On TV

SOMETIMES you just have to wonder at people. If I were thinking of turning a rundown pile into my dream home, which is admittedly a long way from my thoughts, one of the first things I would do is watch a programme about other people doing it. It's not as if they're hard to find. Property Ladder. Grand Design. Dream Home Abroad. They're spreading across the schedules like dry rot. Then I would see where everyone else went wrong, and make sure I didn't make the same mistakes.

For some reason, this didn't seem to occur to Matt and Emma Cupper. They set their hearts on an 18th century granary in Lincolnshire, although granary is too strong a word. It was little more than four walls, and unstable ones at that. So they remortgaged their bungalow in Surrey and borrowed £140,000 against the value of the barn to do it up.

Matt was a telecomms engineer. He'd once built a small extension. So obviously he was perfectly suited to manage the project himself, as well as doing much of the hands-on stuff.

Anyone who's ever watched a makeover programme could have guessed what was coming next.

Matt thought he would operate the crane to lift the wooden trusses onto the roof himself. These trusses weighed half a tonne each, but Matt forgot to put the stabilisers down on the crane. The result was the crane started swaying like a drunk on the Quayside, threatening to smash his dream home into tiny pieces.

Then there were the batons on the roof, which were too small for the tiles. Instead of getting the batons redone, Matt decided to cut the tiles. By hand. All 2,540 of them.

Best of all were his struggles with the two and a half kilometres of coiled pipe which would draw warmth from the soil to heat the house. It was only then that the normally cool and unfailingly optimistic Matt started to lose it, engaging in a furious tussle-cum-dance with the pipe before flinging it to the ground.

Presenter George Clarke was not exactly a sympathetic voice. He stopped by at regular intervals to tell Matt he still had a long way to go. Matt, who probably could have guessed that from the way his home had no windows, roof or floor, at one point looked on the verge of lamping him.

Things took a more sombre turn when Emma discovered she was pregnant, and then slipped a disc in her back. After weeks of agony, she was forced to undergo an operation, putting the baby's health at risk. As Matt said, it put his housebuilding dream into perspective.

But the operation was a success and Matt decided to get professional help to finish off. They finally moved in six weeks behind schedule and £50,000 over budget. Their new home looked fantastic, but you couldn't help thinking they could have saved themselves a lot of bother by switching their television on.

Blood Brothers, Sunderland Empire

WILLY Russell's musical play about twins separated at birth is the sort of show you can revisit again and again and still discover something fresh. This production features Linda Nolan in the role she seems to have been born to play, the feisty Liverpool mum trying to give her kids a decent upbringing in the face of grinding poverty. Linda puts her whole self into the role, her powerful voice easily carrying the tunes written by Russell himself.

The audience knows the twins' fate right from the beginning, so the ending comes as no surprise, although I thought it rather rushed. I found myself reaching for the tissues as people around me sobbed and sniffed; Linda's so deep into her role that she was in buckets as well.

My companion hadn't seen the play before and marvelled at the skill displayed by grown-up actors conveying childhood with absolute conviction; it doesn't seem ridiculous when the gang gallops across the stage on invisible horses, carelessly flinging the reins over the imaginary tethering bar on dismounting. You grow to love these scruffy no-hope kids, especially Mickey, played by Sean Jones, and Linzi Matthews' Linda. Then there's Eddie, Mickey's twin brought up by the posh family in the big house and becoming attached to sparky Mickey by some invisible thread. Drew Ashton as the gentler, more refined twin draws sympathy as he confesses his unspoken love for Linda (I'm Not Saying A Word). The whole cast is excellent, deserving of the standing ovation it received at the tearful finale.

l Runs until Sat, July 2. Box office: 0870 6021130

Sue Heath