Mary Portas

You can’t help wondering what the millions of unemployed youth in Britain are going to make of Mary Portas’ latest show. In Mary’s Jobs For Life, the retail guru and TV personality Mary Portas acts as an advocate for OAPs and sets out to demonstrate that UK industry is lacking the skills and experience that only OAPs can bring to the workplace.

Channel 4’s Commissioning Editor Rich Evans told The Telegraph “I can’t wait to see Mary bring the agency to life in her own, inimitable style. She passionately wants to give the older generation the opportunity to go on providing the services and skills sadly lacking in today’s marketplace.” We’re sure she’s got a point but it’s safe to say that Mary’s Jobs For Life has the potential to spark some serious discussion, in a country with such huge unemployment rates and increasing numbers of young people making use of food banks, as they struggle to feed themselves on the benefits they receive.  

Having worked her retail magic in her previous Channel 4 series Secret Shopper and Mary’s Bottom Line, Mary’s new series aims to turn her hand to the recruitment of over-65s and trying to utilize their skills and experience in order to get them back to work. The show is due to be aired later in the year and is being made by Plum Pictures. 

Continue reading: Mary's Jobs For Life - What Will The Unemployed Youth Make Of Mary Portas' New Show?

Having not had a particularly prolific career in the spotlight prior to The Great British Bake-Off, the show really propelled Paul Hollywood's career and his popularity has now surmounted in a battle between Channel 4 and the BBC for his contract. Hollywood eventually chose the BBC over Channel 4, unlike Mary Portas, Hilary Devey and Jimmy Doherty who have all been given shows on C4 or one of its subsidiaries.

Hollywood's new contract with the BBC is reported by Metro to be around the £300k mark. It's not only the financial promise that makes the BBC the right decision, but judging by Channel 4 converts it's likely that his career wouldn't fly; Doherty's show was relegated to More4 and Portas and Devey's show had terrible ratings. Hollywood's new contract with the BBC includes not only a fourth series of the record breaking bakery show, which is co-judged with Mary Berry, but also his own show, flamboyantly named 'Paul Hollywood's Bread'.

When discussing this new show, he expressed his eagerness but also revealed the perils and health risks of bread-making: “I've been all over the country looking into the history of bread. I ended up concentrating on bread [in my career] because it was one of the hardest things to master. You're harnessing an animal – yeast... When you're manipulating and kneading the dough, it's such a release of stress. I'm paying for it now because I've got big problems with my neck and carpal tunnel syndrome in both my wrists.'

Continue reading: Great British Bake Off's Paul Hollywood Rejects Channel 4's Advances