Better Homes

Contents

Host

Carol Vorderman

Co-hosts

"Handy hunks" Adrian and Neil Rayment

Broadcast

Granada for ITV, 1999 to 2002

Synopsis

Game shows are so un-Karl Marx, aren't they?

Consider this - two houses get done up for television and the one that puts on the most value after the renovation wins the owners an additional £5000 (or, in the latest series, a family holiday). So that's a done up house, a more expensive house and £5000, all for taking part in a game show.

The totalitarian regime of Carol 'Ubiquitous' Vorderman oversees ITV's very own version of Changing Rooms but without the obvious personalities and eccentricities of the BBC's designers this show, for us at least, lacks appeal.

I mean, it's some people doing up a pair of houses. Why do you people watch this? There's little of the hilarity of the owners not actually liking their new rooms as occasionally happens when Laurence Llwelyn-Bowen is let loose in Changing Rooms and it just seems far less watchable.

In addition, the point of having a winner is completely... pointless, particularly as the families do next to nothing to influence the outcome (how quickly people forget The National Lottery Big Ticket).

Of course, we don't like the show and yet it's one of ITV's most popular. Sigh. Pass the gin.

Key moments

They insisted on playing short bursts of the hardly-catchy theme music every five seconds!

Merchandise

Carol Vorderman's Better Homes

Trivia

Carol's "Handy hunks" Adrian and Neil Rayment went on to become mega-famous as the twins in two parts of The Matrix trilogy. If that's not a shift up the career ladder, we don't know what is.

Web links

Official ITV site

Pictures

Picture 1 - Carol gets touched up by the twins.
Picture 2 - Carol gives the twins a sort of coat they're not in need of right now.

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