The Christmas Ball

It's the usual Christmas fee and the characters are as likeable as can be. It's not a great performance by any of the actors and if you watched hoping for a bit of a British flavour to these films then you'll be very disappointed - from the stock cottage of London bearing no resemblance to current London, the house at the heart of the plot clearly being American - and new and not pre-Georgian and all references to the "preservation committee" instead of asking it to be listed by English Heritage makes it about as English as 4th July.

Great to have a British movie for a change, although it's a bit weird when they use American phrases etc. Midsomer Murder fans will recognise three of the four lead actors, which is fun. I wish there were more all-age-friendly UK movies like this and not just for Christmas.

The Christmas Ball is a harmless piece of made-for-tv Seasonal fluff, presumably made with a mainly American market in mind. The premise of saving a ''centuries old'' historical house rather founders at the get-go as the building in question is a mock Tudor one built in the thirties by the look of it...the idea that it is centuries old is laughable - surely even Americans know what a castle or mansion looks like, compared with a large surburban home? Meanwhile the plot is utterly devoid of surprises from the moment the stuffed shirt professor meets the free-spirited dancer. I give it three stars as a film to wrap Christmas presents to....

Predictable Hallmark style Christmas romp but no chemistry between Deirdre Mullins and Nick Hendrix, he's a charisma vacuum, she's great. Nice to see Richard Lintern getting off with the still foxy Caroline Langrishe.

Christmas Ball

I waited until the plot required that she got him out of his clothes, and he wasn't bad to ogle, but I just couldn't finish this film. Not the performance we've come to expect from Nick Hendrix from 'Midsomer Murders'.

The acting overall was very exaggerated and the whole setup was very twee. That Yankee interpretation of us Limeys, so obviously an American film made in Britain, because they all think that we are bumbling posh blokes that wear suits all of the time or precious old ladies.

Unscored as unfinished.