When is Lee Mack's The Chop on Sky History -- pics, teaser and Q and A
Hosted by comedian Lee Mack, TV Presenter Rick Edwards and Master Carpenter William Hardie, The Chop: Britain’s Top Woodworker sees 10 of the country’s finest carpenters compete against each other in a competition to be crowned 'Britain’s Top Woodworker'.
Here are the guys on a Zoom chat. It promises to be chip of the old block, and other such cliches.
Lee Mack: Put for me….See previous. That's the fact side from Rick. Now let me put an entertainment spin on it. The Chop features contestants who are passionate about their woodworking skills and produce beautiful items that Will and Rick judge, along with a celebrity guest judge each week. There are some fantastic team challenges as well as individual tasks and unlike Rick who was mainly in it for the money, me and Will have a passion for the subject matter.
How would you sell the show in five words?
Rick Edwards: Woodworking competition with historical bent.
Lee Mack: I can do it in two words…See previous.
What were your roles on the show?
Lee Mack: I wasn't as hands-on as Rick and Will, they would live and breathe the show. I would pop in occasionally, sit by the campfire and see how things were going on. I was like an onlooker rather than being in the eye of the storm. I also do the voiceover which was good fun because I could say anything I liked about them and they couldn’t do anything about it.
Will Hardie: I found myself at the other end of the spectrum. The really nice things about this project was how involved I was from the very start, visiting locations, designing the cabins and all the tasks. My other role on the show is as judge. I thought I was there to help people out wherever I could, but then apparently judges aren't really supposed to do that.
Rick Edwards: My main thing was just to hold the whole thing together and to be the person who gets to ask Will what all the funny woodworking terms mean that I don’t understand. Effectively, like the voice of the viewer who knows nothing. But also the thing with Will is that he gets so involved that he wants to help everyone at every stage and I'm there to tell him to stop helping.
What are the three attributes that make a good worker?
Will Hardie: It’s the relationship between the heart, the hands and the eye that make a good woodworker. If you’re very good with your hands but you have no eye, you won’t be able to make a beautiful thing. If you can design a beautiful piece but you don’t have the skill to make it, you’re also going to fail.
What’s your earliest DIY/woodwork memory?
Lee Mack: When I was younger I did woodwork at school. I once made a clown's face that was given very low marks by the teacher. My teacher’s comment was that ‘my ambition was praiseworthy’, adding, ‘it's very complicated if somewhat a too complicated design’. And this is probably something I've taken into the rest of my life. I try and over complicate things, even this answer has turned out to be over complicated…
Rick Edwards: Like Lee, I did a bit of school but just the sticking bits of wood together with little triangles of cards. Though my Mum did evening classes and made a telephone table and it was in our house for years. She did some great dovetail joints.
Will, who do you think the best woodworker Lee or Rick?
Will Hardie: One of the great inspirations for me for coming on the show was the fact that I truly believe that anybody could become a woodworker with the right encouragement, with the right energy and attention given to them, and through working with Lee, and Rick, I can say categorically, I was wrong.
Lee Mack: I've worked for a living before going getting involved in all this show business. Rick strikes me as a man that literally just stepped into it with a lucky break. Rick hasn’t got the hard hands of a worker that I have.
Who was your most memorable contestant and why?
Lee Mack: I liked all of them but the one that I was fascinated by was Annie, from the Isle of Wight. She was physically the smallest and she had such a strong presence and she was brilliant.
Rick Edwards: For me Ollie because he had a really interesting journey. He had a very fixed idea of the kind of stuff he could make and he kept making that very competently but he struggled to tap into his creativity. And when he did in the end, it was amazing. It took quite a long time for him to gain the confidence to put himself out there and take that risk.
From a technical perspective who was the most interesting carpenter on the series?
Will Hardie: Annie was a real surprise in that she created, really delicate, beautiful, refined furniture. Someone who always really intrigued me was Jack.
Jack was kind of the happy go lucky character that seemed to be just sort of cruising his way through the whole process. But I really had a sense that he is incredibly flexible and smart, and could actually produce the most amazing things. With Jack and a couple of other contestants you just wanted them to reach their full potential because you knew it was there.
Each cabin is inspired by a different historical period. Which is your favourite and why?
Rick Edwards: The mid-century Mad-Men-style cabin was my favourite because I really wanted a load of the stuff that got made. I'm still furious I didn't get any of it.
Lee Mack: I liked the Gothic treehouse because I like the idea of all my children sleeping in the garden.
Will: The Napoleonic Admiral’s Cabin. Just because it pointed towards the incredible history of woodworking on both land and water.
The Chop: Britain’s Top Woodworker premieres on Sky HISTORY Thursday 15th October at 9pm
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