The Repair Shop
Wednesday, BBC1
Hitmen
Wednesday, Sky One
Rating: 
The one show we all really need right now, at this most difficult time, has to be one of my personal favourites, The Repair Shop. Gosh, it’s lovely. It’s like immersing yourself in a warm bath of kindness and goodness. It’s as if people gathering when they shouldn’t, or stripping supermarket shelves bare, never happened.
Geoff Clark, Mark Stuckey and Jay Blades with Geoff’s restored jukebox in The Repair Shop
And the experts are so, well, expert. They can fix anything, and come The Time After they’ll be so much more valuable than bankers, say. As it is, I don’t understand why people are stockpiling loo rolls when they could be sharpening flints. I sharpened three this morning and am up for doing six more this afternoon.
But back to The Repair Shop, which has been knocking about for a few years, yet I don’t think the BBC clocked how beloved it was until the Christmas special attracted 5.5 million viewers. (For comparison, Belgravia is currently getting around four million.) So having been booted around the schedules, it’s finally been awarded a primetime slot on BBC1.
It’s set in a big thatched barn (in Sussex, I think) where ‘a dream team of craftspeople’ is given family heirlooms to restore. Some items are very old. This week there was a mid-17th-century clock that had been in a box in a cupboard for the past 70 years. You’ll wonder how much it is worth. But no one on the programme does, because that’s not its proper value. Its value is to its owner, Frank, who remembers it chiming in his grandfather’s house.
The owners all tell their stories, then the craftspeople get to work, then the newly restored item is revealed to them, voilà, but it’s never showy. The (now shiny) item will likely be hidden under a bit of tatty blanket prior to the owner seeing it again. Often there are tears, your own included. Often? Always there are tears. I think this may be the most moving programme on the box.
Aside from the clock, this week also saw two sisters bring in their childhood bicycle – watching them ride it again at the end, you could see their childhood selves in their faces – but the standout item was the Sixties jukebox owned by Geoff. He had bought it prior to his wedding to Marie in 1978. ‘We couldn’t afford a reception so had it in our dining room, with sandwiches and cups of tea, and the jukebox was in the dining room and I played “D1”, Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller. Absolute magic happened as Marie and I cuddled each other and shuffled around. Everything came together in that moment.’
Gosh, it’s lovely – like being immersed in a warm bath of kindness and goodness
Marie, he said, had died seven years ago, and ever since he hadn’t played the jukebox – ‘too painful’ – but now he was ready to bring back that moment and the jukebox was kaput.
Mark Stuckey, the audio expert, got stuck right in, and painstaking doesn’t come near it. Every little wire, switch, latch – and there were hundreds – had to be carefully pincered out, cleaned, pincered back. Meanwhile, Dom, the metal expert, restored the chrome work. No one is competitive. Everyone is helpful. Mark: ‘Dom, can you clean up this chrome for me?’ Dom: ‘I would love to do that. Thank you so much, Mark!’ And at the end, well, when Geoff was there and ‘D1’ was pressed…
Hitmen – which should be called ‘Hitwomen’, surely? – stars Mel and Sue in their first scripted comedy, and it’s surprisingly adorable
I was in pieces, as was the entire barn. You may say that’s not very cheering but it is because, along with any item, you’re also restoring memories that people don’t wish to lose. And there is so much humanity in that.
Hitmen – which should be called ‘Hitwomen’, surely? – stars Mel and Sue in their first scripted comedy, and it’s surprisingly adorable. Never been an especially big fan of the former Bake Off pair so that’s why I found it surprising, I suppose, and I did laugh a couple of times, which given that a killer virus is after me, has to be a result.
They play Fran (Sue Perkins) and Jamie (Mel Giedroyc), the hitwomen who hang out in a shabby van awaiting orders from their boss, ‘Mr K’.
In the first episode they had a lawyer with his hands tied and a bag over his head in the back, whom Mr K may want killed at any moment. Fran is struggling to find anyone who might come to her birthday party so Jamie suggests they have it in their van. ‘Go on,’ urges the lawyer, ‘now the adrenaline has worn off I’m pretty bored.’ Next scene, a little party hat tops the bag on his head. I laughed.
There’s also some decent character work – Fran is lonely and married to a gay Brazilian who only wanted a visa – and there’s a good joke in episode two when Jamie complains about her boyfriend. ‘It’s like having sex with a Shredded Wheat.’ And then he turns up and he’s super-hot. It was funny, I promise.
This has a tip-top supporting cast (Jason Watkins, Sian Clifford, Asim Chaudhry), and while it’s not essential viewing – it’s no Repair Shop! – it does pass the time nicely enough. Which is not to be sniffed at. At all.