The Great British Sewing Bee
Our Queen At War
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How things change. When comedian Joe Lycett arrived to transform The Great British Sewing Bee (BBC1) last year, home-made clothes seemed as old-fashioned as steam trains and oil lamps.
But if lockdown goes on much longer, we’ll all be at it — as well as growing our own veg and camping in the back garden for our summer holidays.
Thank heavens for the old domestic skills, then. It’s reassuring to know there are people who can take a worn-out shirt and, with a few nips and tucks, turn it into a pair of shorts or a pencil skirt.
Comedian Joe Lycett, pictured, hosts the return of The Great British Sewing Bee on BBC1
With Joe in charge, the Sewing Bee has taken on a mischievous air. Now that it has moved from BBC2, it’s no longer simply about setting challenges for seamstresses and picking the best. There are extra points on offer to reward fun and silliness, which makes the show even more perfect for these times.
Nifty needler Matt, whose hobby is designing dresses for drag queens, left both sleeves on the shirt that he transformed into a dress. Then he wrapped them around so that the cuffs appeared to be groping the bum.
Other contestants included a tattooed biker called Liz, a ballroom dancer, and a bank manager who makes his own suits. This series has come a long way from its early days as a test of neat hems and robust rows of buttons.
Judges Patrick Grant, with his Edwardian gentleman’s moustache, and tiny Esme Young returned. They’ve been polishing their needle-sharp criticisms. With a sidelong appraisal of one skirt, Patrick sniffed: ‘It’s great from afar but it’s far from great.’
Judges Patrick Grant, pictured left, and Esme Young, pictured centre, join Lycett, pictured right on the show and have been polishing their needle-sharp criticisms
Joe’s quips are more surreal and less scripted, which is a polite way of suggesting that he just says any mad thing that comes into his head. Holding up a tea dress in a fabric spattered with swirling colours, he remarked, ‘I think this is the sort of thing Gloria Hunniford would wear after paintballing.’
The ebullience and excitement of the show are infectious. So is the soundtrack, which included Peggy Lee singing It’s A Good Day and Alma Cogan doing Isn’t Life Wonderful? With two months of the Sewing Bee ahead, it is indeed.
The country’s present mood was also evoked by Our Queen At War (ITV), something the producers didn’t anticipate when this documentary was booked for the run-up to VE Day’s 75th anniversary celebrations.
It was intended to celebrate the contribution made to that victory by the young Princess Elizabeth. Today, she is the only head of state in the world who served in the armed forces during World War II.
Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, pictured, make a broadcast to the children of the Empire during World War II, as seen in ITV’s Our Queen At War
Princess Elizabeth in her Auxiliary Territorial Service uniform in front of an Army ambulance, pictured, as seen in ITV’s Our Queen at War
Our Queen at War draws on interviews with a childhood friend, people who shared her experiences, and royal experts to explore how what the monarch, pictured amongst a syringa bush in the grounds of Windsor Castle in 1941, called ‘the terrible and glorious years of World War II’ transformed a teenage princess into a legendary Queen
The historical evidence was thin — a few clips from newsreels, a sheaf of black-and-white photos that had apparently been coloured with children’s crayons, and some newspaper headlines . . . all tied together with narration by Phyllis Logan, who played the housekeeper in Downton Abbey.
But with the current perspective, it became just as much about the way ordinary British people coped with sudden, extraordinary upheaval.
East-Enders old enough to remember playing amid the rubble of the Blitz recalled their first glimpse of bodies being carried out to ambulances.
Evacuees described the confusion of being separated from their parents and sent to live hundreds of miles from home. Some Glasgow urchins even found themselves at Balmoral, which was a culture shock for all concerned.
The young Princesses felt a little ‘awkward’ with their new playmates, we learned. I can imagine they did.