Historic Preservation Reality TV

The Restoration series will show 10 one-hour programmes twice a week over five weeks. Each will cover three buildings in need of restoration and viewers will be able to vote for the one they think should be restored. For the series, Rhys-Jones has had to visit 30 buildings, from Cornwall to Scotland... "I thought there'd be some buildings that weren't deserving, but there wasn't a dud. All of them were fascinating. You'd go to Mavisbank [a fine early-Georgian country house near Edinburgh] and that would blow everything out of the water. But then you'd find a music hall above an amusement arcade in Trongate in Glasgow or a lino factory in Kirkaldy, Fife. The difficulty is in choosing between them. It's like a choice between apples and potatoes."