All That Glitters: Britain's Next Jewellery Star, review: straight from the Bake Off production line
All That Glitters: Britain's Next Jewellery Star(BBC Two) has been trumpeted as the BBC’s sparkling “new jewellery competition”, with comedian Katherine Ryan in the Mel and Sue role of host and confidante to the contestants. It’s undeniably blingy, but the “new” part can’t be correct, surely?
Has it really taken until now for the BBC to transpose the Bake Off/ Pottery Throw Down/ Sewing Bee formula to the world of statement bracelets and bespoke pendants? Had someone told you All That Glitters was returning for its fourth or fifth season, and that Ryan was replacing Sandi Toksvig/ Gary Lineker/ Mr Blobby as face of the show, would you even blink?
Blame the déjà vu that hangs over a competent and intermittently engaging first episode on the “sameyness” of the format, then. Yet again a group of hopefuls from all walks of life and with all manner of interesting facial hair has been brought together to prove their mettle (their metal-work mettle at that ).
Tears are to to be shed, hugs exchanged. And each week Ryan – who has previous reality TV experience as presenter of BBC Two’s beauty salon slug-out Hair – will say something along the lines of “and one of you WILL be going home”.
There are also the traditional superstar judges you won’t have heard of: in this instance, Solange Azagury-Partridge and Shaun Leane. The cool and collected Azagury-Partridge’s jewellery has been worn by Jennifer Aniston and Gwyneth Paltrow.
However, the real attention-grabber first time out was Leane. He was constantly whipping out one of those little jeweller’s eyeglass thingies you see in films to better scrutinise a piece of gemwork. If there was such a thing as "fastest loupe in the west" it was he.
Two opening challenges were straight from the Bake Off recipe book. In the “Best Seller” round, the eight participants – all with a background in jewellery – had to design a trio of bangles for the the mass market.
This was followed by a “Bespoke” segment in which they were required to handcraft a pendant for a volunteer who was about to receive an MBE from the Queen for her work in foster care. In a wink to Bake Off, there was even a “Jeweller of the Week” accolade. You constantly expected Paul Hollywood or Noel Fielding to drift into camera shot.
The problem was that the absolute minimum of screen-time was given to actual jewellery design. Say what you like about Bake Off but at least you get to watch participants wade around knee-deep in cake mix. Here, toiling in a workshop in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter, the volunteers, hunched over their benches and huffed a bit.
There was no sense of peeking over their shoulders as they conjured magic from base metals. Nor was enough done to distinguish the contestants or flesh out their backstories. Sonny from London was a former footballer and personal trainer who’d learned jewellery design from the internet. Nicola from Hereford juggled jewellery with working as a special needs assistant.
They and their rivals were likeable enough yet didn’t bring much drama to the work-bench. And when the largely anonymous Naomi was announced as first to be eliminated, having underwhelmed in both rounds, it was hard to care.
As host, Ryan was committed though sometimes her gags felt pitched to the wrong register. Several rude jokes landed like zany knitwear at a funeral. And the judges didn’t know what to say when she declared, “You do the choosing, I’ll do the boozing”.
She will no doubt become better attuned to her surroundings across the remaining five weeks. But with its flat format and slightly ho-hum contestants, it’s hard to see All That Glitters rising above lustreless comfort stodge.