![Jay Blades explores the West End's wonders, from Pall Mall and theatres to Fortnum and Mason](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/tv/2024/07/12/TELEMMGLPICT000385327156_17207965853290_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqVLa3QPVTMHf7Wtw837j9bUikPYR0xYwuEBLwP9UFqPg.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Jay Blades: The West End Through Time, review: a treasure trove of trivia to delight pub-quizzers
The Repair Shop host is no Simon Schama, but nor does he pretend to be in this engaging trip through the capital’s rich history
![Jay Blades explores the West End's wonders, from Pall Mall and theatres to Fortnum and Mason](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/tv/2024/07/12/TELEMMGLPICT000385327156_17207965853290_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqVLa3QPVTMHf7Wtw837j9bUikPYR0xYwuEBLwP9UFqPg.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Back when I watched EastEnders – those early days of Den and Ange and Pauline Fowler – the characters would talk of going “up West” as if they were visiting another planet. Upon moving to London, I discovered that the East End and West End are only a few miles apart and a quick hop on public transport, so found it even more baffling. But in Jay Blades: The West End Through Time (Channel 5), the presenter spoke of it in just the same way.
“I’m an East End boy and I only grew up five miles away in that direction, but it was a world away,” he explained. “As a teenager, coming up West was always special.” This programme, following on from The East End Through Time and The Midlands Through Time, explained how and why the West End was established – its connections to royalty and the development of houses, shops and theatres which sprung up in proximity to St James’s Palace. Blades, star of The Repair Shop, readily admits that he is no historian, but instead spends time meeting historians who can give him the facts. He is learning these things alongside the audience.
It’s an accessible, affectionate portrait of the city, and an easy watch with no boring bits. Blades sidestepped the unlovely Oxford Street and instead delved into the origins of the West End’s most storied places: Savile Row, Hyde Park, and Fortnum and Mason among them. We’re not talking Simon Schama-level history here, more of a tourists’ guide to the place, but there were still plenty of things that I didn’t know despite living in London for 30 years.
There is a pump on Broadwick Street marking the spot where physician John Snow pinpointed a cholera outbreak in 1854, a discovery that changed the face of public health. Fortnum’s claims to have invented the Scotch egg. I had never stopped to wonder why Pall Mall is so named, but here was the answer: pall-mall was a game similar to croquet, played on the site in the 17th century.
The featured historians conjured images of 18th and 19th-century London. Highwaymen roamed Hyde Park, holding up carriages taking wealthy passengers to the theatre. Restaurants began springing up in London after the French Revolution, because French chefs no longer had French aristocrats to serve and came to England in search of employment. Blades listened attentively to all of this. “It’s almost as if you was there!” he told one historian who was describing the lavish dinner parties thrown by residents of St James’s Square.