Dermot Bannon has opened up about what audiences can expect from the new season of Room to Improve — and why he gets “sick with nerves” when one of the shows he is in comes out.
The new series continues tomorrow night at 9.30pm on RTE One.
The architect told Chic how it’s “exciting but kind of nervous” to see the audience reaction to the new series — and how they have some “really great stories” in the new batch of episodes.
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He said, “As usual, it’s exciting but kind of nervous to see what people will think of it.
“Even though we've been going for 17 years and people enjoy it, you always think, ‘is this the year that they’re not going to enjoy it? Is this the year it’s going to turn?’
“But it’s a great series. We’ve worked really hard and have some really great stories.
“Every year, it’s a challenge to do something different, that you haven’t done before or where they audience won’t say, ‘you did that a couple of years ago’ or ‘that’s very similar to what you did years ago’.
“We were trying to make a series that is fresh, different, and has different storylines and a different approach.”
Dermot added that he’s proud of the episodes and the projects that they have taken on this year, as he told how he still feels a bit nervous when a new series comes out.
He said, “I suppose because I would make maybe six episodes of TV shows a year, and they’re all like my babies. They’re all really important.
"Each one of these episodes has taken a year to make, and your heart and your soul goes into it. You’re very nervous, because you’ve put so much into it. You know that you couldn’t have done any better, that’s the thing.”
The first episode of the series saw Dermot and Quantity Surveyor Claire Irwin head to Charlestown, Co Mayo, to meet Karen Mulligan, who has decided to return home to Ireland and turn her parents’ butcher shop — a now-derelict building — into her dream home.
And Dermot told how it was a “really special” project to be a part of.
He said, “It’s a regeneration project. It was an old derelict shop that hadn't been lived in since 2017.
"It was her parents’ shop, a butcher shop. She had a great job in London in marketing and lived a really cool urban life. But the pull was always to get back to Charlestown and live there.
“So, she decided to take over the butcher shop. All of her family, all of her friends, said, ‘would it not be easier to just buy a bungalow outside the town? Would it not be easier to live outside of town?’
“But she had lived this urban life in London, and she was determined to live back in the old butcher’s shop.
“It wasn’t an easy build. It was the first home that she’s ever owned, she’s always rented before that. There would've been so many easier routes to home ownership, but nothing as special as what she got.
“She, hopefully, is a bit of a trailblazer in showing people what you can do.”
Dermot added that he hopes the project will help inspire people — and showcase the potential of similar properties.
He said, “I’m hoping this will inspire people to buy up some of these older properties in towns, because there’s huge potential. And then what it does is it starts to bring life back to the town and people living in the town.”
Tomorrow night’s project will be taking audiences to Palmerstown, with Dermot telling how the home — a three-bed, semi-detached family home — was “one of my favourite projects”.
The Dubliner told how the project included adapting the home to the family’s busy lifestyle, and it was a “kind of modern interpretation of the Irish house” and “kind of an examination, post-pandemic, of what the modern Irish family needs”.
The architect also opened up about what it is about Room To Improve that continues to strike a chord with audiences.
He said, “I think it’s the human stories. Every week, we’ve got a new family, we get a new set of problems and we get a new set of stresses.
“I think people love watching that story arc of starting off with a big dream; the excitement of, I suppose, me arriving the house and what this could be, the dream.
“And then you kind of go into the dip of how difficult the whole thing is, how stressful the whole thing is and how much money is going into it — and then to see the end result. I think people just love watching that journey.
“It’s not dissimilar to programmes like Grand Designs, which we all still love watching — and that’s been going on for nearly 25 years. I think it’s their 25th anniversary. It’s got similarities to that.
“All of us love watching a real journey, where people — a lot of reality TV shows are slightly made up nowadays, and people are doing it for different reasons.
“I think Room to Improve is still one of those shows where it’s real; it’s people’s real money, real stresses and real life. The stories are real, the arc is real — and I think people engage with it.
“The fact that they’re ordinary, regular Irish people…one of the things that people ask me, when I’m doing interviews, is, ‘what celebrity would you like to have on?’
“I don’t care if there’s a celebrity on the show or not. I think the ordinary Irish person who does the show, they’re real celebrities. They’re real people, real stories and we love watching them.”
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And Dermot told how working on the projects for so long forges a “friendship and a bond” with the participants — and how he’d often keep in touch with people who would feature on the show.
He said, “We’d often send each other texts. Once you finish a series, you’re kind of straight back into the next one — your time is quite limited.”
“Lots of them would still text me regularly, or I’d text them.”
Dermot also opened up about the bond that is built throughout working on the project.
He continued, “I’m spending a year in probably one of the most stressful things that they’ll ever do.
“We all get to see the good and bad sides of each other; there’s no holds barred. There’s no pretence there.
“So, with that, you do become friends. The people that you like, you really like them and you form a friendship and a bond. That’s there forever.”
Room to Improve continues on Sunday, January 12 at 9.30pm on RTE One.
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