CHRISTOPER STEVENS reviews Interior Design Masters For Children In Need on BBC1: The real stars in this charity special were the carers ignored by society
Interior Design Masters For Children In Need (BBC1)
Call it local-authoritychic. Every government office in Britain once looked identical, with grey carpets, fire extinguishers on every khaki wall, white woodwork and Formica-top tables.
This aesthetic was imposed by socialist civil servants who believed true equality meant all buildings should be uniformly drab and miserable. If anyone in the public sector got to work in a pleasant environment, it simply wasn’t fair on the rest.
But you don’t expect to see that style imposed on a children’s play facility.
When Alan Carr and a bunch of celebs turned up at Sand-well Young Carers Centre near West Bromwich, on Interior Design Masters For Children In Need (BBC1), they might have been walking into a Soviet pensions office.
Plastic chairs with tubular metal legs lined the walls. Each room had one stark white clock with Roman numerals, and no paintings. The windows were barred and the lighting was neon strips.
Interior Design Masters is a British reality competition that pits 10 amateur interior designers against each other
In the latest episode Jon Richardson, Joanne McNally, Darren Harriott, Leomie Anderson and Martin and Shirlie Kemp transform a young carers project in aid of Children in Need
Since this show was a one-off charity special, there was no sense of jeopardy and no real competition. But the hour made entertaining viewing because never has a makeover programme featured rooms more desperately in need of tarting up.
Comedian Jon Richardson, who makes a fetish of pessimism, was put in charge of creating a playroom, which is like asking Eeyore to organise a rave. Pop star Martin Kemp added a stage to the music room in the attic, while his wife Shirlie turned a relaxation room into a home cinema.
The real celebs, though, were the youngsters who use the centre as a retreat from the pressures of caring for parents or siblings. Brother and sister Jack and Katie shared a double burden, looking after their mother, who suffers from a debilitating form of arthritis, and their brother, who has learning difficulties.
Another of the regulars, Euan, a talented pianist, helps to care for his mother, who has stage-four lung cancer. Youngsters like these are routinely overlooked, not just by TV but by society — a fact that’s self-evident, since their only haven looked like a municipal waiting room.
Despite the generosity of millions of viewers who give what they can each year, Children In Need can’t change the world. Last year it raised just over £33.5 million, an extraordinary sum but a drop in the ocean compared to the NHS annual budget, in excess of £180 billion. Put another way, the Health Service could spend the entire Children In Need takings in around 90 minutes.
But the charity spectacular, which airs this Friday, can do something even more important than raising money. It puts the focus on those children who are least likely to be seen — the ones with disabilities, the ones shouldering extra responsibilities, and the ones getting a raw deal through no fault of their own.
It isn’t enough to remember them once a year. But when we do, as Martin Kemp tearfully admitted, the privilege is ours. ‘You live for those moments,’ he said, and he meant it.
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