STARS TO HOST CHELSEA FROM HOME
THIS year’s Chelsea Flower Show will be hosted by presenters from their own back gardens.
The annual five-day event had been called off due to the coronavirus crisis, and will now take place digitally for the first time.
Newsreader Sophie Raworth, 51, will welcome cameras into the home she shares with her husband and three children in London.
And Gardeners’ World star Joe Swift, 54, will front coverage from his family home in Hackney, east London.
The Royal Horticultural Society will host free content on its website, including garden tours, while the BBC will provide TV programming.
BBC factual commissioner Catherine
Catton said: “We’re using the techniques we’ve learned on Gardeners’ World, so we’re doing families.
“They’re presenting from their gardens and we either split screen or you alternate between them. It works really nicely. It’s fun and it’s nice being in their gardens and having a nose around.”
The BBC coverage starts on May 19. On BBC Two, Joe will be joined by fellow gardening expert Monty Don and there will also be footage of other presenters in their gardens. Sophie and father-of-two Joe will be pulling together content from previous shows, interspersed with “presentergenerated content” from their gardens. There will also be interviews with the growers who would normally be exhibiting at the Chelsea event. Catherine added: “It feels like a bit of a treat. It’s just quite nice to escape into that sort of lovely world. They’ve really done a good job of theming it and refreshing it and making it feel coherent. It’s lovely.”