The history of home improvement (aka style) programs on television is a potentially fascinating one. In the 1960s the vogue was for practical advice, with experts such as Fanny Cradock and Barry Bucknell offering viewers the chance to improve their culinary and/or DIY skills. In subsequent decades Delia Smith and others continued the tradition of upholding the Corporation's public service remit to educate and inform as well as entertain.
The Eighties saw a sea-change in the way such programs were planned, as directors realized they could be repackaged as entertainment. Series such as FOOD AND DRINK made stars of Jilly Goolden and Oz Clarke, who were obviously experts in their chosen field (wine- tasting), but managed to come across as eccentrics, to be admired for their verbal and visual quirks as much for their knowledge. The age of the style-celeb was born. In subsequent decades, a plethora of series on gardening, cooking and DIY made stars of so-called gurus such as Charlie Dimmock, Anthony Worrall-Thompson, Ainsley Harriott and Laurence Lllewelyn Bowen, while at the same time involving hordes of contestants who could be simultaneously astonished yet appalled by the results of the stars' handiwork.
The result, as a cursory glance at the BBC's schedules will show, is that style programs now comprise a major part of most daytime and early evening fare. THE GREAT British BAKE-OFF is just the latest hit, following in an august tradition established by READY STEADY COOK, CAN'T COOK, WON'T COOK and others.
Sadly THE HOUSE THAT 2 BUILT fails to do justice to the richness of the material. Mel Giedroyc's narration remains irritatingly jokey throughout, and the program's treatment of past programs suggests an inability to take them seriously. Fanny Cradock is dismissed by Dame Esther Rantzen as an eccentric; her invaluable contribution to people's cooking lives is studiously ignored. The program also makes some superficial comments about the interaction between politics and media: Thatcherism apparently produced a radical increase in the number of style programs, as viewers took advantage of the opportunity to purchase their own houses from their local authorities and subsequently decorated them. This might be true, but DIY as a recreation was highly popular well before the Iron Lady came to power in 1979.
It seems that directors cannot make such series without being jokey - almost as if they lack confidence in the historical material to speak for itself. This is a shame, but perhaps someone in the future will take the plunge and adopt a more even=handed approach.
