Kids’ week is a stitch-up
WOULD you believe a fight breaks out tonight – proper hair-pulling and allsorts – on THE GREAT BRITISH SEWING BEE (BBC1, 9pm)? Well, in that case you’ve clearly never watched it. Of course there isn’t a fight.Why on earth would you think that? The Great British Sewing Bee is just an hour of pure niceness, the perfect programme for these stressful times of ours.
Nothing bad ever happens on The Great British Sewing Bee, other than one of the contestants getting sent home at the end of each episode for being a bit rubbish. Even then it’s done really nicely and the contestant is awfully sporting and good-natured about it.
Not like MasterChef, where the eliminated contestants routinely put their fists through the doors of their lockers once the cameras have stopped rolling.
Just kidding.
This week it’s children’s week – on Sewing Bee, I mean, not MasterChef – which prompts a wide range of reactions from those still in the running.
Perhaps the most thrilled about it is Therese. “I am so excited,” she squeals, ever so slightly embarrassingly. “I mean, I’ve got four children, I’ve been a teacher all my life.This week will bring back a lot of memories!”
Perhaps the most nonplussed is Nicole. “I’ve not done much children’s wear,” she admits. “Surely it’s just a shrunken-down version of what I’ve done before?”
Among the challenges is to make an item of fancy dress out of a sleeping bag. I kid you not.
“Specifically, an item of food,” adds judge Patrick Grant, in case the challenge wasn’t already sufficiently bonkers.
“Think fast food, fancy dress, anything you like.
“We just want them to be imaginative, wearable and delicious.”
“But what’s really crucial and important,” chips in fellow judge Esme Grant, keen to contribute to this madness, “is when we walk in the room we know exactly what food we’re looking at.”
Ah, but will they, that’s the question?
Will the judges realise, for example, that the pea is meant to be an apple, or that the Liquorice Allsort is supposed to be sushi? The contestant who sews “CHIPS” in big capital letters on the front of theirs is wisely taking no chances.
Elsewhere, in the second bit of ABSOLUTELY INDIA: MANCS IN MUMBAI (ITV, 8pm), a severe horsewhipping is administered to the executive who actually decided this was a good title for a TV programme. Again, just kidding, sadly. AsTV siblings Ryan,Adam and Scott Thomas continue to explore their Indian heritage, Scott visits a barber who likes to set his customers’ hair on fire.
That bit’s true.