Hamish Blake has a new TV show and it’s bonkers

The loveable larrikin is hosting a new show and Channel 9 and it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen on Aussie TV before.

Hamish Blake is happy to admit that he was a tad … apprehensive when he was asked to host a new show about people building LEGO.

“I was like, ‘I’m not sure exactly how you would make a TV show out of it,’” Hamish told news.com.au about LEGO MASTERS which is coming soon to Nine.

“I’ll be really honest with you, until that very first day that we filmed, there was big question in my mind which was like, ‘The whole thing is predicated on the assumption that hopefully it’s interesting to watch people get a task and build something out of LEGO.’ I was definitely there on the first day going, ‘if we’re wrong about that, we’ve made a huge mistake’.

“Luckily after that first day of filming, which was genuinely super exciting and interesting and funny, after that I think everyone breathed a sigh of relief.”

Hamish is assisted in the show by judge and resident LEGO expert, Ryan “The Brickman” McNaught, who is one of only 14 LEGO-certified professionals in the world.

LEGO MASTERS has eight pairs of LEGO-loving Aussies compete against each other in a series of building challenges with $100,000 prize money on offer.

“Every episode the team’s get given some sort of a brief or a challenge and then a certain amount of time to build it in,” Hamish explained.

“There’s 2.5 million pieces of LEGO in a big room called the Brick Pit, so running out of LEGO is not a problem. It’s really just about what their imagination and their creativity can come up with in that amount of time.”

Without giving too much away, Hamish said viewers can expect to see the teams lose their cool every now and then due to the time limits for each challenge.

“It got pretty intense,” he said. “It’s not every day you get to build LEGO to potentially win $100,000. I think occasionally that kind of crept into peoples’ heads.”

The team who consistently impresses with the best use of bricks, plates, tiles, studs, knobs and tubes will walk away victorious.

LEGO MASTERS was filmed in Melbourne last year and features contestants from around the country.

“I don’t think it’s the normal people you might think of when you think of eight teams of LEGO builders,” Hamish said.

“There’s a grandma and a grandson combination in there who have always built LEGO together. There’s mates that run a Sri Lankan food truck … their food truck funds their LEGO obsession. And there’s two mates who work on oil rig equipment together who kind of look like bikies who also just love building LEGO.”

LEGO Masters is coming soon to Nine.

The contestants all take their LEGO very seriously and Hamish says he occasionally got on their nerves during filming.

“I learnt pretty quickly you’re not meant to touch people’s LEGO. I would quite often come along and go, ‘What does this do?’ and then just break a piece off the build.

“I had to learn a lot of the etiquette quickly and the number one bit of etiquette is, ‘Don’t touch someone’s model’. If someone’s built a skyscraper, don’t come along and see if the windows on the 18th storey open.”

LEGO MASTERS is coming soon to Nine.

Keep your hands to yourself, Hamish.

Originally published as Hamish Blake has a new TV show and it’s bonkers