Not so much relocating as remortgaging
So Kirsty and Phil are back on Channel 4 with their superlative brand of property programming. Except we live in exceptional times and, in a nod to the recession and ahead of today’s cut in interest rates to the lowest level since the Bank of England was invented, their programme has been renamed Relocation Relocation. That’s slightly less indulgent than the 1990s-inspired Location, Location, Location and I suppose ‘Mortgage Approval, Mortgage Approval, Mortgage Approval’ just didn’t get the C4 marketing guys excited.
Whatever. Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer’s show has always been as much about the couples looking for a new home or homes as about the price and location of property. Last night’s episode didn’t disappoint, with a perfectionist female towing both presenters and her hapless husband along in her wake, on a quest to find… Well, it turned out she didn’t quite know what she wanted. A house in Cornwall and a house in Bristol near her family. A perfect ‘box’ of a home but with period features. A new build. In the end she went for just the one home, a rundown bungalow which did at least have quite a lot of land with it. We left the couple expecting their second child and merrily overseeing the total gutting of said bungalow. This sort of story-telling does nothing to debunk female stereotypes or encourage the notion of sexual equality in domestic decisions. But then people like Steph, the female half of the couple on last night’s Relocation, do genuinely exist. I wouldn’t know, clearly.
Even with the credit crunch which has seen mortgage applications fall off a cliff, the Englishman and woman’s obsession with their home qua castle will ensure that property programming will continue to flourish on TV, as long as it’s as good as Phil and Kirstie’s. Relocation Relocation included plenty of reality checks, including a disclaimer as the credits rolled that “prices were correct at summer 2008″, when the episode was filmed. My only criticism would be that the now quite difficult and sordid business of getting a mortgage to fund the property dream doesn’t get enough of a look in on the programme.
