See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred SourceBy CHRISTOPHER STEVENS, TV CRITIC Published: 23:11 BST, 24 June 2026 | Updated: 23:14 BST, 24 June 2026
The Repair Shop (BBC1) Rating: Four out of five stars The schedules are all over the place. Emmerdale's on after the watershed, EastEnders is bouncing around like a rubber football, and BBC2 is even more stuffed with repeats than usual.But one show is sacrosanct. Even World Cup mania cannot displace The Repair Shop.This gentle, unchanging series has become an immovable fixture on both primetime and daytime BBC1 over the past nine years. Other, flashier shows, including MasterChef and Strictly, have been buffeted so badly by scandals that at times it seemed they could not continue.The Repair Shop has not escaped all the unpleasant controversies that have hung around the BBC like a foul smell for so long. Its original presenter, Jay Blades, left in 2024 and is currently on bail awaiting trial on two rape charges as well as a charge of controlling or coercive behaviour.But his departure seems to have barely caused a ripple in the barn. Expert restorers Dominic Chinea and Will Kirk now share the hosting duties, and others who once toiled silently in the background, such as leather worker Suzie Fletcher and her brother Steve, a clock mender, have gradually come to the fore.The reason for its endurance is simple. The Repair Shop is rooted in a culture that no one can quite define but everyone recognises: old-fashioned British values. Pictured: Teddy bear experts Julie Tatchell (L) and Amanda Middleditch (R) sewing a teddy rabbit Steph (L) and her daughter Alison (R) at the barn with their World Cup Willie teddyThat was typified, not by the England vs Scotland football banter (which felt fake and forced, given the show was pre-recorded) but by a musical moment.Three amateur performers from a Lancashire ukulele club called the Barnhowlers brought a homemade drumkit in for repair. Built from a washboard, a couple of tin cans and the brass hooter from a pre-war car, the contraption stood on a rickety stand and was in imminent danger of falling apart.Even the steel thimbles on percussionist June's gloves kept flying off. It's difficult to imagine many people outside the UK would know how to play a washboard, but to the Barnhowlers, it's a classical instrument. Easiest fix of the week: ‘Cor, that’s a lot of police,’ gasped a paramedic on Ambulance: Code Red (Ch5) as he arrived at the crowded scene of a crash caused by a pothole. Think of the cost, human and financial — and how cheap instead it could be to mend the holes. As always, it was both soothing and interesting to watch the restorers getting down to business. With each spot of damage identified and rectified, it was possible to imagine all the minor accidents incurred by the washboard over its lifetime — something equally true of the Olympic rower's prized oar, brought in by his grandson, and the battered hat treasured by conservation campaigner Abbie.The most touching story arrived with World Cup Willie, a stuffed toy lion, whose owner, Steph, took him to every one of England's games in 1966, with her fiance Chris. Tragically, he died from asthma less than two years later.But the real stars were the Barnhowlers, who delivered a lively rendition of George Formby's Leaning On A Lamppost with their rejuvenated washboard. Most of the restorers knew all the words . . . and if you're a regular Repair Shop viewer, I bet you did too.
