Lovejoy: Not bitter about axed show

Tim Lovejoy has said he was as shocked as anyone when Sunday morning show Something For The Weekend was axed.

"Generally people don't end things which are successful," said Tim of the show, a mish-mash of celebrity chat and cooking, which he co-hosted with Simon Rimmer and Louise Redknapp.

He isn't bitter though. "It's that really weird thing where it wasn't anybody's fault," he said.

"The BBC Trust had to cut budgets. That was their remit. So they axed the BBC Two daytime budget and no-one could do anything about it."

He and the rest of the crew found out about the decision before Christmas but they decided to keep the news to themselves. "It wasn't like we weren't allowed to tell anyone. We just didn't bother telling anyone," he said.

But then a trade paper leaked it and the furore began, including a huge Facebook campaign to try and save the show. "By then I'd got my head around the fact we weren't going to do another one," said Tim.

But in a turnaround worthy of all great TV sagas, Channel 4 stepped in to offer Tim and the programme's chef Simon Rimmer a new opportunity in the shape of Sunday Brunch.

"It was a brilliant phone call to get, to hear they wanted to sign me and Simon up. People have talked about our bromance for quite a long time," he laughed.

As for Louise Redknapp, Tim said it was her decision to leave the show. "She has so many commitments and she just wants to spend time with her family. Her boys are now playing football and she wants to take them there at the weekend," he explained.

:: Sunday Brunch is on every Sunday morning on Channel 4.