Celebrity Christmas Special by The Great British Sewing Bee
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Madame Tussauds – The Full Wax
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The future will show. It’s not like James Corden thought he was insane when he came to Los Angeles as a talk-show host. This left him with a very successful career as a permanent panel-game participant.
Joe Lycett may be making a great switch when he leaves The Great British Sewing Bee, (BBC1) to join Channel 4, in sunny California.
He has already launched his cheap-and-sarky consumer affairs series, Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back. He will be replacing Richard Ayoade next week as the Travel Man.
No doubt he couldn’t resist the lure of free weekends with minor comedians in Reykjavik and Ljubljana, though he’s picked a funny time to do it, when British tourists in Europe are about as welcome as sprouts among the Quality Street.
Sara Pascoe, who has been fired by him, takes over as Christmas host. She will be presenting a show that rivals Bake Off in popularity. Even better, she has the opportunity to host a few celebrity editions.
Sara Pascoe, (middle), will be leaving to take a job as Christmas presenter at Christmas. This series is already rivaling Bake Off.
It also means that judges Patrick Grant and Esme Young are confirmed as the show’s real stars
It also means that judges Patrick Grant and Esme Young are confirmed as the show’s real stars.
Patrick is there every day since 2013’s BBC2 launch, with Esme following him starting in series 4.
Their amiable double act — like an indulgent nephew with his favourite auntie — is the mainstay of each episode.
The celebs all looked like they’d never used a sewing machine. Coronation Street’s Antony Cotton, whose mum Enid was a haute couture dressmaker, did know his way around a pattern but couldn’t hide a ferocious competitive streak.
He needn’t have tried so hard. Simply by using a needle, thread, instead of a stapler like the laidback, but very funny Kiell Smith–Bynoe he was certain to win.
Anneka Rice made a fancy-dress for an angel in a punk style, but it was too risky. All she had to do was tie the costume together.
‘I think you have to be lashed into it by a significant other,’ remarked Patrick.
The Rev Kate Bottley produced the garment I’d most like to find under our tree, a sweatshirt with a cartoon of Jesus in a manger, looking more like a pancake in a frying pan.
Already, one sleeve had begun to slip. Patrick reached for the split seam and wiggled his finger.
‘I think this is the holiest jumper we’ve ever had,’ he joked. Puns like that are what make the Sewing Bee TV’s gentlest contest, a pleasure at any age.
The outfits at Madame Tussauds’ costume warehouse in Acton, West London, have not been thrown together in a couple of hours with a sewing machine.
We discovered that hundreds of racks were hung with the original costumes once belonging to the famous during a Madame Tussauds tour (ITV).
The outfits at Madame Tussauds’ costume warehouse in Acton, West London, have not been thrown together in a couple of hours with a sewing machine
It is not their lifelikeness that is the most exciting part of waxworks but rather how ridiculous it is to look at them all in one place.
Ayrton Senna’s racing overalls hung next to Albert Einstein’s suit, all part of the museum’s commitment to realism.
That includes the murderous Dr Crippen’s own spectacles, now coming out of storage as the Chamber of Horrors is reopened, and the blade of the guillotine that beheaded Marie Antoinette in 1793.
It is not their lifelikeness that is the most exciting part of waxworks but rather how ridiculous it is to look at them all.
This is the delightful picture of Judi and David Bowie having a once over with a feather brush.
‘Being a waxwork in Madame Tussauds is like getting knighted, it’s fabulous,’ said Craig Revel Horwood, who was openly in love with his model.
‘I did ask if I can get a copy,’ he added, ‘but when I discovered they are £150,000 I thought twice.’ Well, you would.