LEGO Masters Judges Matthew And Amy Talk Celebrity Christmas Special

LEGO fans can feel extra festive this year as Channel 4 are releasing a special episode of LEGO Masters in the UK!

Last airing here in 2018, the show is coming back with a one-off Christmas special that will see four famous faces – Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Scarlett Moffatt, Sophie Duker, and Alex Horne – take on a series of LEGO challenges.

Host Nish Kumar joins judges Matthew Ashton (Head Of Design, LEGO Core) and Amy Corbett (Creative Design Lead) to see what the celebrities create – as you can imagine, chaos ensues.

We caught up with Matthew and Amy to discuss all things LEGO Masters and what fans can expect from the upcoming holiday special.

Channel 4

ZAVVI: I want to talk about LEGO Masters. For those who don’t know, how would you sum the show up?

AMY: It’s a fun-filled show where we give teams challenges, asking them to make awesome creations using LEGO bricks. It’s as simple as that!

MATTHEW: Amy and I are the judges which is a lot of fun, but it can also be a little tricky sometimes because the builders create incredible stuff. Having to pick and choose between them isn’t necessarily easy.

Channel 4

ZAVVI: Is that your favourite part of the show – watching their creations come to life?

MATTHEW: What’s impressive to me is that everybody gets the same brief at the start of each challenge, but their imaginations come to life meaning they all create something entirely different. That’s always fun seeing what they come up with.

AMY: It’s always fun watching from the sidelines as the bricks come together, the ideas start to take form, and something that seems abstract in the beginning comes to life. It’s especially magical if there’s some big reveal at the end.

Channel 4

ZAVVI: You see so many wonderful creations. What is your highlight on the show so far?

AMY: It’s a bit like choosing a favourite child, but it’s easier to pick a favourite challenge. From the U.S. show, I really love the fashion challenge where the teams made hats and walked down the catwalk with them.

MATTHEW: There are some challenges that had a lot of interactivity such as fairground or crazy golf ones, where the builders have to incorporate movement into them. There’s also cute storytelling elements, the way they set up Minifigures to tell a story is great. I like it when we can interact with the builds ourselves.

Channel 4

ZAVVI: The Christmas special is coming… what can we expect from it?

MATTHEW: We have some really exciting fun guests taking part including pop princess and kitchen disco star Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Gogglebox’s Scarlett Moffatt and her family, as well as Alex Horne and Sophie Duker from Taskmaster.

AMY: It’s a really fun family show with great Christmas challenges! Both us and the teams got into the festive spirit. Also, going from celebrities who love LEGO and maybe build sets at home to suddenly being in the studio with the pressure of the clock, it’s fun to watch. They are very competitive and all want to win – there’s even a little bit of sabotage, but all in good fun.

ZAVVI: I’m intrigued to see Alex in action as normally he sets the tasks!

MATTHEW: We have turned the tables on him for sure and he gets very competitive!

Channel 4

ZAVVI: Will you be as harsh as usual on the celebrities when it comes to the judging?

AMY: Oh we have to give them the full LEGO Masters experience! So we don’t go too easy on them…

MATTHEW: We try not to be Scrooges with our judging at Christmas but we have to be strict! But they are good too! Sophie and Scarlett both came with their families, so it was great to see how the younger members contributed – in most cases they were the ones guiding the build and coming up with the ideas.

Channel 4

ZAVVI: Of course you are designers yourselves but would you say that you learn from participants on the show?

MATTHEW: Everything they do comes as a surprise to us but there are sometimes building techniques that are different to ours, which is interesting. What is great about LEGO is that it’s putting the same bricks in different people’s hands, letting their imaginations go wild.

AMY: I think that’s especially true with Nice Part Usage (NPU) – the celebrities were really good at using pieces in surprising ways as they didn’t have the same limitations we perhaps have of using a system of thinking.

AMY: Likewise with strength – when people are trying to build something strong, they go for totally wacky out of the box ideas that we think should never work, but somehow there’s a magical ingredient there that holds it together. We often get surprised!

MATTHEW: And of course we have surprises in store for them too, there will be twists throughout that challenge them.

The LEGO Masters UK Christmas Special airs on Christmas Eve at 7.25pm on Channel 4.

And if you are ready to build like a LEGO Master yourself, enter this competition to be in with a chance of winning incredible prizes.