The Great Celebrity Sewing Bee’s so much fun, it had me in stitches
Some shows don’t r eall y work with celebrities. Bake off is a case in point — we love to see talented amateurs pulling triumph or disaster from the oven.
It’s less fun to watch actors, politicians and pop has-beens doing it for laughs. Jeremy Clarkson has been testing stars on their general knowledge on the Who Wants To Be A millionaire? Celebrity Special, turning a brilliant format into a spectacle so moribund it practically lacks a pulse.
Who cares if some faded ego from a boy band wins money for his ‘chosen charity’, or blows it with a stupid guess? Unlike the original show, it’s not life-changing.
The Great British Sewing Bee: Celebrity New Year Special (BBC1), on the other hand, has been a surprise success. Shirley Ballas and Denise Van outen were among the famous faces wrestling with their sewing machines on Boxing Day, and this time it was the turn of stars including Lesley Joseph and Sally Phillips.
As with Strictly, another format that works so well with celebrity contestants, the pleasure here is that none of them has much of a clue what to do. ‘I’m keen to learn,’ declared Sally, with a grimace that warned what she knew about needlework wouldn’t fill a thimble.
Her delight at winning first prize was unfeigned. So was the fury of drag artiste The Vivienne, who fancied herself as a seamstress but did herself no favours with a naked competitive streak.
The Sewing Bee is meant to be a gentle, collaborative game. From the outset, The Vivienne (whose stage name reflects her love of punk designer Vivienne Westwood’s fashions) was playing to win, snatching the best fabrics and snarling at every missed stitch.
Her defeat was assured from the moment she discovered that judge esme Young was a personal friend of The Vivienne’s heroine, Cher. ‘I wanna skin you,’ growled the towering drag queen, jealously, ‘and wear your skin!’ Poor esme looked terrified.
By contrast, TV presenter Sabrina Grant appeared happy just to be taking part. Received wisdom says that telly thrives on drama and big personalities, but her self- deprecating style worked in her favour — she and panto veteran Lesley (more of a knitter than a needleworker, she said) seemed to understand the spirit of the show.
The closing karaoke celebration was barmy, with The Vivienne belting out the eighties disco hit You Spin me Round, backed by host Joe Lycett and judges esme and Patrick Grant — dolled up in wigs like The Supremes. Quite mad, and very funny.
one day soon, every show will be a celebrity special, because everyone on the planet will be f a mous . That’s the i nescapable conclusion of Celebrity: A 21st Century Story (BBC2), a four-part essay on fame that ends tonight.
With the invention of Apple’s forward-facing iPhone camera, which allowed us to see our own poses as we photographed our faces, ‘we were now all narcissists’, claimed the voiceover. For those who take no notice of the Kardashians or I nstagram ‘influencers’, this has been an insightful analysis of how the cult of celebrity operates.
Lifestyle video guru Louise Pentland suggested today’s fascination with people famous for simply being themselves goes back to reality show Big Brother — ‘a voyeuristic peek into the lives of ordinary people’.
Georgia Toffolo, a star of made In Chelsea, said with bemusement that viewers love to see her suffer. When she is at her most hurt and vulnerable, ‘they really buy into you — it is a deep emotional connection’.
How sad.