Grand Designs guru Kevin McCloud meets his NZ counterpart, Tom Webster
Men of many moments: The UK programme’s Kevin McCloud, left, and NZ’s Tom Webster. Photo / Supplied
Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud is at home in England when Grand Designs NZ presenter Tom Webster introduces himself. McCloud is in headphones and high definition, in the home office he uses to record his programme’s voice-overs. Webster is a little grainier, beaming in from a Queenstown house being featured in a forthcoming show. He has snuck away from the completion celebrations to join a Zoom call arranged by the Listener.
The reason for this meeting is that McCloud returns to NZ in February for live show Kevin McCloud’s Home Truths, a show that is partly an audience Q&A.
As a warm-up, we thought, who better to ask the oldest presenter of a Grand Designs some questions than the newest presenter of a Grand Designs?
Englishman Webster has just finished a second season presenting the NZ series – a job he balances with his Auckland architectural practice. McCloud has presented the original show for nearly 25 years, with the format sparking spin-off shows in NZ, Australia, Finland and Sweden.
In the initial greetings, McCloud jokes about whether his NZ counterpart had undergone any initiation rituals when he took on the role. Just a little light tarring and feathering, replies Webster, who says his time studying at the Welsh School of Architecture in Cardiff crossed over with that of McCloud’s son Hugo.
Introductions out of the way, it’s time for Webster to quiz the guru …
Tom Webster: So on this live show, what can you do that you can’t do on Grand Designs?
Kevin McCloud: Well, for a start, I can meet my customers. If I had a tobacconist’s or a sweet shop, it would be very easy for me to know the age and the background of every single customer, just as it would be if Grand Designs were on a streamer like Netflix, where the data coming back about viewing audiences is microscopically detailed. But with terrestrial television, they take a snapshot from 500 boxes positioned behind television sets across the UK, which supposedly represents the entire population … so that means we get to know very little about the people who watch. It’s fun being in a place with an audience where they can ask questions, and we’re going to do some stuff with QR codes on their mobile phones so that we can do some audience surveys as well. Which will be good fun.
TW: So, live audience feedback as you go?
KM: Yeah, live audience feedback: Do you like the show so far? “No – 99% of people in this room say they want to leave.” That’s the danger you risk. With television, as you know, it’s hugely collaborative and you’re a cog and great and skilled editors make you appear to have fantastic … what’s it called? … timing. They also make you look more impressive and more erudite than you are.