Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen reclines on his latest victims sofa, ready to deliver the dizzying design-swap that is Changing Rooms. It is 17 years since the show last aired, but age has not withered LLB, who lies waiting in leather trousers, waistcoat and a slightly Victoriana foulard. As the camera zooms in on a leg cocked perkily on the cushions, one thing is clear: this is the most ominous dropped hoof since Cher stepped off that helicopter and saved Mamma Mia! 2.
Changing Rooms (Wednesdays, 8pm) has moved from BBC Two to Channel 4, and most of the edifice has been gutted. Carol Smillie has been replaced by Anna Richardson; Linda Barker is now a range; and Anna Ryder Richardson who is a different Anna, to be clear seems to have become a harried zoo entrepreneur. As for Llewelyn-Bowen, he sniffed in the shows reboot announcement that its taken quite a lot of coaxing to get me under the Changing Rooms banner once more, as though this wasnt the very banner he had built a whole army of velvet brocade accent walls under. All the way through, there is the sense of LLB demanding his dues. He instructs his team to tell him hes amazing, and informs them that theres this big thing happening in design at the moment, called maximalism. Which feels like a very restrained way of saying: Im BACK, BYOTCHES!!!
The formula remains the same: two sets of neighbours allow one another to decorate a room of their home, aided by the design visionaries you-know-who on one side, and Jordan and Russell of design studio 2LG on the other. The pair arent averse to a bit of flamboyance, but theyre positively normcore next to LLB, and they know it: Youre our Obi-Wan!, they squeak. This week they are in Swansea, where neighbours Claire and Jo take on Kirsty and Lisa. They adore each others company, especially when theres drink involved. All you can think is: buckle up then, girls. Youre gonna need those daiquiris.
And yet do they? The new Changing Rooms seems surprisingly tame. I tend to remember it as a repository for all kinds of weird aspirations and design tics, a symptom of Cool Britannia trying to get cosmopolitan and cool. Today, though, as with so much culture, it just takes refuge in a safe, sanitised, default camp. Its with a dreary inevitability that 2LG announce that their concept for their room will be Shantay, Swansea. Is Britain just one big child-friendly drag bar these days? (LLB opts for a more timeless vibe, Forever Peacocky that is to say, himself.)
Each room ends up a variation on the same theme, a retro blast of blues and pinks. 2LG do, bless them, try something avant garde a statement tableau made of long, blond hair. Its thrillingly awful, a touch of John Waters in a miasma of blah; it looks as if Cousin Itt has been flayed alive by Gilbert & George. But the ladies dont like it, and you just know its going to go. All that remains is LLB, incandescent and unrepentant as he plonks a swinging, Indian-style turquoise chair in the centre of his room. Can you actually smell my thighs burning? he asks as he installs it. Actually, I wish I could.read more
Changing Rooms returns … and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen’s back to his peacocking best
