Restoration ???
The trailers for the Channel 4 series ‘The Restoration Man’ started a while ago, but I’ve only just caught up on watching the first couple of episodes. I quite enjoyed the last series George Clarke did, but was a bit wary about him jumping on the Grand Designs bandwagon and messing about with old houses. The thing that really stuck with me from that last series was the amount of Bi-Fold doors that got used. Virtually every show that I saw had them in. I started wondering whether he was getting a backhander from whoever made them, and checked the credits. And there was a bi-fold door company in the credits! *
So I was interested to see if the same would happen in his restoration jobs. I even posted a reply to Charlie Brooker’s @YHBW show on twitter suggestion they should look at it. The chances are pretty slim though, as I must have been in a period where my writing was severly lacking in detail and clarity: “@YHBW – if it’s on the same time, that house bloke who’s doing old places this time. See how many end up with bi-fold fucking doors.” Now, I’d get that, obviously, but I suspect I’d be in a rather small group.
The two episodes so far of “The Restoration Man” are on 4oD, so I watched them back to back to see if I was right. There was no mention of bi-fold doors in either show, and none in the credits, but I’m fairly certain that there were a load of the things themselves in the first show. The program was alright, but basically Grand Designs lite. George didn’t actually seem to do much, apart from the odd suggestion which the homeowners then ignored, and telling them how great it was at the end whereupon he presents them with a book of the history of the job, and the building prior to that. If anything, the guy in the second show who swung between ruining and renovating and old church is far more deserving of the title ‘restoration man’. He did the job virtually single handed, sourcing largely from ebay, and not a bifold door in sight!
The actual restorations didn’t look all that sympathetic to me, the one in the first episode in particular. I guess you need a certain combination of drive and ego that verges on madness or megalomania, so I just don’t get the desire to turn an old wreck into what is effectively a modern house with an old fashioned skin, with everything against you, ignoring all the much better value houses that are for sale with none of the traumas attached. Each to their own I guess.
I might revisit the styles of presenters these days some other time, but George Clarke seems to have been to the same training course as the rest. A lot of politicians have also spent some time at ‘whatever your point is, wave your hands about a lot’ college. Other things are more likely down to the program makers, and the presenters just get made to look like muppets. In episode one, doing the final piece to camera at two cameras, then using the footage from the one you aren’t looking at? Madness.
* As I’d remembered it from months ago watching the shows originally, I thought there was a stronger link to the bi-fold door people, but it was a thanks at the front end of the credits, along with other suppliers.
They had a fair hit rate though, considering some houses wouldn’t have worked with them:
Series 1 – 2 of 6
Series 2 – 6 of 11
