Written by Fran Withers and Ian Edwards Six years ago on 27th March 2017, a brand new and very different show made it’s debut on the BBC - The Repair Shop. The show is produced by Ricochet, and it had a low-key start - a three week run as an afternoon show on BBC2. It was swiftly recommissioned and by series 4, in 2019, it had switched to BBC1. A Christmas special attracted 5.5 million viewers, which prompted schedulers to give further series a peak-time slot. The show was devised by Ricochet’s creative director, Katy Thorogood, after she had a chair restored that was owned by her late mother. At that time Jay was approached to appear on BBC’s Money for Nothing, and then invited to present The Repair Shop. The idea for The Repair Shop was simple - experts skilled in various crafts pool their talents and resources to restore heirlooms and treasured antiques to prove that anything can be restored to its former glory. As Jay says “I knew from early on that it was going to be something really special. Bringing so many different craftspeople together in the same building is an unusual concept, but a refreshing change.” The show is filmed in the Court Barn at the Weald and Downland Museum in Singleton, West Sussex. The Repair Shop also uses the adjacent buildings, which are called The Wagon Shed and Stables and is where Dom normally does metal work. The very first episode saw Steve and Jay tackle a timepiece with huge sentimental value for its owner Jane Fanner. Her late father, who was completely blind, made the clock himself, but it hadn’t ticked or chimed since his death. Will Kirk tested his carpentry skills on a 50-year-old wooden flying fish that may have been carved by a descendent of one the mutineers from HMS Bounty. Accordion expert Roger Thomas wrestled with an 80-year-old instrument that was played in the bomb shelters of London during the Blitz. The general concept of the show has not changed at all in the six years since it started; incredible stories of pieces of history that have been given a future, along with powerful owner stories which make the show moving and bring the repairs to life. As Jay says in the forward of ‘The Repair Shop: Tales from the Workshop of Dreams’ book “No matter how damaged, there is always a way to brings the things you love back to life .. There are the compelling stories attached to each item which range from romantic and sentimental to downright terrifying. Well worn objects can be a symbol of courage, a memorial to an ancestor or a reminder of a way of life that few know .. History teaches us how lessons from the past can arm us for the tomorrow .. Everyone has a story to tell. For those who can link their family history to a symbolic object, we at The Repair Shop can play a role in its retelling. We feel privileged at becoming part of that history” It is a multi-award winning show, and the viewing figures show an average audience figure of 6 million people, around one-tenth of the U.K. population. Some astonishing fact and figures11 regular experts featured 58 guest experts featured (and counting!) 12 series aired to date (totalling 262 episodes, excluding extended/re-edited versions) 329 overall episodes aired to date (inc extended versions) As of 27th March 2023. Episodes aired by BBC only, excluding re-runs on Quest etc.
Other BBC episode airings 60 minute versions - 30 episodes aired In 2019 and 2020 a series of extended and re-edited versions of series 4 episodes were shown in prime time. Each episode has an additional, previously unaired, repair item added to them, for a total of 4 repair items per episode. 30 episodes aired in total; episodes 23 and 27 of a stated total of 32 were listed but have never been aired) These initially ran on BBC Two at 7pm in a one hour time slot, with those episode receiving repeat runs on BBC One at 8pm. This was following the show receiving a move to BBC One, beginning with 2019 Christmas special which was aired half-way during series 5. Series 5 extended versions - 20 episodes aired In 2021 and early 2022 a series extended and re-edited versions of series 5 episodes were shown in prime time, on Wednesday evenings at 8pm on BBC One. Unlike the series 4 '60 minute versions', these episodes consisted of repairs selected from the series 5 run, all of which had previously been aired. 20 episodes aired in total in this one hour time slot. These episodes featured repairs previously aired as part of series 5 in the weekday daytime slot, the first half of that series also having first aired on BBC Two. As such these prime time airings were many viewers first chance to see the repairs featured. Fixing Britain - 15 episodes aired Aired in July 2020 on BBC One in the weekday daytime slot. It consisted of 15 episodes featuring 3 repairs each. Fixing Britain was created during the first period of COVID lockdowns, when new content could not be shot for any TV programme. These episode consisted of 3 repair items selected from across the 6 series aired up to that point, each episode being linked by a theme. Unlink the main series which is narrated by Bill Paterson (series 1 and series 5 to present) and Robert Pugh (series 2 to 4), this series was narrated by presenter Jay Blades, adding a more personal touch due to his direct involvement with the series. Other BBC airings Series 2 45 minute versions In 2019, due to its growing popularity, series 2 received extended versions with a 44 minute duration instead of the original 29 minutes. They were re-edited with some previously unseen footage added. Series 3 and 4 shortened versions These 2 series have received re-edited cut-down versions with a shorter 29 minute runtime instead of their original 44 minute duration. Note these are NOT counted within the episode total, as they a shorter re-runs of previously shown episodes, with no previously unseen content. Reference sources:
Royal Television Society article by Roz Lawes -June 2020 The Repair Shop: Tales from the Workshop of Dreams - publisher (c) BBC Books 2020 BBC website The Repair Shop episode page The Repair Shop Guide
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How Love, Kindness and Community Helped Me Repair My LifeReview of the audiobook as narrated by Damian Lynch. By Ian Edwards
An added bonus of listening to the audio version is that at the very end we are treated to a 15 minute question and answer session, between narrator Damian Lynch and the man himself Jay Blades. A lovely touch which added some extras insights.
My copy was obtained from the Apple Book store as it was the cheapest option at the time; priced at £7.99, less than the hardback book option. It is also available from Audible and other suppliers of audiobooks. I have since obtained (kindly gifted) a copy of the hardback version also, which was invaluable to flick through while writing this review. Actor Damian Lynch is an excellent narrator. Whilst listening to him reading Jay's words you sometimes forget you are not listening to Jay himself. He is very well chosen to tell his story and captures Jay's humourous jovial tone very well. Jay presents us with an inspirational story of overcoming hard times and beating the odds, when his life could have taken a very different turn very easily. He is very open and honest about his life, not shying away from shining a light on the mistakes he's made along the way. The book is written in a conversation style and Jay's voice is apparent in every word, whether listening to the audiobook as I primarily did, narrated by Damian Lynch, or in the printed word. That is partially because it was written with ghost writer Ian Gittens, due to Jay's severe dyslexia. I have not been able to find out for sure, but I feel sure the book is based upon extended recorded conversations between Jay and Ian; Ian effectively transcribing and organising his words. Jay's life seems to have began in a place of relative calm. They were not well off by a long way. However Jay, his half-brother and his mother accepted their lot and were fairly content for a time. Absent from this set up being his father, who has never been a part of their life except to take from them. He seemingly spread his seed without care, fathering 26 children and not feeling he owes them anything. Jay has no time at all for this man who contributed nothing to his life, except occasionally negatively. Being his father only in biological fact he cannot bring himself to call him 'dad', instead humourlessly referring to him as T.M.W.C.T.M.B. - the man who contributed to my birth. Sperm donor or seed spreader would have perhaps been more succinct! The point is taken - it is important to Jay that he not repeat his father's mistakes and be a better man. His relatively sheltered innocent youth in Hackney however was not to last. From his time at secondary school onwards he is rudely introduced to racism and violence against himself and his friends. Violence which he fights back against and returns in spades through explosions of violence of his own, which gain him a reputation. Jay tells these stories with expletives interspersed, which while somewhat surprising at first given the TV Jay we are familiar with, are perfectly natural and only serve to draw you in and make you care what happens to him more. Being dismissed as stupid by teachers due to their failure to understand his dyslexia, he is placed in the lowest stream of pupils. Attending school became days of fighting and eating free dinner, including extra puddings earned by dealing with bullies for others. He cannot recall learning a thing in his time there. As a young adult he's faced with institutionalised Police racism and brutality on one side and National Front racist violence on the other. It's important to stress here that Jay is not at all "playing the race card" as some critics might off handedly say. He is merely relating the blunt reality of what took place. I see no reason why he should cover up the truth to make people more comfortable. It's an important story which needs to be heard, one which is all too relevant today. Jay recounts how as a young man he worked as a labourer and in factories, before spending a short time as an office junior for a model agency. This is a position he seems to have mostly blagged his way into, under-informed and treating his interviewer as equal, despite having very little in common on any level. It shows confidence can get you through! He seems to have quite enjoyed this time, the photographers expertise including developing in the dark room opening his eyes to creative arts for the first time and inspiring him. Of course he also enjoyed being around the female models. He makes no secret early on of the fact he very much had an eye for the ladies, rather too much to his own detriment, when at times during his life romancing only one woman at a time was not enough for him. He has had 3 significant relationships over the years resulting in a child with each, all of which ultimately fail - he accepts blame for much of this happening. Jay is aware of the uncomfortable comparison as regards his father's failings. However despite the relationships all ultimately failing, Jay is a part of all 3 of his children's lives and contributes to them ongoing. In his thirties, despite suffering severe dyslexia leaving him unable to read and write, Jay gets himself enrolled at university in High Wycombe studying Criminal Psychology, aided in submitting his application by his landlady and a local librarian. This would change the course of his life in numerous ways. The course itself and the understanding he gained from it would lead to his eventual future endeavours, helping disadvantaged young people from falling into crime. He also meets Jade who will become his partner both in life and in business. Crucially she also helps him tackle his dyslexia. An appointment is set up in London with a specialist and he is at last diagnosed, and begins to get much needed help. He gains a computer system which was a boon to him, reading his course work aloud to him and allowing him to dictate his essays for submission. Jay, who left school with zero qualifications, ultimately leaves university with a degree in Criminal Psychology. Jay's life took an ironic turn around the year 2000 considering his having been hounded and beaten by racist Police in his youth. While volunteering for youth organisations, the Police Chief Superintendent in Oxford recruited Jay to help with a review of Police interactions in four deprived areas in Oxford to improve race relations. This led to Jay and Jade forming the charity Street Dreams to great success. In turn they set up Out of the Dark, to train disadvantaged people in furniture restoration. It was during this time that Jay and Jade's marriage broke down. Jay describes himself as the ultimate repair job or fixer-upper and it is at this point in his life he needed it the most. He sees his marriage breaking down as his failing, and his pain and anguish leads to suffering a mental breakdown. He tells how he just walks out one day, and drives with no clue where he was going. He disappeared for days with little recollection of what he was doing, making local headlines. Ironically he was pretty much saved by the man, Gerald Bailey of Diffusion, who would get him the job on Money For Nothing , setting his life and career on it's present course. Which brings us virtually up to date with talking about The Repair Shop. As the subject which brings us all here, I found myself reading (listening to) the entire book up to this point somewhat in anticipation of this point eventually being reached. I was also mentally reconciling the man I'd got to know through his words with the man we are familiar with from his jovial TV persona. Nevertheless when Jay began talking about how the show came to be, and offered his own perspective as he related some well known owner stories and their item repairs, I was still blindsided by it to the point of tears. It's not hard to see why Jay was chosen to front the show, when just him just talking about them is so moving. Jay's story is above all one of kindness being empowering. Of kindness being shown to him, when he needed it the most in return. Essentially, put goodness into the world and see it returned in kind. Kindness is the defining trait which uplifts him in his work to this day, runs like blood through the veins of all the shows he fronts not least The Repair Shop, and is ever present in his frequent social media posts. My review is but a summary of a few of the key events Jay shares with us. If you have not already done, I highly recommend you experience Jay telling you his story in his own words. If reading is something you struggle with doing, whatever the reason (mine is physical comfort, concentration and simply time), I highly recommend the audiobook option. Take in Jay's words while doing the housework, driving, other manual tasks etc. Better still lay back and relax and get lost in his world! The main updates needed were to bring it up to date, to include up to the end of Series 4, with the release of Series 4 Vol 2 from various outlets. Notably Amazon Prime Video seems to be lagging behind, with them still only have up to Series 3 to date. I also checked and updated accordingly all of the pricing, which is correct up to publication today. This will be checked regularly. Ways to watch The Repair ShopThe Repair Shop is primarily broadcast on BBC One, the home of the show. They vary between broadcasts of new episodes and re-runs of relatively recently seen ones. The show currently has two recurring timeslots ongoing, as below:
Weekdays: Late afternoon daily Monday to Friday airings, usually 4:30pm. This slot usually shows new episode runs, occasionally re-runs of previously seen shows. Episode usually run 45 minutes in duration. Prime time weekly: The other major timeslot is once per week in a prime time evening slot, usually 8pm. This slot has on occasion aired new episodes, however it is usually reserved for re-edited hour long versions of episodes previously aired in another form in the late-afternoon weekdays timeslot. As such for many viewers, the weekly 8pm is the their first time viewing the repairs which some other viewers may dismissively regard as repeats. The Discovery owned channel Quest also shows episodes of The Repair Shop in the U.K., which as per the nature of the channel are older re-run episodes. An ideal opportunity to re-watch or a first chance to see for some viewers who have got into the show more recently. (Being a commercial channel, unlike the BBC broadcasts they will have advertisements, sponsorship bumpers and channel ident logo etc inserted.) Episodes are available to catch-up on via the Discovery+ app for around a month following their most recent broadcast. Purchasing episodes to keep: Viewers are able to purchase on download from all U.K. versions of the major providers (I'm unable to test in other global regions); that's Apple Store, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube and Google Play Store. All of them offer single episodes purchases as well as entire season purchase at a bundle price. Most providers offer standard definition (SD - 480 lines) and high definition (HD - 1080 lines) resolution versions. Given the beautiful filming and location of the show, I would absolutely recommend the HD versions for aminimal amount extra, often on £1 more. The show is also available to buy on physical media in the form of DVD, limiting it to SD only - sadly the market isn't really there to justify blu-ray releases in HD (I'd buy them though!). Re DVD region coding: It should be noted that DVDs are region locked to region 2. As such any purchaser outside of the U.K. and the rest of Europe (check locally), will need to own a DVD or blu-ray player (which can also play DVDs) capable of region 2/multi-regional playback. For example North America inc Canada are region 1, Australia and New Zealand are region 4. Below is a Wikepedia link with further information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code Ian Edwards 18th July 2021 How it came to be.The Repair Shop Guide is the website that as a fan of the show taking on admin of the group 'The Repair Shop - Friendly Fans' I wanted to use as a resource - only to find that it did not exist. The information I sought either wasn’t available at all, or was scattered across multiple often contradictory websites. So I decided to create it!
Doing so turned out to be quite a research project. I soon realised that there was no definitive list of when any episode first aired, the BBC The Repair Shop episode guide being the most helpful, but still only giving the most recent broadcast not the original air date. Turning to other popular web resources often yielded more confusion that help. The Wikipedia page is woefully incomplete and out of date, while IMDb's records of the guest expert appearances was proved to be plain wrong on more than one occasion. The 60 minute versions were their own mystery. While it may seem obvious now, determining exactly how many series there were and where the 60 Minute Versions fitted into this took some time to pin down. I soon enough realised that the 60 Minute Versions were listed as a completely separate format by the BBC, and I in turn would treat them as such. It transpired that they were - and continue to be exclusively to date - all re-edited series 4 episodes which had originally aired with 45 minute durations and a 3 featured repairs. The new episodes have a previously unseen added extra repair, and as a result the entire episode is re-edited. In some cases elements of the repairs previously featured in a series 4 episode are removed for time to allow for the new repair's running time as needed. The other puzzle to solve is which series 4 episode correspond to which 60 Minute Versions - they are also random in their order! This is but scratching the surface of the initial creation effort the website represented, something in hindsight I wish I'd blogged about at the time. Fran Withers came on board with writing for the site, having shared it with her a soon as I had it to enough of a bare bones state enough to be show what I intended. She took ownership primarily of writing for the experts sections while I focussed on getting the episode guides, while not completed to my satisfaction at least in a launch-able state. Her efforts made and continue to make this website being as good as it is possible, and continue to be very gratefully appreciated. The website is an ongoing labour of love project for both myself as website creator/writer/researcher, and Fran Withers as writer and co-researcher. It is an ongoing project to continually improve it and update it with latest information. The Episode Guides in particular are added to regularly with sets of screenshots and information as each episode is aired on BBC One. There are many episodes from the earlier series which will in time receive screenshots and expanded episode information to get them closer to the state I've had in my head from day one. I’m working through these ongoing and I’m going to make a sterling effort to get this done by the end of 2021. Yes, you can hold me to that in 2022! (I think ahead!) Ian Edwards January 4th 2021 Today, Tuesday January 5th 2021, we are re-launching The Repair Shop Guide, which is our group The Repair Shop - Friendly Fans website and a fan’s companion to the show. The launch includes a series of TRS Guide celebration posts on our Facebook group.
As part of the re-launch, the Experts section has been completely overhauled and re-made, both the Regular Experts and Guest Experts, to look much better and (hopefully!) be much easier to navigate using photos of the experts rather than text. You now navigate to the expert record of your choice by clicking or tapping on a image of that expert’s face. In the case of the Guest Experts, this in turn jumps to a completely separate page in the same browser tab for that expert. In the case of the Regular Experts, a new image navigation tool has also been added to the top of that page, which jumps down the same page to your chosen expert’s record. Whenever you select any expert, the web address will update to one you may copy and paste, and one which links directly to that specific expert’s information. By the way as well as their own records, Julie and Amanda have an image featuring them both which gives you a web link to them as “The Teddy Bear Ladies”. So why the make these changes now? In short the former Guest Experts page had grown large to the point of becoming hard to manage as a Weebly website editor. I’d also never been very happy with the text-only nature of the expert navigational selector, and wanted to make something easier for visitors to use based upon images of experts they recognised but perhaps could not name. The Guest Expert section is a source of pride to us, featuring as it does details about folk who don’t get credit anywhere else. It has grown pretty large featuring 46 distinct expert records for 50 different people involved. Without boring you with too much technical info, the original version was created as a single long page, with navigation at the top of the page in the form of expert name and their field of expertise. This then jumped down the page to the part containing that expert’s record. At the beginning this worked fine. However the more a page grows the harder it is to manage, with frequent automatic page refreshing happening. This often drops you at a random place on the page, requiring repeatedly re-locating where you were. It can become a labourious and a painful process doing a fairly simple process. The moral of the story is it's better not to create pages which are very long, especially where they have multiple images and image galleries. I have spent since before Christmas 2020 re-creating the Guest Experts section completely using a blog style format, with a unique post for each experts. This meant a great deal of of copy and pasting and a lot of formatting to get it looking good. However with the bulk of the work previously already done, it was mostly a manual task and a matter of time management and finding time to concentrate on it. The actual blog part is hidden from navigation. The website visitor sees a new front page featuring large thumbnail images of every expert, with their name and speciality in a caption. Clicking on the image of an expert takes them to the corresponding blog post for that expert, and gives a custom URL which can be shared which links directly to that expert. The Regular Experts page has not been completely re-made, however a fair bit of work has been done to bring the formatting into line with that of the new Guest Experts section, and to generally make it look nicer. However a photo thumbnail navigation has been added to the top of this page to match that of the new Guest Experts page. Being a relatively short page with fewer expert records to showcase, it remains a single page with the image click or tap jumping down the page to the relevant section for that expert. This also gives a custom URL which can be shared to the Facebook group or elsewhere to link directly to that expert record. In conclusion: We hope you continue to use and enjoy the website. If you have any feedback including the look and feel and how intuitive or not the site is to use, ideas of sections you’d like to see, please drop me an email at: [email protected] Ian Edwards 5th January 2021 |
Ian EdwardsAdmin for the Facebook fan groups The Repair Shop - Friendly Fans, and Detectorists Series dedicated to the BBC Four comedy Detectorists. Archives
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