Jay Blades, the frontman of BBC’s The Repair Shop, has addressed fan concerns after his new series, Jay and Dom’s Home Fix, was announced. The furniture restorer believes the spin-off offers something the original show lacks: genuine banter.
Speaking about the new programme, which airs weekdays at 3.45pm on BBC One, Blades said: “What you’ve got with me and Dom on Home Fix is the real banter that sometimes we don’t see in The Repair Shop.” Co-host Dominic Chinea, also a Repair Shop craftsman, joked: “I put on a big act while filming it and Jay’s obviously believed it.”
Blades explained that the smaller team, partly due to Covid restrictions, made the show feel like “two mates problem-solving and muddling through work.” He added: “It’s almost as if you’re watching a live show because of the fun we’ve had in making this. What we’ve done to paving slabs is genius…”
The Repair Shop, which began with 16 episodes in 2017, now airs 40-episode series and drew seven million viewers for its latest Christmas special. Blades attributed its success to the emotional stories behind the objects: “When you hear the story behind them, and you hear the emotion, you cannot help but be part of that story.”
Jay and Dom’s Home Fix aims to inspire DIY with achievable projects. Blades noted: “Dom was building skyscrapers, and I said, ‘Dom, let’s tone it down a little bit with the tools. Just go back to a hammer, a screwdriver, a drill, maybe some glue.’”
