SHANE WATSON reviews the weekend’s TV

Kirstie’s Christmas: Quick & Easy Craft 

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Who Wants To Be A Millionaire: The Million Pound Question

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Which Kirstie Allsopp camp are you in? Do you think she’s a bossy posho, whose frequently voiced opinions about life in general set your teeth on edge. (Sample: it’s disgusting to have a washing machine in your kitchen)?

Or are you more of the opinion that her jolly, can-do attitude is rather refreshing, and that if, in-between presenting Location Location Location and jumping in on Twitter, she wants to get stuck into Christmas craft programmes then, why not?

Which Kirstie Allsopp camp are you in? Do you think she’s a bossy posho, whose frequently voiced opinions about life in general set your teeth on edge?

And Kirstie does really get stuck into crafting (yes, it is a verb) during the course of Kirstie’s Christmas: Quick & Easy Craft (C4) with the assistance of her guests — including Phil from Location Location Location, a cook called Nancy and her florist sister Sophie. 

She’s one of those presenters who always appears herself and relaxed in front of the camera unlike, say, Nigella who looks like she’s listening to amusing stories on a hidden earpiece to get her through the ordeal.

In some ways Kirstie is the mumsier, less aspirational Nigella (if you discount the snowy chalet surroundings at the start of the programme). You won’t catch her quoting Ruskin, or talking about Gochujang chilli paste, only raving about the ease with which you can rustle up a faux neon reindeer sign and a mocktail.

Everything about this programme, as she repeats at regular intervals, is designed to be easy because ‘your time is precious’; whether it’s designing your own table mat, or decorating a Christmas card, it can all be done in ‘less than 45 minutes’.

Equally plummy was Judith Keppel, the first winner of the largest prize ever offered on TV, and ‘tax free’ as she pointed out with a twinkle on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire: The Million Pound Question (ITV)

That’s all very well but do you really want to spend even five minutes funnelling wax crayon shavings into a glass ball, then warming the ball with a hairdryer to make a stippled effect bauble (which, as Kirstie demonstrated, will almost certainly turn into a green gloopy mess).

Maybe if you love crafting there are some useful titbits in here (how about ice lanterns . . . perfect for outdoors if the temperature is below freezing). 

Many though will have watched it purely for the soothing feeling that there are people out there bumbling about their cosy houses preparing for Christmas with friends and family. 

Kirstie’s sister, Sophie, talked her through how to make a table arrangement with winter roses and when she pointed out that Kirstie had these flowers in her own front garden Kirstie looked blank and then chuckled.

This was pure Allsopp. Jolly, chummy, far too busy to notice the flowers in her garden . . . but not too busy to make a programme about crafting.

Equally plummy was Judith Keppel, the first winner of the largest prize ever offered on TV, and ‘tax free’ as she pointed out with a twinkle on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire: The Million Pound Question (ITV).

Everyone remembers Judith not because she was the first, but because she was such an unexpected contestant: an elegant upper-class garden designer with nerves of steel worthy of the head of MI6.

It was exciting reliving the moment with her, now in her 70s. ‘I got the slightly insane feeling that I was going to gamble,’ she said, and she did.

The stakes were lose £468,000 or win £1 million on the question, ‘Which king married Eleanor of Acquitaine (answer Henry II)’. On the night, the glitter bomb didn’t work and her daughter Rosie sobbed for both of them.

It was a happy ending.