Monthly column on the arts: brushes with entertainment

A television certainty is that if a series proves a big hit, the other channels will produce their own clones, all produced with wide-eyed enthusiasm as if nobody ever thought of the idea before.

If airports are your thing, or gardening, or archaeological excavation or any number of other activities, you have a wide choice these days. The other channels are even considering 'Big Brother' clones after the remarkable success of Channel 4's dreary exercise in voyeurism earlier this year.

Doing well at present are interior decorating programmes: a house is either invaded, and decorated, by a team of experts or by the neighbours (in which case the owners of the house invade theirs in return). In programmes like 'House Invaders' and 'Changing Rooms', a lady presenter with bags of personality leads a team of skilled (and usually glamorous) labourers as they cut shapes out of MDF, stencil patterns on walls and do amazing things with fabric - all at breakneck speed, for the job has to be finished before the owners of the property return to see the result.

Not quite finished . . .

It's a weird concept. Not least, because when you look closely, that breakneck speed always shows. In close-up you can see that the painting is never quite even, there are splodges the team didn't get round to clearing up, those impressive MDF shapes cut by masked hand-saw operators are often not as straight as they should be. The programmes make their impact by the total concept, the image rather than the reality of craftsmanship; one wonders how long some of those artfully constructed toy-room spaceships and castles will survive an ordinary kid's play, or what the owners of the property said when they had a chance to look closely at some of the work.

Of course some of it is very good, and the teams are not short of ideas. But the whole thing goes against what I take to be the essential of interior design: to create a space that reflects the people who occupy it, rather than become a showcase for aesthetic concepts. The brief research done on the owners' tastes and interests isn't really adequate for a comprehensive job, and throwing the client out of the design consultation process is heading for trouble. Some owners are allowed to help with the tricky bits, but are always prevented from seeing the entirety until it's finished. A few memorable programmes have featured the owners quite appalled at what has been done and planning to put everything back as it was as soon as possible.

There's a metaphor for TV somewhere in all that. Something to do with encouraging viewers to long for a glamorous image that might not survive the experience of actually living in it ...

Watercolours

It's a very different matter when you turn to TV's other current boom: water-colour painting programmes. At present Channel 4 has 'Watercolour Challenge', the best of the lot in my opinion, though elsewhere you can sample a genial Irish painter showing an assortment of celebrities how to paint; a few other programmes come and go. 'Watercolour Challenge' features Hannah Gordon (whose presenting style you are either going to love or hate) with several amateur painters in each programme, all painting the same subject. At the end a prize-winner is chosen, and in between an art expert comments on the subject and on the painters' efforts. You also hear the painters' comments as they paint.

It's a programme of sheer delight. I asked my local art supplies shop if trade increased when it was showing, and they assured me it did. It would make almost anybody want to pick up a brush and have a go. It's an education in looking: painters and viewers are taught to see not only what is 'there' but also what is implied. Some of the programmes are almost theological in their celebration of creation, and the variety of ways in which three people can see the same scene is an education in humanness.

Having a try . . .

Although the programme has no Christian commentary, it's not fanciful to make connections between painting and the Christian faith. A surprising number of evangelicals through history have been painters: William Cowper was, for example (and indeed I dabble a bit myself, as I expect you probably do too). In the 18th century, most nature poetry was influenced by painterly concepts, so that the movement of the mind in the poem paralleled the movement of the eye over a vista. Cowper's great poem 'The Task' shows him seeing and recording in the way painters do.

Looking at creation and striving to see it in all its reality and meaning is a fundamentally religious act, and the fact that television is investing programming time in encouraging people to do so is heartening. I recommend 'Watercolour Challenge' and its like enthusiastically. Unfortunately, as they tend to be daytime programmes, you'll either have to set the video or take time off to see them.

Maybe you could visit a friend to watch together, while you've got the decorators in at home.

Monthly column on the arts: brushes with entertainment

Watercolour painting programmes - and others

Not quite finished . . .

Watercolours

Having a try . . .

David Porter

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