This is now two TV reviews in a row - both from BBC 1. After the excellent new "Us" I'd like to say how much I Iike the recently discovered (for me) "Repair Shop". Idea is simple - people bring items old, damaged, worn out, but with a personal story behind them, for a team of experts to repair and restore.
This evening they ranged from bagpipes from WWI belonging to someone's grandfather, to a 17th century dining chair damaged apparently beyond repair, most recently by a teething puppy, to a crown from an Urdd Eisteddfod won by someone's grandmother when a teenager. A bit like "Houses Under the Hammer" (yes, sad, I know) there is a beginning, middle and end. The item is brought in, its story told. Then we observe the expert doing the work, and then there is the "reveal" when the owner returns to claim the shiny, whole item anew. And this is often accompanied by tears as the owner is often taken back to a particular time, or a particular person, usually deceased. Excellent format, with so many ingredients hitting the target. Part of it is the joy of watching top people doing their job - I particularly like the clockwork guy (above) and Will the furniture man (below).
There's something maybe a little deeper going on as well. Is it too much to see these stories of restoration as capturing all our wishes for renewal - of ourselves, our world, our Church? The BBC blurb describes the programme as "an antidote to throwaway culture". Pope Francis asked for the Church to be a field hospital. Do these women and men in their barn in Kent or Sussex hint at a God who can and will remake, repair, refresh us, if we put ourselves into His hands...
No comments:
Post a Comment