With Kevin’s help, Grand Designs’ new local host shows his credentials

Grand Designs Australia ★★★
Thursday, 8pm, ABC and ABC iview

The new season of Grand Designs Australia does not get off to a good start, with producers falling into that evergreen TV trap: thinking that audiences love seeing non-comedians doing comedy. Hence, we must watch host Anthony Burke and the host of the show’s British forebear, Kevin McCloud, perform a weird, excruciating, but mercifully brief, little skit – presumably to let us know this is going to be the wacky fun kind of prestige architecture series.

Kevin McCloud and Anthony Burke in Grand Designs Australia: signalling that the show is in the best of possible hands.Credit: ABC

Thank goodness it doesn’t live up to that promise: Grand Designs Australia’s trademarks are friendliness, informativeness and boundless enthusiasm for the subject, but wacky it is not, and would be well advised never to be. The first episode of the new season does depart from the formula somewhat with the presence of McCloud, as if to bestow his stamp of approval on Burke’s endeavours. This is a big deal: anyone who is into the Australian edition of the franchise is almost certainly a big fan of the UK one, and McCloud, the all-powerful God of Grand Designs, provides the sort of thrill to GD-heads that the Logies used to try to generate by paying American stars to turn up to stare blankly at the autocue for a few seconds.

More seriously, McCloud’s presence is an assurance to viewers that Anthony Burke knows his onions: any man who can so effectively team with Kevin McCloud to ‘ooh and ahh’ over the wonders of modern design is clearly a real aficionado. Of course, Burke doesn’t need this backing: his credentials are quite sufficient in their own right – professor of architecture at the University of Technology Sydney, there is no doubt that he’s on top of the necessary knowledge. But given Burke is taking over the reins of the show from long-time host Peter Maddison, the arrival of doyen McCloud is clearly meant as a signal to the audience that all is well. The show is in the best of possible hands.

From the perspective of those viewers whose interest in architecture is perhaps more casual, Burke’s strength is his ease on camera rather than the depth of his knowledge. Amiable and energetic, there’s an unpretentious bounce and cheer to the man that makes him ideal for Grand Designs, a franchise that hangs its hat on hyping up the houses on display while maintaining a certain classy, public-broadcaster sheen that keeps its distance from commercial-TV glitz. The premiere sees Burke supposedly gleaning “tips” on presenting from McCloud – rather, an excuse for a mini-interview with the veteran Brit on his experiences and perspective on the show.

It is the houses that should be the stars, of course, and if Grand Designs Australia lacks some of the immense grandeur that the original show derives from being located in the old world, there are plenty of spectacular visuals and fascinating designs on display. The success of the franchise, of course, is just part of the overall 21st-century boom in television examining the house-building lark. It would seem that interest in watching other people build their homes has increased proportionately to the increasing difficulty in doing so – certainly the fact that the homes depicted in most such shows are completely unaffordable to most viewers doesn’t seem to have dimmed anyone’s enthusiasm.

Obviously, a show called Grand Designs isn’t focused on mortgages, though: budgets may be mentioned and mused on in passing, but this show is all about breathless amazement at the wonderful things that can be done by people with an idiosyncratic vision for their homes. The premiere features such glorious constructions as a new-age farmhouse on the Mornington Peninsula that melds beautifully with the landscape; a colossal “beach shack” on the Gold Coast; a glass-walled house in Tasmania; and a beautifully light-filled renovated terrace house in inner-city Melbourne. There will be more to come, no doubt, as the series goes on: marvellous illustrations of the many ways – ranging from the majestic to the bizarre – that human beings can find to make their living spaces beautiful.

Which brings us back to Burke. His passion for architecture, shown in his joyous response to each building he encounters, is infectious, even for those of us with precious little knowledge of the art. It’s in that, the universality of passion, that Grand Designs Australia strikes its chord.

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