FIRST LOOK AND GUEST CAST REVEALED FOR BEYOND PARADISE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL AS BBC CONFIRMS EARLY RELEASE DATE
Cosy down for another Christmas cracker in Shipton Abbott as the BBC reveals the guest cast for the Beyond Paradise Christmas special, produced by Red Planet Pictures (a Fremantle company).
For fans who can’t wait, this year’s Christmas special will be available on BBC iPlayer from Friday 27th November, with the episode airing on BBC One over the festive season.
Kris Marshall (DI Humphrey Goodman), Sally Bretton (Martha Lloyd), Zahra Ahmadi (DS Esther Williams), Dylan Llewellyn (PC Kelby Hartford), Barbara Flynn (Anne Lloyd), Felicity Montagu (Margo Martins) and Jamie Bamber (Archie Hughes) all return to untangle both their Christmas decorations and a puzzling festive case.
This year’s guests docking in Shipton Abbott include Johnny Vegas (Ideal, Benidorm), Paul Chowdhry (Devils), Martin Trenaman (The Inbetweeners), Syreeta Kumar (Apple Tree Yard) and Sam Hunter (One Battle After Another).
A little girl’s festive season is set to be the best-ever when she looks out the window and spots Santa Claus on the roof. But it soon becomes a nightmare before Christmas for the residents of the Whitfield Estate, who wake to discover a man dressed as Santa has plummeted from the roof - and that a spate of robberies has taken place, with all the video and eyewitness evidence implicating the big man himself!
As Humphrey investigates the wildly different details of each burglary, all the evidence points to a Santa who is decidedly more naughty than nice. But when the man in red wakes up in hospital, can Humphrey get the answers he needs before Christmas arrives?
Meanwhile, finding herself at the end of several unrecognised phone calls and sensing she’s being followed, Martha confronts a mysterious stranger. Discovering the culprit’s true identity and reason for coming to Shipton Abbott, Martha faces a difficult conversation.
Elsewhere, Esther puts Archie to the test when she insists that a couple’s first Christmas together can make or break them, leaving Archie under pressure to pull out all the stops for his present. And Kelby finds himself caught between two warring neighbours, each accusing the other of sabotage in their fierce competition to have the most extravagant Christmas lights display.
The 2026 Beyond Paradise Christmas special is a co-commission between the BBC and BritBox and is produced by Red Planet Pictures. The commissioning editors for the BBC are Danielle Scott-Haughton and Nawfal Faizullah. Tim Key and Tony Jordan are executive producers for Red Planet Pictures, with Robert Schildhouse and Stephen Nye for BritBox, with Lindsay Hughes serving as producer. BBC Studios is handling global sales.
All series of Beyond Paradise are available to watch on BBC iPlayer in the UK, and on BritBox in North America and Nordic markets.
