How The Repair Shop will go on without Jay Blades: Presenter's co-stars are ... trends now

Jay Blades' now estranged wife Lisa-Marie Zbozen sensationally announced last week that she had left him amid a time of personal crisis for the star.

Fitness instructor Lisa walked out on Jay last weekend, saying their 18-month marriage 'just got worse and worse, until I grabbed a bag of a few things and I left'.

And just a week before his marriage split was confirmed, Jay revealed that his uncle Richard Brathwaite had been killed. 

It all came as Jay, 54, was expected to be back filming the hugely-popular BBC show The Repair Shop but has reportedly been absent on set this week as he is 'taking a break' from TV. 

Filming has now been thrown into chaos due to his absence, according to a new report. 

His co-stars - fellow furniture restorers, horologists, metal workers, ceramicists, upholsterers - are said to now be 'hard at work' without him on the show.

These include horologist Steven Fletcher who has been with the show since its early days and is The Repair Shop's resident clock expert and his sister leather expert Suzie Fletcher.

A source told The Sun: 'Jay has taken a step back and is having a break from filming The Repair Shop. His uncle's murder in March and the breakdown of his marriage means he has decided to take some time out'. 

'The Repair Shop is carrying on without him for now and the other repairers are hard at work. People who worked with Jay said they were shocked to hear his marriage to Lisa had ended.

'It was not well known at all among the people who work on the show.'  

Jay's absence has also bought filming on The Repair Shop's Christmas special to a halt which was meant to be completed this week.

Last week the Mail On Sunday revealed that the furniture restorer and host had told bosses he would not be able to take part in planned recording, sparking 'genuine fears' the special episode may not be finished.

Filming had already begun at the Weald & Downland Living Museum in Chichester when Jay pulled out, sources on the hit BBC programme revealed, with work suddenly put on hold last Monday.