While many will balk at the shoddy derivativeness of this Marmite series, it’s easy to marvel at the total garishness of its home ‘improvements’
Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr (BBC Two) is a Marmite programme, presented by a Marmite presenter. Some will loathe the dismal, shoddy, derivativeness of it all – it is Changing Rooms meets The Great British Bake Off, but so much worse than either show – and find themselves permanently incensed by the sidelining of expertise in favour of amateur cock-ups, as 10 aspiring interior designers compete to be the last one standing over a poorly conceived and badly executed project. Others will love it, for almost exactly the same reasons, except they will see it as a joyous celebration of raw talent with an invigorating competitive twist, without which there is no meaning to life anyway. You pays your money, I guess – albeit forcibly as this is a BBC production – and you takes your choice.
Normally, I am firmly in the “loathe” camp. This time round, however, perhaps because we are living in such strongly flavoured times that my brain-palate has become scrambled, I found myself swinging wildly between the two. The opening episode of the second series saw the wannabe masters paired up and required to decorate a bedroom and a living room fit for a new-build show house in Oxford. As usual, the action shots as they set to work sketching, paint-mixing and pointing are interspersed with emetic individual interviews, during which the participants say things such as: “I will always base my decisions on my heart,” and, “I’m a good designer because I know what I like and have an eye for things other people don’t normally notice,” and, “I’m going to put this chair in the sink because I’m very into chairs in sinks.” OK, not quite the last one, but give it time.
