Wednesday, 26 February 2014

More gripping than The Wire. More innovative than Breaking Bad. It's GBBO - with sewing. The genius that is The Great British Sewing Bee, by Jim Shelley


Stop the madness: why pyjamas have a pocket on the tops rather than the pyjama bottoms (for your bus fare, keys etc) is a mystery to anyone who's not extremely posh. Perhaps it's for your fountain pensIt sounds like one of the BBC’s more ridiculous concepts for a series.

Take the winning formula for The Great British Bake Off, bring in the long-forgotten art of sewing, add an element of those demented competitions beloved by compulsively
competitive American schoolchildren and, there you have it: The Great British Sewing Bee! Phew.
American television might pride itself on ‘thinking outside the box’ with innovative, addictive dramas like Breaking Bad and The Wire, but it has nothing on this kind of madness.
Stop the madness: why pyjamas have a pocket on the tops rather than the pyjama bottoms (for your bus fare, keys etc) is a mystery to anyone who's not extremely posh. Perhaps it's for your fountain pens

Would even David Lynch take the famous GBBO format and adapt it to... sewing? Is the BBC predicting that, as people said about comedy and cooking, sewing is ‘the new rock ‘n’ roll’ and will be 'the latest craze'? Do ‘sewing bees’ really exist?
Episode two of what any sane individual would just call The Great British Sew Off held the answer to these questions.
The show was so close to the GBBO formula, it bordered on parody. For the judges, Mary was substituted by a lady called May who was presumably picked for her name - to work on our sub-conscious. Bake Off’s bearded beauty, Paul Hollywood, was replaced by the suave, suited and booted (and bearded) figure of Savile Row designer, Patrick Grant.

Instead of ‘overall, it’s a good bake’, he actually used the phrase ‘overall, it’s a good sew,’ as if it was a real phrase.
The Great British Sewing Bee's answer to Paul Hollywood, Patrick Grant (played by Rupert Everett), explains to Claudia Winkleman (left) how one model has taken self-harming too far. GBBO doyenne Mary Berry was substituted by a lady called May (right)
The Great British Sewing Bee's answer to Paul Hollywood, Patrick Grant (played by Rupert Everett), explains to Claudia Winkleman (left) how one model has taken self-harming too far. GBBO doyenne Mary Berry was substituted by a lady called May (right)

As ‘presenter’, Claudia Winkleman did an excellent impersonation/caricature of Mel and Sue rolled into one.
This meant she took care to be as irritating as possible, fussing and interfering when the contestants were busy even though she clearly didn’t know as much as they did about sewing (if anything at all).
She actually described their designs exactly as if they were complicated recipes, saying things like: ‘David’s brushed collar cotton checked pyjamas have a collar, with trimmed with piping and elasticated trousers,’ as if people did this (either on TV or about their pyjamas) all the time.
On the down side, her statement the programme was aiming ‘to find Britain’s best sewer’ has an ambiguity that doesn’t work so well when it's written down.
The Krypton Factor: contestants on The Great British Sewing Bee had to make a skirt with 'front and back box pleats that had to be 4cms deep on either side, created by folding in on itself in opposite directions.' Well we've all done it...
The Krypton Factor: contestants on The Great British Sewing Bee had to make a skirt with 'front and back box pleats that had to be 4cms deep on either side, created by folding in on itself in opposite directions.' Well we've all done it...

Whereas GBBO had themes like Biscuits, Pastries or Wagon Wheels, which we could all relate to even if we couldn’t make them for, um, toffee, Winkleman announced that in Week Two of GBSB, ‘the judges would like to see how you deal with Patterned Fabric.’

Was that hard? Who knew?

Like Bake Off, there were three rounds, which immediately stretched my interest in Patterned Fabric (and sewing) to breaking point.

The first challenge was to make a skirt with ‘front and back box pleats’ and match the pattern – even in places where you couldn’t see it, such as under the pleats.

‘Each pleat should be 4 centimetres deep on either side,’ instructed Grant (played with debonair authority by Rupert Everett). ‘And created by folding in on itself in opposite directions.’

Huh? Attempting to make Frances Atkins’ recipe for caramel mille feuille, with mango and gold leaf press and crystalised chilli, sounded easier.
There were alarming scenes on The Great British Sewing Bee when unruly working-class Northerner Julie (right) 'forgot' to put a button on the fly of her men's pyjamas. The judges Patrick and May (left) try not to look at the model's gaping hole. As it were...
There were alarming scenes on The Great British Sewing Bee when unruly working-class Northerner Julie (right) 'forgot' to put a button on the fly of her men's pyjamas. The judges Patrick and May (left) try not to look at the model's gaping hole. As it were...

The contestants made statements such as: ‘I’m trying to be conscious of the pattern because I know this is pattern week.’

The second task was ‘the opposite of pattern matching’, taking two men’s shirts and combining them to make a single item.

‘I’m going to keep one shirt intact and just add to it,’ one candidate, Simon, boasted brightly, before, sensibly, using them to make a dress instead.
Finally, they had to produce some made-to-measure men's pyjamas: very Ken Barlow/Swiss Toni.
They even had their own scantily clad male models, many of whom looked alarmingly looked like the scarily hairy sports presenter, Richard Keys.
The models for the challenge of making bespoke pyjamas mostly looked like Ken Barlow, Nigel Havers, or (as with this man who apparently liked to be called Heather), scarily hairy sports presenter, Richard Keys
The models for the challenge of making bespoke pyjamas mostly looked like Ken Barlow, Nigel Havers, or (as with this man who apparently liked to be called Heather), scarily hairy sports presenter, Richard Keys

The GBBO format continued with the signature violin motif while the supposedly hilarious observation about cakes in GBBO ‘you don’t want a soggy bottom’ was replaced by the sewing version: ‘you don’t want a saggy bottom.’
The ‘action’ of the contestants, um, sewing, was interrupted by the same history lesson as Bake Off. Claudia Winkleman walked through the streets reading from the autocue about the days when ‘you could import chintz only if it was for the export market,’ trying to sound as if she knew what she was talking about.

A curator at the V&A explained how in 1701 a government ban lead to well-to-do ladies going down to the docks at Deal trying to procure ‘contraband chintz’, which sounded either like street slang for dodgy drugs or a parody from the fevered mind of Armando Iannucci.
This lead to Winkleman asking the immortal question: ‘How risky was it wearing chintz in public?’

Surprisingly the answer was ‘very’ – especially when local weavers started throwing ink over any women wearing chintz. (Punk rock all over again, basically.)
Claudia Winkleman asked the immortal question 'how risky was it wearing chintz in public?', a reference to 1701 when a government ban saw well-to-do ladies going down to the docks to procure 'contraband chintz'
Claudia Winkleman asked the immortal question 'how risky was it wearing chintz in public?', a reference to 1701 when a government ban saw well-to-do ladies going down to the docks to procure 'contraband chintz'

Unfortunately, the nine remaining contestants were not as varied or as charismatic as those on the mighty Bake Off.

The majority of the nine contestants - as you would expect with a hobby/talent/sport like sewing - were nice, well-to-do women like Felicity Kendall or Penelope Keith.

The exceptions were one trendy young woman who frightened the horses with a cutting edge, precariously one-shouldered boob tube, a couple of overtly working-class Northerners, and only two men. There were no pouting sexpots like Ruby, which seemed an oversight (for the ratings), not to say a shame (for me and other men forced to watch it).
The contestants: (left to right) Julie, Lynda, Heather, Cerina, Simon, Chinelo, David, Tamara, Jenni. After two weeks, only one male remained, a ratio that implies men can't sew, which is absurd. We just don't want to
The contestants: (left to right) Julie, Lynda, Heather, Cerina, Simon, Chinelo, David, Tamara, Jenni. After two weeks, only one male remained, a ratio that implies men can't sew, which is absurd. We just don't want to

Whereas Winkleperson said that the very mention of patterned fabric made 26 year-old Bradford novice Simon ‘look nervous’, the ultra-posh Heather had ‘been making clothes for the last 40 years,’ which hardly seemed fair.

She had made her own wedding dress and her husband recalled how on one occasion three hours before going to a party, she had ‘nipped upstairs to make a blouse to wear to it.’

Well we’ve all done it.
Jenni on the other hand admitted cheerfully that she had never made a box pleat before. Some excruciating footage showed her performing as the lead singer of a band in which her hairy, open-shirted husband Kirk was also shown rocking out on guitar, and for which she designed the ‘stage clothes’, even though they were playing for 20 people in a pub.
Unlike the middle/working class women, it was not surprising that the uber-posh Heather has already won two challenges, as she has been sewing for 40 years. She was so good, she sewed her wedding dress, as well as this hideous blind dog and even her own sewing machine
Unlike the middle/working class women, it was not surprising that the uber-posh Heather has already won two challenges, as she has been sewing for 40 years. She was so good, she sewed her wedding dress, as well as this hideous blind dog and even her own sewing machine

Even worse, Tamara was shown doing face-painting (on children).

‘When making clothes for her job as a children’s entertainer, Tamara never worries about pattern-matching,’ Winkleman stated making a rather tenuous link sound as ominous for Tamara’s chances as possible.

The programme suggested the world of sewing was the battleground for scenes of embittered Class War between lads like Simon and lasses like Julie, who being a Northerner, wore a flat cap and talked about bingo and the likes of Cerina, a Jilly Cooper lookalike, whose husband said she ‘sews mainly in the dining room and mainly after midnight.’
Rock ‘n’ roll !

She recalled how she had once made a dress out of her wedding dress too - for her 18 month old daughter ‘who promptly sicked up on it.’
You sensed she was probably never going to let her forget it too.
Who wouldn't want to wear pyjamas with a pattern of hats and moustaches ? A bit better than newsprint. Whatever that is
Who wouldn't want to wear pyjamas with a pattern of hats and moustaches ? A bit better than newsprint. Whatever that is
Left: who could resist pyjamas with hats and moustaches? Right: pyjamas with newsprint. Whatever that is !


As for the two men, thanks to his father’s job, Simon ‘grew up surrounded by fabric’ while David’s wife Vicky declared: ‘David has made curtains. He’s made a duvet’ and sounding as if she was going to add: ‘but he’s paid for his mistakes and served his time.’

She described one night at home ‘and me and my dad were playing Yahtzee, while David and my mum were making a dress.’ Crazy times !

Unlike some of the male cooks on the Bake Off, Simon and David were clearly the weakest. What they produced was frankly a mess.
Julie seemed to take the whole thing as a laugh, even disregarding the instructions to hand sew in a lapped zip by doing a different one by machine instead.
‘What can I say? I produced a pile of rubbish and I got what I deserved,’ she said afterwards, sounding like Cardiff’s manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer on Match Of The Day.
SPOILER ALERT: Look away now if you don't want to know that Simon was eliminated from this week's episode of The Great British Sewing Bee
SPOILER ALERT: Look away now if you don't want to know that Simon was eliminated from this week's episode of The Great British Sewing Bee

The pyjamas had some great patterns.
One consisted of hats and moustaches – and who wouldn’t want pyjamas with those? Another had newsprint (whatever THAT is).

Once again, one of the determining factors was class.

Posh people’s pyjamas, it transpired, have ‘draw string bottoms’ and piping (‘you can’t not have a bit of piping on PJs.’) Heather had a ‘patch pocket.' This must be one of the most pointless things in existence - a pocket on the pyjama top, not the trousers, where the rest of us would have them (for our keys and bus fare).

Chinolo’s pyjamas were so avant-garde (no cuffs, no collar, no fly with a V neck top and shorts), that you wondered whether they still qualified as pyjamas at all. They certainly looked cool. She did put in a pocket, but only in a way, she emphasised anxiously, ‘so that you probably wouldn’t see the pocket, if you were looking at it from afar.’
You might wonder if this was an eventuality worth worrying about with a pair of pyjamas, but, when it comes to serious fashion, the answer is obviously ‘yes.’
As if being eliminated in Week Two of The Great British Sewing Bee wasn't bad for poor Philip, Claudia Winkleman loomed, asking 'can we come and rub ourselves against you?'
As if being eliminated in Week Two of The Great British Sewing Bee wasn't bad for poor Philip, Claudia Winkleman loomed, asking 'can we come and rub ourselves against you?'

Tamara had sewn the fly shut - a disaster in the making when it comes to pyjamas – and Julie flirted (rather raunchily) with elimination from the contest when she neglected to give her fly a button.

‘There’s a danger of a certain amount of indecency there,’ suggested Grant, looking at the model’s gaping hole (on his pyjama bottoms that is).

Simon’s designs, the (non) alignment of his patterned fabrics, and his general sewing, were so hopeless he was inevitably sent home.

‘My confidence has dwindled massively,’ he said, sounding like Bradford’s mis-firing centre-forward.

‘Simon’s pattern-matching wasn’t as good as it could’ve been. We were a bit disappointed,’ concluded judge May Martin, not mincing her words or attempting to cheer him up as he left.
‘Can we just come and rub ourselves against you anyway?’ trilled Claudia Winkleman, trying more.
Who can stop very posh, superior 40 year sewing veteran Heather has already become the main question - and point - of this year's Sewing Bee? So far, the nation's hopes lie with Tamara who has made it her mission in life to bring her DOWN
Who can stop very posh, superior 40 year sewing veteran Heather has already become the main question - and point - of this year's Sewing Bee? So far, the nation's hopes lie with Tamara who has made it her mission in life to bring her DOWN

Having triumphed in the first episode, Heather swept to another victory with her box skirt.

‘The placement of these stripes versus the edge of your revere here is absolutely spot on,’ purred Patrick Grant, although I couldn’t see her revere from where I was sitting.

‘Absolutely amazing ! That was a repeat performance of last week !’ she crowed, as only a truly posh person can, with not a trace of false modesty and unconcealed delight at her superiority.
Lynda won Garment of The Week but it was Tamara the children’s entertainer who, having narrowly lost out on the patterned fabric and left May ‘genuinely freaked out’ by the cummerbund in her men’s shirt creation, vowed to bring Heather down.

‘I’m right behind you,’ she threatened, pretending she was joking.

This is now the entire purpose of the programme – the imperative that, with all her advantages, Heather doesn’t win.

And, like The Great British Bake Off, this is how we become hooked by the madness, obsessed, just as we did with The Wire or Breaking Bad.

The BBC has done it again.


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