The Repair Shop Cast 2025: Current Experts, Departures & Updates

Few TV workshops feel as comforting as the one inside The Repair Shop, but the faces around the bench are changing more than most viewers realise. Jay Blades’ 2024 exit left the host’s chair empty, while BBC listings for Series 15 confirm that Dominic Chinea, Will Kirk, Sonnaz Nooranvary and Lucia Scalisi are carrying episodes as part of an evolving expert roster.

Original air date: 2017 ·
Original host: Jay Blades (2017–2024) ·
Core restoration experts: Will Kirk, Steve Fletcher, Dominic Chinea, Suzie Fletcher ·
Number of regular cast (incl. producers): 9

Twelve entries, one pattern: the same craft positions keep appearing across BBC listings and press guides even as the individuals rotate — Prima’s cast guide (UK lifestyle magazine) maps the regulars by specialism.

Who is the current cast of The Repair Shop?

Main restoration experts

• Dominic Chinea (metalwork), Steve Fletcher (clocks and watches), Will Kirk (wood and furniture), Sonnaz Nooranvary (upholstery), Kirsten Ramsay (ceramics), Lucia Scalisi (paintings), Brenton West (silversmithing and antique photography), plus Amanda Middleditch and Julie Tatchell (vintage toys) — the full regular craft team tracked by Prima’s cast guide (UK lifestyle magazine).
• Suzie Fletcher (leatherwork) appears in the BBC’s own Series 14 compilation credits alongside Chinea, Scalisi, Burville, West, Kirk and the toy team (BBC’s official programme page for Series 14).
• Rebecca Bissonnet (textiles conservator) and Chris Shaw are credited in a November 2025 Series 15 episode, with Bissonnet restoring a Jamaican trunk (BBC’s official programme page for Series 15).
• Dean Westmoreland and Charlotte Abbott appear in an October 2025 Series 15 episode, confirming the barn is also adding names viewers may not recognise (BBC episode listing for October 2025).

The 2025 line-up reads like a master class in preservation: wood, metal, clocks, leather, ceramics, paintings, textiles, toys and upholstery are all covered by named specialists, and recent episodes carry six or more experts apiece.

Prima’s cast guide describes the established expert team as a ten-strong group covering metalwork, horology, carpentry, upholstery, ceramics, paintings, silversmithing and toy restoration, and notes that camera specialist Pierro Pozella is a newer addition to the barn.

Prima, UK lifestyle magazine

Presenter role after Jay Blades

No permanent host has been announced as of early 2025, and the BBC’s recent listings give top billing to the experts instead. For viewers who started watching because of Jay Blades, that is a real change of tone.

Who has left The Repair Shop?

Jay Blades (2017–2024)

• 2017 – Blades becomes the show’s original host when the series premieres on the BBC.
• 2024 – He leaves after a seven-year run, making him the only confirmed main-cast departure.
• 2025 – The BBC has not announced a permanent successor.

Blades was the public face of the barn for seven years, which is why his exit still dominates the conversation around the cast. The programme itself has moved on — the 2025 listings simply carry on with the experts at the centre of each episode.

Other departures and absences

• Dean Westmoreland: despite fan reports that he had left, the BBC’s October 2025 Series 15 listing includes him, so his absence was temporary at most (BBC episode listing for October 2025).
• Dave Burville and Pierro Pozella: the organ builder and the camera specialist both appear in press guides without being weekly regulars — Burville has been seen repairing a harmonium, while Pozella is described as a newer expert to the barn (Prima, UK lifestyle magazine).
• No other long-term cast member has officially left the series.

The catch: departures from The Repair Shop are easy to overstate because the guest rotation makes absence look like an exit. So far, the only confirmed goodbye is Blades’.

Why is The Repair Shop ending?

Official statements from the BBC

• The BBC has not published an end date, a final series announcement, or a cancellation notice for The Repair Shop.
• Series 15 episodes were still listed through autumn 2025, including a November 2025 episode with Chinea, Bissonnet, Kirk, Nooranvary, Ramsay, Shaw, West and Scalisi (BBC’s official programme page for Series 15).

The “ending” rumours trace back to the host change, not to any scheduling decision. A cast shake-up can feel like the beginning of the end, but the BBC’s schedule tells a steadier story.

Current status of the series

• The Repair Shop: On the Road is narrated by Bill Paterson and features Dominic Chinea, Steve Fletcher, Will Kirk and Kirsten Ramsay (BBC Originals programme listing).
• Series 14 compilation programmes still credit the full core team, from Tatchell and Middleditch to Chinea, Scalisi, Burville, West, Kirk and Suzie Fletcher (BBC’s official programme page for Series 14).
• Series 15 continues to air through late 2025 with a rotating expert list (BBC’s official programme page for Series 15).

The BBC’s Series 15 listing for November 2025 identifies Rebecca Bissonnet as a textiles conservator restoring a Jamaican trunk, and credits Dominic Chinea, William Kirk, Sonnaz Nooranvary, Kirsten Ramsay, Chris Shaw, Brenton West and Lucia Scalisi as the episode’s experts.

BBC programme page (the broadcaster’s official listing)

Are Julie and Amanda in Repair Shop a couple still?

Julie and Amanda’s on-screen roles

• Julie Tatchell and Amanda Middleditch are toy-restoration experts, specialising in vintage bears and soft toys (Prima, UK lifestyle magazine).
• The BBC’s Series 14 compilation credits them together restoring a mechanical doll (BBC’s official programme page for Series 14).

Their partnership is professional: they work as a two-person soft-toy and doll restoration team, and the BBC lists them as a pair.

Off-screen relationship clarification

The confusion is easy to understand: The Repair Shop sells emotional intimacy, and a duo who finish each other’s sentences will always attract speculation. The clarification, for the record, is that the pair are friends and teammates, not partners.

The implication: the show manufactures the kind of closeness viewers want to believe in — and sometimes the audience writes a love story the producers never filmed.

Who actually owns The Repair Shop?

Is the repair shop a real business?

• The barn workshop is a television set built for the BBC, not a high-street repair shop that takes public bookings.
• The experts are specialists who appear in the programme; none of them owns the set, the format, or the programme itself.

This is a common point of confusion because the show looks so lived-in. The workshop is a production location, and the people around the bench are craftspeople doing the work on camera — not proprietors taking orders.

BBC ownership and production

• The Repair Shop is produced by BBC Studios, with the programme’s 2025 spin-off, On the Road, also sitting under BBC branding (BBC Originals programme listing).
• Casting decisions, commissioning and the format itself remain with the BBC, which is why the cast can change without the show collapsing.

The trade-off: because the BBC owns the format, the workshop survives any single contract. For viewers, that means the cast can change — but the show that made them famous keeps running.

The Repair Shop cast timeline

• 2017 – The Repair Shop premieres on the BBC with Jay Blades as host.
• 2024 – Jay Blades leaves after a seven-year run; the host role remains unfilled.
• October 2025 – Series 15 episodes list a rotating expert team including Dean Westmoreland and Charlotte Abbott (BBC episode listing for October 2025).
• November 2025 – A Series 15 episode credits Rebecca Bissonnet, Chris Shaw and Lucia Scalisi alongside the core cast (BBC’s official programme page for Series 15).
• 2025 – The Repair Shop: On the Road launches with Bill Paterson narrating (BBC Originals programme listing).

The pattern: the timeline shows a franchise in transition, not decline — one departure, one spin-off, and a widening pool of specialists.

What’s confirmed and what’s unclear

Why this matters: most of the “what happened?” drama around the cast is circulating where the evidence is thinnest. The confirmed record is small — one host exit, one continuing production — and everything else is still open.

What the records say

The BBC’s Series 15 listing for November 2025 identifies Rebecca Bissonnet as a textiles conservator restoring a Jamaican trunk, and credits Dominic Chinea, William Kirk, Sonnaz Nooranvary, Kirsten Ramsay, Chris Shaw, Brenton West and Lucia Scalisi as the episode’s experts.

BBC programme page (the broadcaster’s official listing)

Prima’s cast guide describes the established expert team as a ten-strong group covering metalwork, horology, carpentry, upholstery, ceramics, paintings, silversmithing and toy restoration, and notes that camera specialist Pierro Pozella is a newer addition to the barn.

Prima, UK lifestyle magazine

The record is consistent: the same core names anchor the show across different BBC listings and press guides, while the edges of the roster stay flexible.

The takeaway

The Repair Shop is not the same show it was when Jay Blades first walked into the barn in 2017 — and that is the point. The host’s chair is empty, the expert roster is wider, and a spin-off is already on the road. For fans, the choice is clear: keep following the specialists who actually restore the objects, or wait for the BBC to settle the presenter question and decide whether the new, quieter format holds. For the BBC, the stakes are equally concrete: the show’s survival now depends on the same craftspeople who built its reputation, not on the name above the title.

Frequently asked questions