HP-TIME

Wednesday, December 20 THE KRAFT MUSIC HALL (NBC, 9-10 p.m.).-It's a mixed bag when Santa Claus (Ed McMahon), Ebenezer Scrooge (Cyril Ritchard) and Bob Cratchit (Tony Tanner) join their dancing hostess on "The Mitzi Gaynor Christmas Show."

DIARY OF A MADMAN (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). Nicolai Gogol's story of the mental disintegration of a government clerk, as performed by French Actor Roger Coggio.

Thursday, December 21 CBS THURSDAY NIGHT MOVIES (CBS, 9-11 p.m.). Judy Garland and Dirk Bogarde in I Could Go on Singing, the backstage story of entertainer Jenny Bowman, filmed in and around London.

THE DEAN MARTIN SHOW (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). The Sinatras join the Martins for some Christmas cheer, family style. That adds up to Frank, Nancy, Frank Jr. and Tina; Dean, Jeanne, Craig, Claudia, Gail, Deana, Dino, Ricci and Gina.

Friday, December 22

THE NUTCRACKER (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, one of the most enchanting ballets, is performed by the New York City Ballet and Helga Heinrich and Niles Keleth. Eddie Albert serves as host-narrator of this show, which was filmed in West Germany. Repeat.

ALAMEIN: A MONTY MEMOIR (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). British Field Marshal Montgomery recalls, with the help of actual combat footage, how his Eighth Army defeated Rommel's Afrika Korps in the North African desert 25 years ago.

Saturday, December 23 NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE (CBS, 2 p.m. to conclusion). First of the pro football playoffs: the Green Bay Packers, winners of the Central Division, v. the victors in the Coastal Division, for the Western Conference championship. From Milwaukee.

THE JACKIE GLEASON SHOW (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Art Carney, Sheila MacRae and Jane Kean join Jackie in a Christmas special about the Poor Soul who takes a dreamy excursion through the land of make believe. Repeat.

Sunday, December 24

AND ON EARTH, PEACE (CBS, 10-11 a.m.). The Christmas music of Central and East ern Europe, with Baritone Igor Gorin, Tenor Jan Kiepura and Soprano Eva Li-kova. Repeat.

THE UNVANQUISHED (NBC, 12:30-1 p.m.). The drama of Masada in the year A.D. 73, when the Jewish defenders of the desert fortress committed suicide be fore their Roman conquerors, is re-created in observance of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC, 1-1:30 p.m.). Sec retary of Health, Education and Welfare John Gardner is the guest.

THE ETERNAL LIGHT (NBC, 1:30-2 p.m.).

Filmed in Amsterdam, "The Legacy of Anne Frank" outlines the German occupation of Holland during World War II, focusing on Anne's story, with discussion of her diary by her father.

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE (CBS, 2:30 p.m. to conclusion). Now comes the N.F.L.'s Eastern championship, with the Capital Division's Dallas Cowboys v. the winner of the Century Division.

SAGA OF WESTERN MAN (ABC, 7-8 p.m.). John Secondari and John Huston narrate this story of the wanderings of the Jews from the time of Abraham to the birth of Christ. Repeat.

WALT DISNEY'S WONDERFUL WORLD OF COLOR (NBC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). This Christmas package, "From All of Us to All of You," includes clips from such Disney favorites as Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Ba/uhi, Snow White and ihe Seven Dwarfs, The Lady and the Tramp and Cinderella.

THE SHEPHARDES PLAYE (ABC, 11:30 p.m.-midnight). World premiere of John La Montaine's pageant opera, adapted from four medieval Corpus Christi plays.

CHRISTMAS EVE MIDNIGHT MASS (NBC, 12-1:30 a.m.). From St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan.

Monday, December 25

THE WORD MADE FLESH (NBC, 10-11 a.m.). An ecumenical Christmas service of scripture and song from the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Participants include representatives of the Disciples of Christ and the Orthodox, Episcopal, Baptist and Roman Catholic churches.

NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC YOUNG PEO PLE'S CONCERT (CBS, 5-6 p.m.). "A Toast to Vienna in 3/4 Time" marks the 125th anniversary of the Vienna Philharmonic (as well as the New York Philharmonic) with a salute to Viennese music.

Tuesday, December 26 WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY (CBS, 10-10:30 p.m.). Harry Reasoner reports on the similarities and dissimilarities between Bethlehem at the time of Christ and today. CBS tours the holy places.

THEATER

On Broadway

THE SHOW-OFF is George Kelly's comedy of 1924, but it is datelessly entertaining. Its hero (Clayton Corzatte) is a braying, backslapping braggart with the laugh of a hyena and the grandiloquent transparency of a born liar. The actress who commandeers the stage in this APA revival is Helen Hayes in her best role since Queen Victoria.

HOW NOW, DOW JONES puts a musical clinker into Broadway's Christmas stocking. Set in the golden canyons of Wall Street, the libretto manages an occasional up-tick of humor about stocks, bonds and mutual funds, but in general the proceedings are as cheery as Black Friday.

PANTAGLEIZE. In 1929, Belgian Playwright Michel de Ghelderode was filled with antic despair, a quality that is strikingly transmitted in a bold, resourceful production by the APA repertory company. His hero (Ellis Rabb) is an innocent who, in the course of a search for his destiny, scratches himself against the world and sets it aflame with revolution.

In his "farce to make you sad" Ghelderode satirizes every brand of causist who ever hoped to remold the world--and manages to reduce history to irony.

EVERYTHING IN THE GARDEN. Edward Albee's latest effort, adapted from a British play by Giles Cooper, is not so much a black comedy as tattletale grey. Starring Barbara Bel Geddes and Barry Nelson, Garden puts forth the notions that hell is possessions, and that in the rush to acquire them, men trample love, decency and honor.

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD switches the spotlight from Hamlet to his Wittenberg school chums. With dexterous wit and sure stagecraft, British Playwright Tom Stoppard shows how little straws caught in the sweep of history often see great tumults as just so much wind. Superb performances by John Wood, Brian Murray and Paul Hecht add momentum to a driving evening of theater.

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, by Harold Pinter, is a comedy of terrors, tickling the funny bone with the feather of the absurd, while scratching away at the skin with a razoredge of truth about self.

Off Broadway

THE TRIALS OF BROTHER JERO and THE STRONG BREED. In this double bill introduc ing his work to the U.S., Nigerian Playwright Wole Soyinka proves himself to be both a satirist and a mythopoet, blending modern mockery and irony with a residual reverence for the African past, bringing Soyinka's heroes out of tribal folklore to convincing stage life.

RECORDS

Oratorio & Vocal

Among the new releases there are several by modern composers who have turned for inspiration to the old texts and their dialogues with the divinities. There are also several other recordings to remind listeners that the music of the old masters can never really be surpassed.

PENDERECKI: PASSION ACCORDING TO ST.

LUKE (2 LPs; Victrola). Polish Composer Krzysztof Penderecki's score may contain more metaphysics than faith, but it has a rare power despite its voguish use of complex modern idioms. He was even able to mix ancient notation orders (such as BACH, a tone symbol of the Cross as well as an honor to J. S. Bach) with the twelve-tone system without ever betraying the power and meaning of his varied Latin texts. The performers under Conductor Henryk Czyz should receive great credit for illuminating this haunting music.

YARDUMIAN: COME, CREATOR SPIRIT (RCA Victor). Fordham University commissioned Yardumian's Mass in English not only to celebrate its 125th anniversary last year but also as a response to the Ecumenical Council's decision to sanction Mass in the vernacular. Although Yardu-mian intended to write music that could easily be sung by congregations, his Mass is greatly benefited by the professional musicianship of Soprano Lili Chookasian, Philadelphia's Chamber Symphony and two superbly conducted choirs.

BERLIOZ: L'ENFANCE DU CHRIST (2 LPs; Angel). This "sacred trilogy" was one of Berlioz' most successful compositions, but first he had to trick 19th century Paris into accepting it. The central part, Flight into Egypt, was slyly introduced by the composer as a "fragment of an oratorio in the olden style, attributed to Pierre Ducre, master of the chapel at Sainte Chapelle, Paris, in 1679." The "olden style" was true enough, but Pierre Ducre was only a figment of Berlioz' imagination. In any case, Berlioz' audiences were pleased by its lush operatic drama and romantic orchestration--and listeners should still be pleased by Conductor Andre Cluytens' most welcome recording.

BACH: "WEDDING" CANTATA; HANDEL: PRAISE OF HARMONY (Victrola). The texts to these two happy works are almost as affecting as their scores. Bach wrote sweet sounds to accompany such pleasant phrases as "This rebirth of the heart in love and laughter is better than spring's quick-dying joys," while Handel's jovial score embroiders such winged meditations as "Music! that all-persuading art,/which soothes our griefs, inspires our joys,/soft love creates, stern rage destroys,/ and moulds at will each stubborn heart." The performance by Conductor Reinhard Peters' Collegium Aureum is gentle, refreshing and cheering.

CINEMA

GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER. Stanley Kramer's new film sets out bravely to face the problems of the marriage of a Negro man (Sidney Poitier) to a white girl (Katharine Houghton) but retreats into sugary platitudes despite the rallying performances of Spencer Tracy, as the girl's liberal but reluctant father, and Katharine Hepburn, as her sentimental mother.

HOW I WON THE WAR. Richard Lester mixes explosively funny moments with comedy of a blacker sort in a surrealistic vision of war, as a platoon of World War II tommies (including Michael Crawford, Jack MacGowran, John Lennon) attempts to build an officers' cricket field behind enemy lines.

COOL HAND LUKE. Sadistic guards are unable to shake the sang-froid of a cocky chain-gang prisoner (Paul Newman), who wins the respect of hostile fellow prisoners, until he is finally beaten into groveling for mercy.

MORE THAN A MIRACLE. An utterly mindless but endearing fairy tale starring Sophia Loren as a peasant girl who wins the hand of the prince (Omar Sharif), who hadn't liked the seven princesses his mother had lined up for him anyway.

BOOKS

Best Sellers FICTION 1. The Confessions of Nat Turner, Styron (1 last week)

2. Topaz, Uris (4)

3. The Gabriel Hounds, Stewart (2)

4. The Exhibitionist, Sutton (3)

5. The Chosen, Potok (5)

6. Christy, Marshall (7)

7. A Night of Watching, Arnold (10)

8. Rosemary's Baby, Levin (6)

9. The Arrangement, Kazan (8) 10. The President's Plane Is Missing,

Serling

NONFICTION 1. Our Crowd, Birmingham (1)

2. Nicholas and Alexandra, Massie (2)

3. Rickenbacker, Rickenbacker (6)

4. The New Industrial State, Galbraith (4)

5. Twenty Letters to a Friend, Alliluyeva (3)

6. Memoirs: 1925-1950, Kennan (7)

7. Incredible Victory, Lord (5)

8. Anyone Can Make a Million, Shulman 9. A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church, Kavanaugh (9)

10. Between Parent and Child, Ginott (10)

-AH times E.S.T.

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