Although four celebrities gamely donned their thimbles for this year’s The Great British Sewing Bee: Celebrity Christmas Special (BBC One), it was comedian Sara Pascoe who was really on show. Pascoe appeared on celebrity Sewing Bee this time last year. And, though she didn’t win, it can now be seen as something of an audition. A year on, here she was pinging out of a Christmas gift box and taking over from host of two years Joe Lycett (who himself took over from Claudia Winkleman in 2019).
A celebrity Christmas love-in with nothing on the line granted Pascoe a fairly easy ride – the format is well-grooved, copying as it does both The Great British Bake Off and the celebrity version of that show. The judges, Esme Young and Patrick Grant, look like they could bash out an episode or two while appliqueing a mohair sweater.
The contestants for this first of two specials (there’s another one on New Year’s Eve) were the Rev Kate Bottley, Anneka Rice, Stath Lets Flats’ Kiell Smith-Bynoe and Corrie’s Antony Cotton, and even they seemed to know exactly what was required – they were all perfectly good at being rubbish (though in the case of making a Christmas jumper, an outlandishly bad job made for a pleasingly naff end product).
And then by the end of the programme they all somehow managed to become quite capable, somehow creating four made-to-measures in four hours. Anneka Rice (“she likes a challenge!”) even turned out a presentable jumpsuit.
It all meant that Pascoe slotted in just fine, but without ever particularly making it her own. Sewing Bee has always played second fiddle to Bake Off and the presenters in both always have to work much harder with the amateur experts than the celebs: it takes more to draw them out of themselves, while not overshadowing the contestants’ characters with your own ego and one-liners.
On this showing Pascoe is going to yin Lycett’s high-camp yang with some diffidence and warmth. Whether that still works with real people remains to be seen, but it would take some doing to derail the Bee.
