TV review

SEVERAL questions occurred while watching the return of the house-building show. If I had £1m would I spend it doing up a building in the middle of London without a decent view?

Could I face negotiating with the seven neighbours I needed to win over to enable the project to proceed? And does dinner prepared on a cooker costing £34,000 taste any better than a meal cooked on a gas stove costing a couple of hundred pounds?.

This really was a case of seeing how the other half lived - and spent their money. Kevin McCloud was the sometimes gobsmacked guide as Louise and Milko Ostendorf set about turning a disused Victorian violin factory, on the South Bank of the River Thames just across from Parliament, into a Manhattan-style loft home.

The building was in what was described as "a fair old state". This translates as needing everything doing to it. And not all of it was welcomed by the neighbours. It was pleasing to discover that money can't buy you everything, certainly not a quick agreement over a party wall.

Negotiations with the London Festival Orchestra dragged on, and on, and on. At one point, all building work stopped for 11 months while the small print on 28 clauses of a legal agreement was scrutinised.

Never mind, the Ostendorfs could retreat to their rented, luxury Harley Street apartment. It wasn't as if they had to live on the streets while their new abode was constructed.

The original cost of the project was £600,000 so that the £34,000 cooker was but a drop in a large ocean of cash. This was a home with six toilets, four showers, underfloor heating, a home cinema and a dumb waiter.

The cooker - I'm sorry to harp on about it but it was a key element of Louise's design - arrived on its own lorry and took seven men to manoeuvre it. Even Milko declared: "This is ridiculous. It's the Titanic of kitchens."

He told his wife it was excessive. She was having none of it. "We're going to have a lot of people for dinner," she protested.

"How many? 400?," he responded.

Similar care was taken over the woodwork, with all the timber joinery being made by one company based in a barn in the middle of Norfolk. A wooden spiral staircase, 11 metres high, was carved here.

The finished place was certainly impressive - and so was the bill, which doubled to £1.2m. The wall is still causing a problem, as the wrong colour bricks were used. Retrospective planning permission was refused and we left the Ostendorfs planning to appeal rather than tear it all down at great cost and inconvenience.

As for that cooker, Louise has been using it but did report a problem - the original thermostat didn't work, and neither did the replacement. I'd ask for my money back, if I was her.

The Shell Seekers,

Newcastle Theatre Royal

SET in the mid-eighties, this is an adaptation by Terence Brady and Charlotte Bingham of a best-selling Rosamunde Pilcher novel. Brady and Bingham are responsible for numerous hit TV series, including Upstairs Downstairs, and this play includes frequent flashbacks and scene changes in the manner of a TV production. It all works surprisingly well, though, thanks to clever set design and lighting.

The play revolves around Penelope, newly returned home after a near-fatal heart attack. She's a feisty, independent lady but Stephanie Cole gives her an endearing gentleness as well. When Cole's on stage - and she is on stage most of the evening - the loving strength of her character is almost tangible.

Penelope's grown-up children are a selfish lot, bickering over the possible contents of their mother's will, although they each love her in their own way. Rather than give practical help, they grudgingly agree that Penny shall offer a home to Antonia, whose father has recently died. Touchingly played by Katherine Heath, the young girl reminds Penny of herself at the same age and when Antonia falls in love with Danus, who is renovating Penny's beautiful garden, the memories come flooding back of her own first love.

It's a story from a gentler time, romantic and emotional right up to the two-hanky conclusion. I suppose you could say it's over-sentimental, but there's just enough humour and a spiky performance from Veronica Roberts as daughter Nancy to keep it from being too syrupy. Readers of romantic novels will love it.

Sue Heath

* Runs until Saturday. Booking Office: 0870 905 5060