The Great British Sewing Bee review: Follows the Bake Off template to a fault

You half expect contestants to cover their creations in marzipan and slam them in the oven

Host Joe Lycett with judges Esme Young and Patrick Grant (BBC/Love Productions)

The Great British Sewing Bee has a new presenter, the comedian Joe Lycette. If you’re unfamiliar with him, the man who has the misfortune of succeeding the very well known shampoo model Claudia Winkleman, all I need to say is that he joins a very long line of camp British personalities.

Lycette can be placed somewhere on the camp spectrum between Graham Norton and Kenneth Williams in Carry on at Your Convenience (1971) – so about the same as Bake Off counterpart Noel Fielding, but way below Julian Clary or Larry Grayson, say. If he wants to hit the big time he’ll need to do better than a few “hungry bum” jokes (he’s referring there to overly tight trousers – or isn’t, come to think of it).

The show is the usual reality TV Bake Off-style format, with a couple of expert judges, Esme Young (Central St Martins) and Patrick Grant (Savile Row), various rounds of schmutter business, and someone chucked out at the end.

Anyway, Joe is quite charming, I should add, but I couldn’t agree with his opening gambit, justifying the whole series: “In thousands of homes across the country, more and more of us are discovering the thrill of transforming fabric into fashion.”

Not round my way, I thought, but then we meet Juliet, a teacher from Penge and thus my neighbour. Like all the contestants, she is lovely, but she endures quite an emotional journey. She manages to win the first round, with a pattern “wiggle dress”, then finishes last for an “unwearable” recycled denim topless dress thing, and then triumphs dramatically at the end with a stunning asymmetric jump suit featuring strapless bodice and oversized gathered sleeve (so the graphic said).

The clashing patterns yield dramatic effect and it is perfectly cut and sewn. Gosh, I do sound gushing don’t I? Almost camp. Anyhow, Juliet declares that “clothes transport me to a different plane where nothing can go wrong”, but evidence to the contrary was scattered all over the models and mannequins.

Some of the amateur fashionistas mismatch their chosen patterns by having them point different ways on different bits of their frocks, while others can’t sew a zip on or avoid that terrible crime of hungry bum. The worst is poor Mercedes, who creates a denim skirt with nothing between the legs except a large pocket. This, charitably, resembles a kangaroo pouch or a casual sporran but is in any case rightly ridiculed. Apparently, by the way, the secret of good tailoring for dresses is all down to “the lift” between the neck and the crutch and “if that is too short the crutch will go up the crutch”, as Esme explains.

So I learn a few things, but it’s so closely based on the Bake Off template I half expect them to cover their creations in marzipan and slam them in the oven.

What I’d really like to see is amateur wannabe journalists competing on the Great British Hack Off, presented by Andrew Neil and with me and Piers Morgan doing the judging. Round one would involve them going through a politician’s dustbins for unacceptable food hypocrisy, bank statements, prescriptions or discarded drugs, empty booze bottles, and legal proceedings relating to a divorce. Any would do. Then they write a story, loosely based on the detritus.

Round two would see them standing outside Downing Street on a wet Sunday night with bugger all going on and talking for 20 minutes to the studio about why no one’s very clear about what’s happening with Brexit. Round three would be a challenge to sit through and then write a review of a TV show they didn’t really want to watch.

The rights are for sale, and you know where to find me.