Is there a lovelier bunch of people on television than the gang on The Great British Sewing Bee (BBC1, Tuesday)?
The Bake Off lot would sell their granny’s soul for a Hollywood handshake and The Traitors are not to be trusted, obviously. But for sheer above and beyond niceness, it has to be the Bee team, led by judges Esme Young and Patrick Grant and new host Kiell Smith-Bynoe (him off Ghosts).
The show has been going for 10 years now and it still doesn’t seem a series too long. Maybe it’s the joy that comes from being able to run up a dress in an hour, or knowing what a godet is: whatever the reason, it is working.
Among this year’s intake are an 84-year-old and a 74-year-old. Together with Young, “about 75” says Google (I love that Esme is giving the tech behemoth the runaround), Bee has one of the oldest demographics on telly.
Whether it’s Don the retired physicist with his socks and Birkenstocks combo, or Esme and her statement necklaces, the older DDF (dedicated followers of fashion) always come off well. Bee is one of the few programmes to cotton on to the fact that people over 50 don’t dress like their grans and grandpas any more.
As we saw in Imposter: The Man Who Came Back from the Dead (Channel 4, Monday-Wednesday), Nicholas Rossi often favoured a three-piece suit and cod Churchillian hat for his many Scottish court appearances fighting extradition to the US.
Due in large part to Rossi’s determination to give everyone the runaround for as long as possible, it took forever to get him on a plane out of here. This four-part documentary had a similar disregard for viewers’ time and patience. No lead was left unchased, no detail spared, which normally would be a good thing. This was a fascinating tale with a satisfying twist at the end (and the story is not over yet), but it was in sore need of an editor to get it into shape.
READ MORE Scotland's Home of the Year back with dream abode that started with a salsa
READ MORE A TV match made in paradise
For more TV coverage please subscribe here
Insomnia (Paramount+, Thursday) sounded like it should have been a Hitchcock film but it wasn’t. The old master of suspense did, however, use the title for one of his Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV potboilers. This 2024 drama about the curse of sleeplessness veered more towards the “Presents” than the “Psycho” end of the scale.
Vicky McClure played Emma, a lawyer who has everything - great job, big house with massive kitchen island, 2.4 kids, husband a furniture designer - but she cannot get a good night’s sleep no matter how hard she tries. Her mother was the same, and as we see in flashback, that ended badly for all concerned.
Insomnia was handsomely shot and McClure, trying on a glamorous look for size - I don’t think I’ve ever seen a McClure character with combed hair never mind blow-dried - was her usual watchable self.
Trouble is, scenes of someone walking around a darkened house unable to sleep are not naturally gripping. Indeed, they tend to send viewers to sleep. Flashbacks to Emma’s childhood were used to liven things up but these scenes looked like they had wandered in from a B movie.
It has taken a while but I have finally warmed to Rob and Rylan’s Grand Tour (BBC2, Sunday). What a guddle of a programme it is. The idea is that we follow TV presenters Rylan and Rob Rinder (you’ll know them when you see them) as they follow in the footsteps of Byron on the grand tour.
So it’s a travelogue with yet another celebrity duo on holiday at the licence fee payers’ expense? Sort of.
An arts show? They do look at paintings, yes. But then they also chat a lot about their recent respective “painful divorces”.
So it’s a self-help, Eat, Pray Love kind of deal? You’re getting warmer. Chuck some gay history in the mix, some attempts at dating, and you’re almost there.
It is certainly molto cheesy, with Rinder cast as the aesthete to Rylan’s Essex wide boy, who wouldn’t know his Botticelli from a hole in the ground (“Oh my God, it’s real,” he says, standing in front of the Birth of Venus in the Uffizi, an image he usually associates with the Bananarama song).
Just as Rylan discovers his inner Simon Schama and finds he rather likes art, so Rinder takes on a little of his pal’s confidence and determination to seek out the joy in life. A twin transformation, that’s handy.
The whole show lollops along, somehow managing to be informative, moving, and sweetly funny as it wends its merry way towards hour’s end.
The last part of the tour is next week when television’s latest odd couple rock up in Rome. Typical, you start to like something and that’s it, finito. The whole series is on iPlayer though, and by the looks of things another series will soon be on the way.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel