This is a relatively ancient show but I’d only just discovered it. It’s remarkably durable, the only thing giving away its age being a certain earnestness (plus the fashion – including the cars). I bookmarked it for some reason this year (I’d been looking for documentary) and finally got around to watching it when I was sitting with a friend on the couch and needed something to fill in time. He’s young and hasn’t bought his first house yet.
I thought he’d enjoy it. I did though normally I don’t watch ‘Grand Designs’. I’ve watched on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s main channel a show about making gardens, so when the opportunity arrived to use my OTT service for what, in the end, it’s designed – to compensate for a temporary lack of good commercial TV – I was immediately drawn into ‘Build a New Life in the Country’.
I found myself happy and surprised. George Clarke is an attractive personality in his own right and you can tell that he’s genuinely interested in what’s going on in the lives of the people chosen to feature. In one episode two middle aged homemakers renovate an old fortified and listed house in Northamptonshire. In another a young couple move from Surrey to Lincolnshire; this episode is notable on account of health problems the woman experiences. In the third episode a couple working in England buy an old place in Scotland and live separately while it’s being done up.
This is comfort watching and for me signals a slowing down of time to a reassuring crawl. More dramatic points from time to time, for example the relationship split in ep 4 and the engagement announced in ep 5, were completed in ep 6 by the story of Dave and Rebecca, a young couple who had to borrow funds twice, luckily got council development approval for part of their land, then, when Rebecca got pregnant (they already had two small kids), ended up moving into the finished farmhouse – Dave heroically doing the vast majority of the work himself – just before she gave birth.
I think the prize for creativity however has to go to David, whose wife Jenny is sceptical of his ability to renovate an old brick water tower out in the woods on a budget of 30,000 pounds. “This is a holiday, this is going to be finished,” says David when asked about his quest, but this is the only ep in which the build is not finished by the end. Clarke remarks at one stage that this is “one of the most poetic dreams I’ve come across”. It’s dreams that get you interested in these shows, and David is much like an artist. In home renovation and design shows you see the middle classes being creative, making things, and trying to achieve happiness. This is their charm.
To temporarily occupy my otherwise wavering attention I want something like ‘Build a New Life in the Country’, which takes a relaxed approach to thinking about what it means to be happy, a home being an essential part of life, something – like clean water or access to free healthcare – you shouldn’t have to worry about too much. Watching a show like this you can examine your own feelings about the world and because you relate to the feelings of the people shown on-screen (a cost overrun, a progress delay, the completion, moving in – points of tension underlayed by Clarke’s calm demeanour) – it’s engaging and fresh despite the fact that what’s happening took place thousands of miles away in a different country.
The other day my normal Monday night viewing (‘Poirot’) was inaccessible because I’d had to drive a friend home and I missed the start, so I tuned into ‘Build a New Life in the Country’ in order to get myself to bedtime. Normally after the news I watch something entertaining and unproblematic on a secondary digital channel (9 Gem or 7 Two) or else catch what’s on the ABC if it’s half tolerable. I understand many people don’t even use free-to-air TV at all – in fact in late November I spent a couple of hours with a guy who actually said this to me – but I’m not as demanding as most, I’ll happily watch ads on account of the art used to make ‘em.
It seems to me there’s as much intelligence and panache involved in making a commercial about insurance or jewellery as there is in a Netflix drama. We’re spoiled for choice and that’s why it gives me so much pleasure to get something positive out of an old show like ‘Build a New Life in the Country’, which ran for many seasons. It’s astonishing that I’d never heard of it but that’s probably because it never screened in Australia on free-to-air television. What accounts for this omission lies out past understanding because there’s something attractive and quaint about the English countryside featuring in the show. In Australia the distances are so large and the environment so harsh that it’s enlightening to be confronted by the problems that beset a couple like Terry and Marilyn when they decide to “go bush” (the expression obviously doesn’t apply to the UK) in the comfortable because relatively populated confines of rural England. Recommended watching.
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