The One Show: Baby snaps, jam jars and manhole joshing allow Corbyn to end the day in a better way

By the time Jeremy Corbyn relaxed into The One Show sofa last night he had swung through the highs and lows of almost a whole election campaign in just 24 hours.

The Labour leader was back to the relaxed and chatty character he had appeared as in his encounter with Jeremy Paxman the evening before.

What followed on the BBC’s prime time interview was a mixture of manhole cover banter, reminiscences about Corbyn’s parents and baby photo snaps as well as an attack on the “totally unreasonable” behaviour of the media.

Corbyn acquitted himself well throughout his gentle grilling from Alex Jones and Ore Oduba at the end of a day in which he had been pilloried over his non-answers on Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio Four.

The One Show was very different fare, however, and allowed Corbyn to show the genial style that close colleagues and advisors insist is the real him.

The insights were not exactly stellar but there were a few revelations as well as an enjoyable journey through the childhood of the man aiming to be prime minister at the end of next week.

His academic work was poor and, when he emerged from grammar school after a childhood in rural Shropshire, it was was just two E grades at A-level. His mother’s response to the results was, however, typically charitable, suggesting that the examiners “probably couldn’t read your handwriting”.

Corbyn’s parents, Naomi and David, met at a rally in support of the Spanish Republican government and went on to give the future MP what sounded like a pretty idyllic childhood.

When the presents flashed up a photo of a very young Jeremy, he grinned and grimaced in mock surprise. The little lad was, he admitted, “a bit free-spirited and I kept climbing out of the pram and running off”.

More seriously, Corbyn spoke with fondness of his childhood and praised his parents for allowing him and his brothers to “think for themselves, read for ourselves and be ourselves”.

In his later years Corbyn has refereed children’s football matches and Oduba, a former sports reporter, asked him whether the under-10s or the parliamentary Labour Party was easier to control.

“The 10-year-olds”, Corbyn replied. In this sofa-land of bright colours and even brighter joshing, there could only have been one answer.

There was still time for some quick questions which were concealed behind huge images of manhole covers, in honour of the politician’s passion for all things drains.

Of course, many of Corbyn’s hobbies – from Arsenal FC to manholes and allotments – are well-known to Labour activists but, to those disinterested voters who may not have engaged with him much beyond taking in those lurid tabloid headlines, it was insight into a man who came across as calm, genial, slightly old-fashioned and quintessentially English.

For the leader of the opposition it meant he could finish the day on a more positive note after after limping through a Woman’s Hour interview in which he failed to answer questions on the funding of Labour’s childcare pledge. “Kebabbed”, roared George Osborne’s Evening Standard last night.

Corbyn performed well on The One Show and looked calm and jovial, just as he did on the Sky News/Channel Four special the previous evening.

That the Labour leader rounded off last night’s BBC appearance by presenting Oduba and Jones with a jar of jam made with fruit from his own allotment tells you this was not the toughest of interrogations – but it was another hurdle negotiated and, as far as his team his concerned, will have allowed more of the public to see a glimpse of the man they know and love.