What was it like filming the Christmas Special?

It seems strange that the Christmas episode of Amanda and Alan’s Spanish Job was filmed back at the end of November last year. Since then, a lot has happened and Alan’s career, especially, has seen a huge boost following his fabulous winning participation in The Celebrity Traitors. It is likely, therefore, that the A&A Christmas Special will draw a lot of attention from the press ahead of and surrounding transmission, which can only be a good thing for Moclín and Granada Province, as we have another opportunity to show off this lovely corner of Spain.

We were advised back in early 2024 that there was talk of a Christmas Special, and a lot of discussion took place between us and the production team about what and where would be good to film.

Moclin ready for the Christmas Zambomba concert. © Ian Rutter

In our previous post, we listed some of the traditions, customs and things to do in the run up to Christmas. In this post, we’ll recount the weekend spent filming as much Christmas content in Moclín that might make it into the episode.

For a start, and due to production scheduling issues, we had to bring Christmas in the village forward by a week!

Christmas, as we mentioned in the last post, doesn’t normally start in Andalucia until the very end of November/beginning of December. The street lights are not turned on, and all the other associated activities in this area take their lead from Granada. Fortunately, due to a public holiday, Christmas in Granada did begin slightly earlier, but still not early enough for a BBC TV film crew.

This year, we had a weekend of Christmas fun starting on Friday 5th December and continuing right the way through with parties, a Christmas market, Zambomba concert and the turning on of the Christmas lights.

Last year, filming of the programme took place over the last full weekend of November, and into the beginning of December. The town hall, and Marco our mayor, were hugely supportive as ever and agreed to bring forward the hanging and turning on of the Christmas illuminations. We also had to reschedule the traditional Zambomba flamenco concert to bring it forward by a week, so that it could be filmed. The changing of traditional dates doesn’t always sit well with villagers, so we had to be as diplomatic as possible. We have a couple of large festivals during the year: San Anton on 17th January and Cristo del Paño on 5th October. Sadly, if these fixed dates fall mid-week, fewer people can attend these festivals as people have to work. It has been suggested in recent years that the actual fiestas get moved to the nearest weekend and, from certain quarters, these suggestions are met with horror! Traditions should not be tampered with, and changing the specific date of a religious festival is absolutely never going to happen. The compromise, therefore, has been to maintain the traditional aspects of each festival, but move the party aspects to the weekend. There is, and always will be opposition to adapting old customs and traditions to meet the requirements of today’s society. There is no escaping the fact that younger generations are less inclined to go to church and observe traditional religious festivals, but they love a fiesta as it gives them the opportunity to be with their family and friends - this part of these traditions will, we hope, never die.

Amanda helps the Women’s Association make and hang the decorations. © *Ian Rutter*

The slight advancing of dates also meant that the village Women’s Association had to decorate the square ahead of the normal time.

The lovely choir from Tiena, with their choir lead, local mayor and a good friend of ours, Fran, agreed to come and sing carols in the streets of the village, while being filmed and interrupted as Amanda and Alan knocked back a few glasses of Christmas cheer. Sadly, the carol singing didn’t make the final cut for the episode, but we had a lot of fun filming.

We also paid a visit to one of our neighbours’ houses. The owners of this house decorate their home fabulously every year, transforming it into a magical grotto, with whole winter scenes created from recycled materials. The Sierra Nevada ski resort, trains, Father Christmas, Big Wheels and all sorts of other spectacles fill the house. To us, it is magical and created with a huge amount of care and unbridled love. Andrew filmed a scene in this lovely grotto making Christmas decorations with Amanda out of dried orange slices and cinnamon. Last week, as we decorated our Christmas trees for this year, Andrew found the rather sad-looking decorations looking a little forlorn and quite a lot mouldy. Again, this scene didn’t make the final cut which was a little disappointing, but there is only so much you can fit into an hour-long Christmas special.

Needless to say, Casa Alamanda, the house restored by Amanda and Alan, is the main focal point of the episode and it looks beautiful throughout.

Casa Alamanda Moclin all lit up for Christmas. © *Ian Rutter*

The premise behind the programme is that Alan and Amanda decide to return to Moclín to spend Christmas in their new home. The property is decorated beautifully, with lights inside and out, and the pair decide to invite local friends to come and enjoy a traditional Christmas feast.

Filming anything with food is not easy, it transpires.

During the day of filming for the feast scenes, Amanda makes a traditional sherry trifle for dessert using sherry from the Bodega Lustau. Endless trifles had to be made behind the scenes, a little like Blue Peter: “here’s one I made earlier”. I’ve never seen so many trifles!

Alan, with the help of Marco the Mayor, makes a starter of a traditional prawn cocktail, using prawns caught fresh from Motril on the coast. This scene is great and the prawn cocktail was, it has to be said, delicious.

The main course was to be suckling pig, as this is a traditional in Spain, and we had a local cook in the kitchen at Esperanza 9 preparing and roasting two small pigs all day ready for the evening’s meal.

Vegetarian options were also on the menu, as Amanda is a vegetarian so would not be tucking into suckling piglet, and Andrew and I were charged with roasting potatoes - enough for the meal and with plenty for the crew as well.

It’s quite a logistical challenge preparing food that has to be both filmed and eaten, not necessarily at the same time. Transporting two suckling pigs around Moclín with enough roast potatoes for about 20 people, on a very chilly early evening, was also not the easiest of tasks.

A huge amount of filming had to be scheduled across the weekend so that there was more than enough content to be edited into an hour-long programme. Having seen the episode, it has exactly the same blend of joy, chat, warmth and charm that we enjoyed in the main series. It is a heart-warming programme and shows Moclín off beautifully.

We have organised a screening for our village friends and neighbours on 21st December and their verdict will be important as it is their village that is appearing so prominently on screen! We hope they love it. No doubt there will be a few festive drinks to follow and then, with the village gathered together, we will say a fond farewell to Amanda and Alan and their exciting Spanish jaunt.