Grand Designs almost didn't happen, reveals Kevin McCloud
What did you miss?
Kevin McCloud has revealed Grand Designs almost didn't get made because he couldn't find anyone who believed that it would make a good show.
The Channel 4 is now marking its 25th anniversary and has tracked some of the most extraordinary self-build projects in the UK, with plenty of devoted fans who have followed the programme since it first aired in 1999.
But McCloud told This Morning that he had a tough job convincing TV bosses that anyone would want to watch hour-long episodes with no guarantee that the houses featured would ever be finished.
What, how, and why?
Kevin McCloud's Grand Designs has become a TV must-see in many households over the last 25 years, but despite the show's huge popularity he has admitted he struggled to get anyone to agree that it was a series worth making.
McCloud told Tuesday's This Morning that it was a tough sell convincing TV bosses that viewers wanted to watch an hour of real people building homes that they might never manage to complete, which went against how programmes were made in the 90s when he was pitching it.
He said: "No one believed in it. It was just quite hard to get off the ground because the idea was you were going to spend an hour watching something, which in the 90s was quite unusual, and also we were going to film real people in the real world.
"We couldn't control the situation so we couldn't guarantee there would be anything after 18 months. Maybe we'd have to wait three years to make a series."
Read more: Grand Designs
The biggest Grand Designs mistakes people make, according to Kevin McCloud
Grand Designs' Kevin McCloud reveals death of two participants during filming
Luckily, in 1999 the show eventually made it to air on Channel 4 and McCloud is now celebrating its 25th anniversary by looking back at some of its most famous builds.
They include a North Devon clifftop home which went unfinished for years, and even contributed to the breakdown of the owners' marriage.
McCloud said: "Ed and Hazel was billed as the saddest ever Grand Designs and we've been on and off filming it for 15 years now.
"We made the original film, it was about hubris, about overreaching, trying too hard and borrowing too much. Then we went back for the revisit and Ed had changed, it was about reconciliation. It was an amazing emotional journey he went on."
Talking about his own love of grand building plans, McCloud shared: "My dad was an engineer, he designed and built his own extension. As kids we were all the time living in this half-built world. It's one that I continue to seem to not be able to complete."
What has been happening on Grand Designs?
McCloud is back on the building site with a 25th series of ambitious self-builders, but in last week's episode viewers felt sorry for a neighbour who had spent five years living next to an unfinished project that he described as like looking through a bird cage.
The build was only supposed to take a matter of months, but ran into five years before it was finally completed and at one point left neighbour Vic with the risk of his own house wall falling down.
Viewers sympathised with everything Vic had put up with and McCloud told him: "I think you've been quite tolerant."
After all the set backs and drama, Vic celebrated: "He's built! He's done!" But in the voiceover, McCloud acknowledged once again how tough it had been and said: "It's all still too raw for Vic. Time may heal things."
This Morning airs on ITV1 at 10am on weekdays.
This article originally appeared on Yahoo TV UK at https://uk.news.yahoo.com/grand-designs-kevin-mccloud-105849533.html
