‘A treasured possession that has seen better days’: work,respect and co-operation at The Repair Shop

Abstract

The Repair Shop, is distinctive in the landscape of reality lifestyle television as it refuses any element of competition. The programme features a team of skilled craftspeople who use their expertise to restore an object that has no (or very little) monetary value, but which carries emotional weight for the members of the public who bring these items for repair. The damage done to an artefact is repaired through the cooperative work of skilled craftspeople. The Repair Shop indicates how television might work to offer alternatives to a culture of cutthroat competition and monetisation; while it is undeniably utopian, it does offer the possibility of a culture in which craft labour is valued and respected and provides a representation of a workplace in which cooperation rather than competition produces the best results.