Just watching tonights programme and my admiration of skills of the restorers has been recorded before.Also commented on before about how Jay Blades hangs around doing nothing and taking the credit but tonight his totally inane questions of the visitors really is pathetic.Example,he asks a guy about why he wanted his Father’s naval equipment restored after 42 years,what difference if it were 142 years.
Jay Blades is in the first place the organiser of the entire show, in the second place the guy who gathers supplies etc, and in the third place just as skilled in his own trade, although he takes a back seat to the other artisans. What more do you want from him?
I wouldn't go that far :P But it made having watched them suddenly worth it. Knowing, more or less, what was about to happen was almost more tense than being totally surprised :)
Jay does and says what the director tells him to. He really does not get the supplies. The experts prefer their own suppliers and everything else is sorted by the production company runners. It is a TV set, the show is heavily edited and lightly scripted otherwise it wouldn't work. Jay is the only one that was invited to join the team without audition, the producers wanted him in that role from the outset.
"He is the glue that holds the show together". No, he's not. The person doing the voice-over 'holds the show together'. Jay Blades, that 'expert upholsterer', who never does any upholstering (or anything else) is a total waste of space who wanders around as if he's the proprietor, and basks in the warm glow of the fantastic, skilful artistry of those who do the actual work.
Brainiac @23.19 that was expressed far better than I could and I totally agree.Canary 42 I was just trying to make the point that if that man wanted the item restored what would it matter how long he had waited.Emmie he is not so much a restorer as an upcycler.
Also I think all the restorers are great especially Steve Fletcher and Will Kirk.Also,don't know their names,the ladies who repair the teddy bears and other soft toys seem to develop a real empathy with the people who bring the toys in.
It seems Jay Blades has a long history in furniture repair work.
Wikipedia:
// When Blades married, he and his then wife, Jade, set up the former High Wycombe-based furniture charity, Out of the Dark, that helped give disadvantaged youngsters practical skills in this area of northwest London//