The Great British Sewing Bee

At my secondary school, "D&T" (Design & Technology) was a required subject in the pre-GCSE years. Among other tasks, we had to attempt to learn how to use a sewing machine. I was rubbish at it, embarrassingly so. Luckily for me, I'm also part of a generation that relies on fast fashion, so I've never really *needed* sewing as a skill. However, I have a lot of admiration for people who make their own clothes. And I enjoy Glow Up, another BBC series with a similar format to this show - pitting aspiring 'MUAs' against one another with surprisingly backstabbing or negativity from its bright-eyed young talents. So, I gave The Great British Sewing Bee a try. I'm so glad I did! It's a relaxing, low-drama reality competition series where the contestants are united by a real passion for sewing. Reality telly has a reputation for encouraging fakery and conflict for the sake of conflict. The producers of this series seem to understand that the genre can be entertaining even without endless amounts of lip filler and scripted arguments. There's a time and place for trash but sometimes you just want to watch a group of slightly eccentric people from around the UK get excited about well-executed skirt linings or whatever.

Another thing I like about the show it is that, like you might expect, there's substantially more age diversity here than in a lot of reality competition shows. Season One includes a gran in her 80s and it's nice to see her compete with people who are much younger - hopefully it'll challenge some prejudices!

This is probably my favorite reality/competition show ever. I've watched every episode more than once if I could find it here in the USA. My great disappointment is that it was not sold to Netflix or run on my local PBS station. The best thing this show did was make sewing fun. The contestants were so passionate about their hobby that I was always encouraged to go make something. Such a shame that the production company dropped the marketing ball on this one.

Who knew sewing could be this fun! Sew talented sorry couldn't help it

GBSB is just a lovely piece of tele and a panacea to many of the over-hyped competition shows that have multiplied in recent years. It borrows from the Bake Off format with a couple of challenges on day one (broken up by a nice bit of morning tea in the local caf) and a major challenge on day two. A small starting group is whittled down week by week across eight episodes by judges whose sewing expertise is matched by their delightful oh-so-British eccentricity. The contestant's backstories are light-touch, and largely without drama. Most importantly, the contestants are delightful, kind, considerate, polite and humble. There aren't any villains and the products of their sewing remain in focus the whole time. Wholesome, restful, entertaining tv without any octane, and that's ok.

It's simply well made. There's good balance of no-nonsense and encouragements for amateurs to be better. It's neither too critical nor too loose. The challenges are well thought out for amateurs and it is after all, a competition tele for amateurs. The background stories of the contestants and snippets of relevant history were a nice touch. Unlike other competition tele, there's less exaggerated hype, forced exclamations, forced comedy or tragedy and far less interference from the judges and presenter. The settings is simple. Simply setting it next to river makes it somehow relaxing. The bit of old songs are well placed. It is not titivating.