Sewing Bee’s Claudia is like a grumpy panda with a stopwatch

GOOD telly cannot be constructed to a pattern, and The Great British Sewing Bee

(BBC2) is proof of it. The amateur seamstress contest follows the Bake Off template to the smallest detail, yet fails to captivate.

Successful competitions such as MasterChef or Strictly can take a few episodes to heat up, as we get to know the new batch of contestants.

But this series of Sewing Bee is now in its fifth week and it still can’t make us care.

There are no edge- of-the- sofa, heart-beating-double-time moments — just a succession of home-made dresses with minor mishaps.

The most dramatic moment came when the buttons on Charlotte’s jacket weren’t quite straight. She lost marks, though really there’s a ready remedy: snip them off and try again.

The artificial tension created by a fake deadline is a large part of the show’s problem. Bake Off works, because food really does have to be served on time.

But the pleasure of home dressmaking lies in perfectionism — the chance to make every seam just right, even if the sewing machine is still rattling at three in the morning.

So when black- eyed presenter Claudia Winkleman, like a badtempered panda with a stopwatch, bellows: ‘Half an hour left,’ viewers simply feel irritated, not excited.

This round was the show’s best chance to work well. The theme was Sixties haute couture, starting with the block dress created by Yves Saint Laurent. Even if you know

ARRIVALS OF THE NIGHT: Five passengers from a Canada zoo got express immigration treatment on Heathrow: Britain’s Busiest Airport (ITV). These gentoo penguins didn’t have passports, but vet staff were able to scan their tummies for microchips — so much easier than queuing for ages at customs.

nothing about clothes, it’s an instantly recognisable style, as worn by Twiggy and Dusty Springfield.

That gave the producers a chance to flood the soundtrack with classic pop, like Quincy Jones’s Soul Bossa Nova, the kind of music that makes the whole world feel like a Technicolor cartoon.

The songs are badly needed, because the backchat is woeful. In the sewing room, unlike the Bake Off tent, no one has time to stretch their legs and share a joke, because while cakes cook on their own, dresses never make themselves.

The seamstresses (and by round five they are all women — the men have been eliminated) can’t spare any concentration for chatter.

Claudia has to apologise for interrupting contestants with questions: ‘It’s my job!’ And it’s no better when she’s talking to the adjudicators.

New judge Esme Young seems to rub her the wrong way — the two can’t even look at each other’s faces when they talk.

Tailor Patrick Grant, who was having such fun in earlier years, seems fed up and fractious. He used to be quite a dandy, with his military moustache plucked and preened, but now he can’t even be bothered to shave.

If some things just don’t work on television, other shows simply cannot fail — even without a plot, a presenter or any shred of drama.

The Secret Life Of Kittens (C5) is hypnotic TV, the sort of programme that I can stare at till my wife comes to drag me away by the shirt collar.

We watch several litters of newborn cats, from the moment they emerge and stumble like blind mice to suckle on their mothers, until they are old enough to go to the vet for their first check-up. That’s it: no science, no emotional roller- coaster, just very small, very cute cats.

There is a voiceover, telling us details about the importance of cuddling your kitten.

Apparently, a cat that has human contact for 15 to 40 minutes daily will grow up to be more intelligent and playful.

But this voiceover can hardly be trusted, since it also says things like: ‘We can’t see it, but the kitten’s brain is sending signals to his legs telling them how to move.’ Really, professor?

It doesn’t matter that the script was apparently written by an enthusiastic nine-year-old, since nobody is listening to the words . . . it’s the pictures that enchant us.

Mew, the wobbly puss with a white face and a Charlie Chaplin moustache, is so sweet he should come with a diabetes warning.

And what could be more heartmelting than Della, the Staffordshire bull terrier babysitting a family of miniature moggies?

Less TV-by-numbers, please, and more kittens.