The Marvellous Miniature Workshop (BBC 1)
Nostalgia isn’t really about the past. It’s more like a hopeless homesickness, the longing for a place you didn’t miss until it vanished.
Ray Davies of the Kinks summed it up in the 1982 hit Come Dancing: ‘The day they knocked down the Palais,’ he sang, ‘part of my childhood died.’
That demolished dance hall might be the ideal subject for Sara Cox’s new afternoon crafting show, The Marvellous Miniature Workshop. Each half-hour episode sees a lost location recreated in precise detail, no bigger than a doll’s house.
The first was perfectly chosen — Crumpsall public library in Manchester, an Edwardian edifice with towering stained glass windows. Once a hub of learning and literacy, it has stood derelict for 17 years, a shell with no roof and no purpose.
To retired social worker Leah, the library had extra significance. She met her first boyfriend there when she was 14. ‘After 20 minutes of talking to him, I knew I was going to marry him,’ Leah said. The couple were together for 61 years before his recent death.
That sweetly touching story sets the template for this series. The Marvellous Miniature Workshop delivers an ambitious twist on The Repair Shop, tapping into our memories to release the emotions.
Sara Cox holding up a miniature room with small plants, a table and a guitar
A miniature 1960s hospital is among many of the things reconstructed by Sara’s team of model-makers
One of the miniature models of a finished library shown on the BBC 1 show
Instead of fixing a tattered teddy or broken bicycle, Sara’s team of model-makers consult archive photos as they reconstruct a place from the past — a 1960s hospital, a colliery, a schoolroom, even a former family home.
The format could easily be extended to fill an hour at primetime, with two builds per episode. It would be a mistake to attempt three, though, because the pleasure of the show is in its careful slowness. To rush it would spoil everything.
Miniaturist Hannah Lemon began by making the library walls from fibreboard. For a minute or two, as she painted the bare frame with primer, it seemed as though this might be a bit of a Blue Peter project, all cardboard and sticky-back plastic.
But Hannah’s deftness and skill were quickly apparent as she created a parquet floor from strips of wood barely bigger than matchsticks, before painting the stained glass onto clear plastic with a toothpick.
The finished model was an exact replica at 1:24 scale, complete with hand-painted wallpaper and tiny chairs upholstered in cheerful fabrics. Dozens of books lay on the varnished tabletops, and newspapers hung on the racks.
Hannah took such pains with detail that the 3,000 volumes on the shelves each had realistic covers, even though these couldn’t be seen.
‘You can practically hear the librarian shushing,’ marvelled Sara. She meant it as praise, but the remark highlighted what was missing — the people.
Nobody was browsing the shelves, or queuing to pay fines on their late returns. This was Crumpsall library after closing time, which seems rather sad, since it will never open again.