Lego Masters review, Channel 4: More entertaining than it has any right to be

The series is like ‘Bake Off’ but with lots of polyethylene bricks; there is the same breathtaking imagination and mini-human dramas on display

The judges, Fran Scott and Matthew Ashton, with host Melvin Odoom (Channel 4)

Lego Masters is vastly more entertaining than it has any right to be. By the end, I found myself developing a hitherto unthinkable respect, indeed affection, for the Legoists, Legophiles, Legoteers… whatever they call themselves.

A knockout contest spread over five weeks, Lego Masters is like Bake Off, but with lots of polyethylene bricks. There are, in fact, the same mini-human dramas and sometimes breathtaking imagination on display as you get on the cakes show, and you cannot help but be enchanted by it all.

Eight pairs of contestants brick it, in all senses, and my favourite couple are husband and wife team Adam and Odette. They are Lego enthusiasts in the same way that Nigel Farage quite likes the idea of Brexit, or Adrian Chiles enjoys the odd pint.

Odette, about 32, explains the origins of their addiction: “A lot of our building started when we were planning for our wedding. I made a replica of the church and a bride and groom to go on top of the cake. Even the invitations said ‘all the pieces have come together’ and then you opened it up and it had us made up of Lego inside.”

They’ve found time to have kids, somehow, though the boy is named Emmet, after the Lego movie character. So, yep, Lego fans alright.

Such is their infatuation – with each other and Lego – that both of their show designs have a “love” theme. The first is a bridge that, unlike their love, sadly lacks the necessary structural integrity to survive stress testing. The second is a Lego “love room”…

“What would it be like if we had a humongous room, all to ourselves?” Odette asks aloud. Well, being so passionate, I guess they’ll furnish it with a vast bed, silk sheets, champagne on tap and a walk-in wardrobe of mildly fetishistic outfits. Lego crossed with Ann Summers would certainly be a novelty.

Instead, they give themselves a climbing wall, “secret entrance” and zip wire (which I hope are not Freudian references to their lovemaking techniques). It doesn’t impress judges Fran Scott (scientist/engineer) and Matthew Ashton (Lego exec).

And so the biggest Lego freaks out are the first out of the big plastic brick house. The tears bounce off the hundreds of Lego bricks and paraphernalia lying around, and that’s just in my front room.