fri 29/03/2024

Design for Life, BBC2 | reviews, news & interviews

Design for Life, BBC2

Design for Life, BBC2

Starck's a guru who ignores TV imperatives for once

Design for Life is a new BBC2 series about the philosophy of Philippe Starck, he of the iconic ‘space rocket’ lemon-juicer, in the form of an Apprentice-style reality show. It was also an intriguing insight into the control exercised by producers of such shows - for, unlike The Apprentice et al, the choice of contestants and the nature of the challenges were left to Starck himself. ‘Bloody terrifying’ was how Joe Houlihan, the executive producer, described to me the experience of delegating his powers to somebody who didn’t have the imperatives of television foremost in his mind.

But back to the beginning. Twelve young British designers were dispatched from St Pancras by Eurostar (both increasingly over-used emblems of chic modern design – at least we were spared the Gherkin) to attend Starck’s Parisian HQ in a converted funeral parlour. In the by now time-honoured format, there’s a weekly challenge, after which one would-be designer is eliminated, while Starck, who doesn’t believe we have had a national design aesthetic since Terence Conran opened his first branch of Habitat in the early 1960s, attempts to create nothing less than an “English style”. It’s a big challenge that does ultimately (I’ve seen it) throw up an object of beauty and function. But more importantly, does Design for Life work as television?

It depends on which level you approach it. Those looking for ‘colourful characters’ and the entertaining braggadocio and back-stabbing of The Apprentice would have been disappointed, only the cocksure Nebil (“I have no competitors in this entire competition”) approaching anything like Apprentice-levels of unwarranted self-belief. With the ‘casting’ left to the grand fromage himself, making his choices solely on the basis of anonymous design submissions  and not on the contestants’ potential for drama, comedy and conflict, this was a fairly normal, sedate bunch of individuals, a few of whom seemed to possess at least some genuine flair.

No class clowns, bastards or bitches, no one set up for the pratfall or hate-mail... there was nothing to do but concentrate on Starck’s words even when they collided with the caricature of the French intellectual (his opening salvo – “I am a type of new bottle-opener... I am a sort of door” having no doubt shaken off the less committed viewers). Was there anything here that couldn’t have been covered better by a conventional arts documentary? Perhaps not, but at least we’re getting six programmes out of Starck instead of one. That might ultimately prove too much, but so far he’s an engaging and combative presence.

Last night’s opening task was to head off to Carrefour with €100 to be spent on two products that the young Brits believed illustrated themes of function, ecology or gender. Nebil looked as if he believed the ultimate prize (six months internship at Strack’s ‘tribe’) was already firmly in his grasp when he returned with multi-socket light to represent the ‘female’ - displaying an almost instinctive grasp of Starck’s thought processes when he gushed “I thought of this as the five attributes of a woman: her love, her interests, her intelligence, her passions and her philosophy...”  Perhaps he’s just a very cheeky satirist.

Bottom of the class was the deeply Liverpudlian Rob, who was the oldest contestant and looked and dressed like a ‘Hard Day’s Night’-era Beatle (a cross between George and John, with a saturnine dash of Bill Wyman to please the Stones fans), after allowing himself to be talked out of taking a photograph of a bicycle instead of simply buying one. I’m glad Rob was saved – he had such a wry manner, like a man who doesn’t really quite believe in second chances. In the event he was granted one.

Design for Life continues on BBC2 on Mondays at 9pm

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