Tv has given us all method of unlikely sights through the years, and to that listing we will now add the picture of Alan Carr and Amanda Holden attempting to wrestle a grimy mattress out of a rubble-strewn cottage. ‘The mess,’ Alan remembers now. ‘Once I noticed the litter – and the mattresses – I may have killed her.’
‘Her’ being Amanda, who Alan holds accountable for this interiors horror. She was the one who’d persuaded her previous good friend to assist her flip a derelict cottage in a distant Sicilian village right into a fascinating property. An excellent concept on paper, notably given that when renovated it might be bought to lift cash for UK charities.
Sadly, the fact was arduous to abdomen. ‘Structurally it was in good nick, however oh my goodness the state of it,’ Alan shudders. What’s extra, the bold mission would unfold beneath the watchful eyes of the TV cameras.
The result’s Amanda & Alan’s Italian Job: a brand new BBC collection that, reckons Amanda, is sort of a Mediterranean model of Location, Location, Location fuelled by fizz and enjoyable. ‘It’s additionally the closest we’ve come to a actuality present,’ she muses. ‘It’s a bit like The Solely Manner Is Sicily.’
Tv has given us all method of unlikely sights through the years, and to that listing we will now add the picture of Alan Carr and Amanda Holden (pictured) attempting to wrestle a grimy mattress out of a rubble-strewn cottage
Admittedly, this may not be fairly what self-confessed design nut Amanda, 51, envisaged when, earlier this yr, she heard about Sicily’s ‘euro scheme’, a authorities mission that lets individuals purchase a dilapidated dwelling at a rock-bottom value to assist rebuild the area people.
However after arising with the concept of getting caught in and filming the outcomes, she knew there was nobody else she’d slightly do it with than fellow design fanatic Alan. ‘He’s probably the most down-to-earth individuals. On a present like this the place it’s important to be ready to get modified anyplace, go to the bathroom anyplace – we each don’t have any ego, we simply get on with it,’ she explains.
It helps that they’re genuinely shut. ‘We will’t actually recall once we first met, however we’ve had so many dinners and know one another’s households,’ provides Amanda, who has two daughters, Lexi, 16, and ten-year-old Hollie.
‘I’m just like the enjoyable, homosexual uncle,’ Alan interjects.
But they’ve by no means labored collectively earlier than, partially as a result of Amanda anxious they had been too comparable. ‘I at all times describe myself as a homosexual man in a straight lady’s physique,’ she laughs. Alan, in the meantime, was inquisitive about how they’d come throughout on display collectively. ‘Now we have the identical cackle and I puzzled whether or not if we cackle collectively it’d sound fairly good.’
Amanda & Alan’s Italian Job (pictured) begins on Friday at 8.30pm on BBC1
After perusing properties on-line, Amanda had opted for a house at present cut up into two flats within the village of Salemi. Its hilltop location is idyllic, however the identical couldn’t be mentioned of the property itself. Each had solely beforehand seen photos of it, and as viewers will uncover, Alan is rendered momentarily speechless once they arrive for the primary time to find mounds of rubble and filth.
‘It was correctly hands-on,’ Alan says. ‘Flattening partitions, tiling, grouting, plastering, we did all of it. I do know individuals will assume, “Proper, they’re there for 5 minutes,” however we had been there all day daily.’
‘We’ve finished every thing we had been allowed to do,’ provides Amanda. ‘We’re not plumbers or sparkies, however we did our greatest with every thing else.’
We additionally get to see them discover this lovely island. There’s a deal with native craftsmen and produce, to not point out its aperitivo. ‘The perfect little bit of the day was going for an Aperol Spritz at Fabrizio’s bar after a tough day’s work,’ Alan confides.
Naturally there have been loads of challenges alongside the best way, from the specter of forest fires to… Amanda’s dad’s underwear. ‘He got here and helped us at one level as he’s a handyman, however he had a drama,’ says Amanda. ‘My mum had rinsed his pants by means of as a result of he’d run out, and she or he’d left them on the windowsill. A mini-tornado blew them away!’
Then there was Amanda’s makes an attempt to matchmake for Alan, newly single after his marriage to husband Paul broke down in January. ‘She was asking Italian males to exit with me – together with one on the flea market who didn’t have many enamel,’ confides Alan, rolling his eyes.
Alan has spoken candidly prior to now of how the cut up left him feeling ‘uncooked’, and on the present Amanda confides to the cameras that she hopes the renovation will raise his spirits.
‘I wish to give him a mission that begins in tatters, like him, and on the finish there’ll be this lovely constructing and Alan too can have had a little bit of a makeover. Hopefully he’ll really feel extra optimistic concerning the future,’ she says.
Ultimately that they had a lot enjoyable they’re on the lookout for follow-up choices. ‘In Spain there’s a complete village up on the market,’ says Alan. ‘Or we may discover a rundown winery or taverna.’
‘We may run it,’ exclaims Amanda. ‘It may very well be like Fawlty Towers. That’s what I feel we must always do subsequent.’
Amanda & Alan’s Italian Job begins on Friday at 8.30pm on BBC1.
