whimsy and sentiment. If your threshold for schmaltz is reasonably high and you can accept quantum physics being applied to sleigh aerodynamics, this is good family fun. It may even melt the flintiest of hearts.