ann maurice – interior rivalry
(4/8) 20.00–21.00

Ann Maurice, the no-nonsense House Doctor with the flair to make any room shine, is once more on the hunt for Britain’s best home-stager. With a prize worth more than £50,000 at stake, Ann has no time for half-heartedness. Assisting her on her search is interior-design expert Gordon Whistance, and special guest Duncan Bannatyne. Tonight’s programme sees the eight contestants become just six as two are eliminated.

It is week four of the competition and all the remaining contestants are under extreme pressure to redeem themselves after last week’s failure to impress. For their fourth challenge, the would-be designers head to Princess Park Manor –a Victorian renovation in North London containing a number of expensive, luxury apartments.

With the intention of testing their high-end homestaging skills, Ann splits her apprentices into two teams and assigns each a show flat. The teams have three days, £500 and as much rental furniture as they need to redesign their flats. On the fourth day, they will run stalls at the Ideal Home Exhibition to promote sales interest in the flats, and impress guest judge Duncan Bannatyne. The show flats are currently empty, and Ann is keen to see how the students cope with such freedom. “A blank canvas can actually be more challenging,” she explains. “You’ve got no starting point.”

As Rolf, Liza, Kate and Jayne arrive to check out their empty flat, they immediately set to work on the layout, planning what colour and design schemes would fit where. It is not long, however, before difficulties arise: having clashed with her teammates on previous occasions, Jayne struggles to make herself heard as the team fails to reach a unanimous decision about the design scheme. “I don’t think Jayne has any idea,” says Rolf, and Liza seems to agree. But Kate is keen to ensure that the team functions as a unit. “There are some playground politics going on here that I don’t want to be part of,” she says.

In contrast to Rolf’s team, Neal, Jenny, Rachel and Dani choose not to waste time talking and head straight to the hire shop. But this strategy also has its pitfalls –having failed to decide upon a style, the team has no clear direction. As they brainstorm for design ideas, seemingly contradictory themes such as “contemporary”, “classic”, “opulent” and “aspirational” are thrown into the pot, and valuable design time is spent arguing. On seeing her team in disarray, Dani takes the opportunity to assert her authority and begins to throw her weight around.

Day two dawns and the teams face another busy day: in the next 36 hours, they must complete the makeovers of their flats and produce marketing leaflets for the finished rooms. There is much to do, but as the furniture arrives, Dani’s team find time to help the delivery men. This time-wasting, however, is the least of their problems, as friction between the team members comes to the fore again. Dani seems to have little faith in the ability of her teammates. “I don’t actually trust Rachel’s taste,” she claims –a worrying prospect considering Rachel will be shopping for fabric and accessories.

After much negotiation, the roles are assigned: Dani and Rachel are to go shopping, while Neal and Jenny visit the designer to work on the leaflets. But Dani and Rachel make a crucial mistake –due to a lack of planning and poor communication, the pair end up in a market stall selling dress fabric! With a tight budget and less than a day left, will the designers manage to conquer their difficulties in time to complete their challenge?

Across the hallway, the situation is more harmonious. After some initial problems, Rolf and Jayne have called a truce and are now working well together designing a marketing leaflet. Liza and Kate, meanwhile, are making great progress at the shops and have soon selected all of their fabric. Everything seems to be going swimmingly, but with so many strong characters in one team, can the peace last? With two contestants leaving this week, the pressure is really on...