Further evidence that the public cannot be trusted with a vote on a matter of national importance. First the European Union, now Amazing Spaces: Shed of the Year (Channel 4).
We’ve got to the workshops and studios category, and first up, in south London, is builder Michael. In the back garden of Michael’s suburban semi he’s built a beautiful latticed structure from offcut roof batten. It’s a studio for the art he does, also made from leftover bits and bobs, extraordinary colourful abstract creations inspired by the arte povera movement of the 1960s and 70s. The space is light and beautiful and unexpected, and it incorporates two trees. It is amazing. Can you guess which one I think should win?
Michael’s up against more obvious man-shed fayre. Like retired engineer John’s lawnmower museum, with the sign: “I fought the lawn and the lawn won.” And Stephen’s shed inspired by the gun turret of Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon – “Return of the Shedi”, says presenter Max McMurdo, inevitably. And an anvil enthusiast’s amateur forge shed … which only goes and wins the category.
Sure, it’s made from corrugated iron that once lined first world war trenches, which is good. But the structure itself is nothing special; inside or out, it hardly compares to, say, a beautiful organic tree-hugging, latticed arte povera studio … A travesty.
It’s marginally better news in the entertainment category. At least the miniature pub, made from two standard flat-pack sheds, doesn’t win it. There is something quite Brexit about a tiny pub, full of pub paraphernalia, defiantly flying the St George cross from the roof.
I’d have given it to the east London party palace, a sort of Shed 54 with a proper soundsystem and flashing disco floor, the creation of Chrissy Darling, who some people may remember from Britain’s Got Talent. But I’m not complaining about the lovely and picturesque fairytale forest cabin that takes first place.
It was made in the Tatras mountains near Zakopane in Poland by a Polish pal of the owner, then transported over and rebuilt. Well, maybe it will have to be sent back again now … No, it’s in Ireland, still in the EU. It can stay.
