Every year, ‘The Snowman’, which first aired on Channel 4 in 1982, has been shown on Christmas Day in full. The score for the film about a boy who builds a snowman that comes to life is being broadcast in full without any instruments by the BBC in 2021.

       A feature-length show is set to air on Radio 3 on Christmas Eve at 7.30pm, with a repeat performance scheduled for BBC Radio 4 on Christmas Day at 1.30pm, narrated by Stephen Fry.

       Howard Blake, who composed the musical’s score, is furious with the BBC's "vile desecration" of his acclaimed work.

       He had previously threatened to withdraw his permission for the recreation, and said the BBC has enlisted producer Jonathan Manners to arrange a version of the classic where the sound of the instruments is replicated by a choir.

       He said: “This lad [Jonathan Manners] is really trying to make a name for himself, but I have told him what you have done to my music is a desecration, it is absolutely vile."

       Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Blake, 82, said he told the BBC rearranging his Christmas composition in vocalise would be a desecration of his work.

       He said: "Last August, BBC's music producer Jonathan Manners asked me if I would give my approval to a new arrangement of the complete soundtrack of The Snowman.

       "He wanted to arrange the entire 26-minute composition in vocalise after he heard my a capella choral arrangement of Walking in the Air which I arranged for Peter Auty and the St Albans Cathedral Choir in 2019.

       "I told him he was mad to vocalise the whole thing, but he's going ahead with it anyway."

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       Mr Blake relented to the BBC when they said the Royal Family had already been told about the planned choral version.

       He said: "I said it's impossible to do it in vocalise so if you try and do it without instruments, I refuse.

       "When I refused, Jonathan told me – it's very difficult, I've already told Prince Charles and the Queen about it – how could I refuse?”

       A BBC spokesman told Express.co.uk: "The BBC Singers are honoured to work with Howard Blake on a special project as part of our Christmas line up.

       "As with all creative projects, there have been artistic discussions throughout and we have a brilliant team working on this led by Jonathan Manners."

       Rehearsals for the BBC's version of The Snowman will take place with a full choir at a studio in London's Maida Vale this week

       However, Mr Blake told the Telegraph: “They are starting rehearsals tomorrow, but I wouldn't go along because I would kill him on the podium.

       "George Bernard Shaw once said: Hell is full of musical amateurs."

       In 2020, the BBC were skewered by viewers for their “worst Christmas TV schedule ever”, and defended their ‘The Goes Wrong Show’ Christmas special following viewer complaints.

       In the 30-minute festive play, which aired in December, the fictional Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society put on a disastrous Nativity, in which the baby Jesus is eaten by a sheep.

       Some viewers condemned the show, with one Twitter user calling it “appalling and an insult to the Christian religion".