This show is guaranteed to have you in stitches
The Great British Sewing Bee is back, with Sara Pascoe on hosting duties once again. RACHAEL POPOW finds out what’s in store
As befits the series’ make do and mend ethos, The
Great British Sewing Bee has undergone a few alterations over the years.
When it first hit our screens in 2013, it aired on BBC2, was presented by Claudia Winkleman and introduced us to judges Patrick Grant and May Martin. Of that original trio, only Patrick remains – Esme Young took over from May from series four onwards, while Joe Lycett replaced Claudia in 2019, before bowing out in 2022, when Sara Pascoe inherited the mantle.
There have also been some moves – the series has been airing on BBC1 since 2020, while the sewing room itself has been transported from London to Leeds.
For the latest run, Sara is back, with Esme and Patrick.
In the opening episode, there are some old favourites that could do with updating, as the theme is ‘Classics with a Twist.’
For their first pattern challenge, the Class of 2023 will have to show that they can follow instructions as they make a top with a twist at the centre.
They get to show off some of their own personality in the transformation challenge as they are faced with what was for years the standard women’s office uniform of a pencil skirt and blouse. Can they let their imaginations run riot and turn it into something entirely new?
Finally, they get to meet their models for the first time when they are asked to whip up a made-to-measure dress with cut-out details, but at the end of it, one of the contestants will have to pack up their pin cushion.
One of the reasons that Sewing Bee has proved such a hit is that its joyful rather than cut-throat. There may be the occasional scramble to get the best fabric, but the sewers tend to support each other and the judges are definitely constructive in their criticism.
It seems that’s reflected in the show’s fans. Esme says: “Sewing Bee is such a positive programme. Nobody who stops me in the street because they recognise me has ever been negative.”
But perhaps that’s all part of parcel of being a stitcher.
Esme was taught to sew at school, and is keen to encourage more of us to give making our own clothes a go.
She says: “We were taught cross stitch, darning and mending, knitting and crocheting. Sewing was the way of the world. Girls were taught sewing at school.
“It was just something that was done, but it isn’t nowadays.
“It’s a shame, because particularly now in this age of computers, you are being creative, with something you can actually touch and feel. It’s good for your mental health. You become part of a little community of people who sew.”
But which member of the latest Sewing Bee community will make the best first impression and see one of their creations named as Garment of the Week?
The Great British Sewing Bee is on BBC1, Wednesday at 9pm
In his previous films Hereditary and Midsommar, writer-director Ari Aster plundered universal fears for skinprickling discomfort.
He repeats the trick, with considerably less narrative clarity, in the hallucinogenic horror comedy
Beau is Afraid, a bamboozling and beguiling exercise in self-reflection and self-indulgence tethered to a fiercely committed lead performance from Joaquin Phoenix as the titular worrywart.
Imperious single mother Mona Wassermann (Zoe Lister-Jones) is a constant companion to her teenage son Beau (Armen Nahapetian).
She schools Beau to consider her love as a life raft in a sea of danger and disappointment and reminds her boy that his father died mid-coitus courtesy of a heart murmur that he inherited through the genetic lottery. It is little surprise that when Beau experiences the first pangs of romance, he strays no further than a tentative kiss.
Now middle-aged and riddled with anxiety, Beau (Phoenix) visits a kindly psychiatrist (Stephen McKinley Henderson) ahead of a trip home to see his mother (Patti Lupone), who presides over a pharmaceutical empire.
Alas, Beau oversleeps and in the frantic dash to the airport, he is the victim of a bizarre crime. He telephones his mother for advice about calling the police and missing his flight – “I think you’ll do the right thing, sweetheart,” she tersely responds – and best laid plans spiral of control.
Evicted from his rundown apartment on to streets filled with violence, Beau collides with respected surgeon Roger (Nathan Lane) and his wife Grace (Amy Ryan) and they provide temporary sanctuary from the psychological storm with their troubled daughter
Toni (Kylie Rogers).
Beau is Afraid is a wildly ambitious mood piece that defies categorisation or succinct explanation.
Gobs are repeatedly smacked by Aster’s unwillingness to restrict himself to storytelling convention, abetted by Phoenix’s mesmerising theatrics. Art should always make you feel something, even if in this case, it’s dizziness and confusion.
In cinemas Friday
This is an unabashedly heartfelt, touching and hysterical adaptation of Judy Blume’s 1970s-set comingof-age novel.
Eleven-year-old Margaret
Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) is despondent when she learns from parents Herb (Benny Safdie) and Barbara (Rachel McAdams) that the family will be moving from New York City to New Jersey for her
father’s work. The relocation takes the clan further away from paternal grandmother Sylvia (Kathy Bates).
Margaret voices her concerns by talking to God and one prayer seems to be answered when she kindles friendships with next-door neighbour Nancy (Elle Graham) and new classmates Janie (Amari Alexis Price) and Gretchen (Katherine Kupferer).
Slowly but surely, our heroine learns where she fits in and the power of standing out from a crowd.
Writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig’s film is a high achiever and earns top grades with ease.
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