Restoration Australia
ABC, Tuesday 8.30pm
MOVE over Kevin McCloud, here comes Sibella Court. Designer and author Sibella Court can add “TV presenter” to her long list of achievements with the unveiling of Restoration Australia next week.
A project more than two and a half years in the making, Restoration Australia is kind of Grand Designs meets Time Team – well not quite.
If you saw Caroline Quentin’s Restoration Home on the ABC then you will have a fair idea of what to expect (minus the two boffins researching the past). Actually the ABC struck gold with Sibella. Not only is she a top designer but she has a history degree and helps in the research into the past of the building being restored.
She’s good looking and affable and knowledgeable, jumping in to help a little along the way without being preachy. She was also pregnant (not that she knew when she signed on) when she took on the challenge of hosting the show, two years ago.
This is a program that does exactly what it says on the label. It follows seven people as they try to restore (or in the case of the opening episode – completely rebuild) old houses around Autralia.
Sure there will be no 14th century manor houses or barns – our history isn’t that extensive. But this seven-part series is still an interesting prospect – particularly for the characters – it unearths as much as the journey’s they take with the house.
The first episode takes us to Beechworth where former Canadian medieval re-enactment swordsman Clay (turned Wodonga furniture restorer) and his wife Lorraine are restoring a stone house built by a Scottish stonemason before the turn of the 20th century. The house has been abandoned since the ’30s and was little more than a pile of rocks when Clay bought it.
With the help of home video and then the ABC crew, we follow him on the journey to turn it into a family home. It’s not rocket science but it’s well shot and offers an insight into our history as well as the usual trials and tribulations of rebuilding (exacerbated by heritage orders and councils).
This isn’t the Block but that’s the point – couples aren’t learning new skills and making money – they are resurrecting old skills and putting their savings into projects that at times seem like pure folly. This is not about making sure everything is shiny and new but looking to, and preserving our past.
Sure we don’t have a long history but we still have one – one maybe many of us don’t know about.
There is nothing new in this show other than the fact this time it is our own history and historical houses on show. But it’s fun and well presented and written and in a fair world worth more than one series – though as the unit from South Australia that made the show was one to fall victim to the budget cuts – it probably won’t happen (unless paytv picks Sibella and the crew up).
In a world where reality programs are so over scripted and plastic – Restoration Australia is a little breath of fresh air. Sure there is nothing startling or new but the people are genuine, the journeys are interesting and the scenery is spectacular and there is not one internal monologue scene to be seen.
– Tania Phillips
