The full line-up of presenter, designers and DIY expert for Channel 4’s new version of the iconic ‘90s and ‘00s home-DIY series Changing Rooms has been confirmed. Joining returning Changing Rooms favourite Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen to give the show a fresh lick of...
Channel 4 announce new factual commissions.
Channel 4’s Features team today announced a raft of new series commissions which will air from later in 2014 and into 2015. Lead by Head of Features and Daytime Gill Wilson, her team of Features commissioning editors – Nick Hornby, Lizi Wootton, Stef Wagstaffe and...
Phi & Kirstie: The Ant & Dec of the property market.
I turned 30 this weekend. 30! How did that even happen? There should be laws in place to protect people from such things. Reaching such a milestone (or millstone) caused me to ponder the amount of different houses and places I'd lived in my life. I worked out (checked...
Kristie Allsopp to transform homes for free
Channel 4 will challenge property and interiors expert Kirstie Allsopp to transform homes without spending a penny. A staggering 10 million items of furniture are binned every year and clearing up the household goods that Brits throw out on the street costs the...
TheCustard chats to property expert and Secret Agent Phil Spencer
Thursday sees the next episode of the new prime time series from property guru Phil Spencer. Phil Spencer: Secret Agent sees Phil comes to the rescue of homeowners desperate to sell their homes. It's an idea that was first introduced as part...
Why I Love: DIY SOS: The Big Build
I’d say I’m a man in touch with his emotions. I don’t cry at films, I was one of the people willing the Titanic to sink so that it would ruddy finish! I don’t often get moved by music (though I often come close to tears when I hear a DJ announcing they’re going to...
Kirstie’s Homemade Home, Channel 4
Did we like it? The queen of capitalism (and piggie-faced Tory supporter) delivers a protectionist manifesto dressed in a lousy, gimmicky handy hints format as she suggests we avoid buying foreign muck and instead make our own tat or go back to the make-do-and-mend...
Country House Rescue, Channel 4
Did we like it? The problem with insolently corrective shows such as Country House Rescue is that they slip seamlessly into a pre-prepared mould of: imminent catastrophe without salvation through help of expert; cantankerous resistance to change; proof that the expert...
Country House Rescue, Channel 4
Did we like it? An enjoyable but not memorable beginning to Ruth Watson's Channel 4 career after her big-money transfer from Five's The Hotel Inspector. What was good about it? • There's something about Ruth we like a lot. We think it's the way she holds her neck....
The Planners Are Coming, BBC1
Did we like it? Another one of those cheap schedule-filling reality documentary series that BBC1 seems to love. Well-made but pointless. What was good about it? • The charming Fabien Bernard-Gaudin, the senior planning officer in north London's Barnet council, who...
Kevin McCloud and the Big Town Plan, Channel 4
Did we like it? Urban planning and modern housing is becoming a larger issue in the UK with designers and architects seeking to find ways of improving living conditions and society in general. This experiment in Castleford backed by C4 should be an interesting series...
House Guest, ITV1
Did we like it? It has exorcised the most vulgar contrivances of Come Dine With Me and replaced them with a cheap substitute of an overnight stay for one guest. But the removal of much of the sneering and guileless one-upmanship of Come Dine… may have neutered its...
Grand Designs Live, Channel 4
Did we like it? Grand Designs is a great programme, with its gentle music and peaceful pace. So we were shocked and disappointed that this was such a noisy, cluttered mess that has devalued Kevin McCloud as a TV presenter and severely dented the Grand Designs brand....
Home, BBC2
Did we like it? Laughing at people who are so up themselves they are on the way back down was amusing for a little while, but this rag bag of an interior design magazine was a muddled mess. What was good about it? • Ha ha ha, let's have a good laugh at Jane Reed,...
Restoration Village, BBC2
Did we like it? A quaint little voyage around some of the country’s more dilapidated architectural curios, only tarnished by a slight sense of aimlessness. What was good about it? • Griff Rhys Jones’s unbounded enthusiasm. If his words were little lion cubs joyfully...
Anthea Turner: Perfect Housewife, BBC3
Did we like it? We were expecting to resist the reinvention of Britain's most washed-up TV star as Britain's most perfect housewife as if we were stubborn stains on the Aga but she swept us up like fluff on the patio and we ended up admiring a rather sweet little...
Would You Buy A House With A Stranger?, BBC3
Did we like it? Not that much. There are so many of these contrived reality shows nowadays that it's a buyers' market. The idea is reasonable enough: a first-time buyer picks from three other people hoping to get "a foothold on the housing ladder" to join them in...
The Best And Worst Places To Live In The UK, Channel 4
What to say if you liked it Our favourite TV pairing – Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer – get to rate and slate places around the UK in a fast-paced entertaining hour of telly, showing us picture postcard heaven and satellite-dish scarred hell What to say if you...
Streets Ahead, Channel 4,
What to say if you liked it Sarah Beeny leads a contemporary crusade to liberate the oppressed streets of Britain from dishevelled doors, putrid pebble-dashing, glaring graffiti, protruding porches and woeful walls and at the same time unite disparate, isolated...
HouseBusters, Friday
What was it about? Ghostbusters meets Changing Rooms with a bit of Blue Peter thrown in. What to say if you liked it A fascinating look at why some houses feel cold and uninviting and make the people who live there very unhappy. What to say if you didn’t like it. A...
The Block, ITV1
What to say if you like it: TV's best two genres – reality shows and home makeovers – come together in a perfect blend of primetime entertainment. What to say if you don't like it: Tut, you've 'ad some cowboys in 'ere. You need the demolition squad, not builders....
Lost Buildings Of Britain, Channel 4
What to say if you liked it: It's nice to watch a Channel 4 documentary that hasn't been sexed up so much that it should really be on Men & Motors. I can't wait for the remaining five parts on a Glastonbury monastery, the Palace of Whitehall, Nottingham Castle,...
Get A New Life, BBC2
The Davies clan from South Wales seem to have good reason to move to the hot environs of southern Spain. Brian Davies, 46, had spent 24 years working as a school caretaker and was in need of a change, while his 43-year-old wife Alison suffered from depression and her...