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!
