CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: After a polish, All That Glitters is a sparkling jewel in the TV crown 

All That Glitters: Britain’s Next Jewellery Star

Rating:

A Farm Through Time 

Rating:

Many a true word in jest, and all that — Katherine Ryan was right when she joked that the semi-precious stone Malachite sounds like the love child of two reality stars.

‘No, Malachite!’ she snapped, in an Essex accent, imitating a stereotypical Love Islander. ‘It ain’t nice to bite people, babe!’

Any of the budget gemstones seen in All That Glitters: Britain’s Next Jewellery Star (BBC2) would be ideal for celebrity offspring.

If Katie Price doesn’t already have daughters called Tanzanite and Tourmaline, she wishes she did. And the next generation of Kardashians ought to be Kunzite, Kyanite and Khooni Neelam.

Cash is tight on BBC2, and the eight eager jewellers were working with chippings barely bigger than the diamond on the tip of a turntable stylus. Former English teacher Nyanda dropped hers.

Convinced she’d never find it and her efforts were ruined, she ran away from her workbench in tears.

Presenter Katherine got down on her knees to search, but it was found by a judge Shaun Leane.

Their keenness to help out, and the way contestants were expected to assist rivals, marked a change from the slightly aggressive competition of the first series. All That Glitters suffered an erratic launch last year, but it just needed a little cut and polish.

Thankfully, Katherine has ditched the political jokes, and kept the innuendos to the odd barbed aside.

The role of the judges has been amplified, with more expert commentary. That’s crucial: most of us can enjoy Bake Off or Sewing Bee, because we all like cakes and wear trousers. But without some guidance, we’re unlikely to know whether a chain has been well soldered or a bezel setting firmly fixed.

One simple but effective addition is a staircase of podiums where the judges can place the ‘bestseller’ pieces in order, from the top step to the bottom.

The ‘bespoke’ round salutes local heroes. This time, children’s charity founder Hannah Simnett was rewarded for her mentoring organisation, Cherished, with a necklace cut into the shape of her name.

Syrian refugee Steve, who said he learned his metal-working skills in the Jungle camp in Calais, looked like an early favourite for the final.

Instead, he was the first to be sent home, after his chain fell off. ‘Technically, it’s not a necklace,’ said Shaun. 

Tianne-Louise, originally from East London, used cartoon-like bubble letters in her design. ‘I figure if she’s born in July, she might be bubbly,’ she reasoned.

That set me wondering whether there might be a good gameshow in astrology. 

Each week, players would try to guess the star signs of mystery celebs, based on clues about their lifestyles. Professor Brian Cox could be head judge. Let’s call it Stars In Their Skies.

There’s not much future in a gameshow inspired by traditional farming methods, though historian Ruth Goodman made a brave try at it on A Farm Through Time (C5). 

While she worked a Victorian corn threshing machine from the Industrial Revolution, farming brothers Rob and Dave Nicholson set to work with medieval flails.

Like a stroll around a National Trust property, this show offers plenty of diverting glimpses into the past. We watched a blacksmith at work, and saw bunches of grapes in a glass house, grown from a cutting brought back after a 19th-century aristocrat’s Grand Tour to Italy.

But the best sequence followed a young shire horse, Blossom, learning to pull a plough . . . though she’s still at the practice stage, dragging a tractor tyre. ‘There are fewer shire horses in the world, than there are giant pandas,’ said Rob. What a glum statistic.