Interior Design Masters: Series 6/Episode 7 ~ Edinburgh Fringe Venues

Interior Design Masters: Series 6/Episode 7 ~ Edinburgh Fringe Venues

Craig, Rita and John.  Three designers left in the competition, with two spots available for next week's Grand Final.  Who will make it through?  Consistently good Rita?  Consistently late to finish John?  Or consistently in love with himself Craig?  The overwhelming favourites to go through were Craig and Rita......but would dark horse John pip them at the post?

Rita's 'before'

This week's challenge was to make over three venues used at the Edinburgh fringe - the month of August mostly sees them used for comedy, but the rest of the year at least two of them needed to be suitable for other types of performance.  The venues were quite different: the subterranean large space of the Monkey Barrel; the two storey Home venue; and the Royal Dick - an old high ceilinged two-room space within an arts centre.  Spaces were allocated randomly, with Rita picking the Monkey Barrel, Craig the Home bar and performance space, and John the Royal Dick.

John's 'before'

Craig's 'before'

Rita chose a circus theme for the Monkey Barrel, painting the walls red, and adding a circus themed ticket booth and a fairground carousel horse amongst the barrels that give the venue its name.  I loved both of these ideas, although was less enamoured with her VIP area which was less circus and more jailhouse - and as you couldn't see the stage from the VIP area I guess was intended for those who were far too cool to actually be bothered watching the show.  Still, I suppose it would be great if anyone wanted to put on a performance of Chicago.

Great view through the bars of the VIP area

John's venue was an old veterinary school, and he chose (or was instructed - not sure exactly which) to keep a lot of the wall mounted bones and cabinets of microscopes in his performance space.  He also chose to leave the tables and seating as they were, and instead spent a quarter of his budget on an enormous chandelier - which he then inexplicably hung so high that many of the customers would miss it.  Half the country were screaming 'lower it!' and the other half were screaming 'brace yourself, Rodney!' and hoping that Del Boy's grandad wasn't in charge of the ceiling fixings.  Anyone who has no idea what I'm talking about needs to stop reading this RIGHT NOW and go and watch the Only Fools & Horses episode 'A Touch of Glass'.

One of these pictures is of Del Boy and Rodney with the chandelier

John also chose to paint the ceiling, the bar, and some of the walls black, and to add Festival-flavoured graffiti trickling down from the high ceiling.  In a bid to finish on time he disguised some flat pack furniture to create a feeling of panelling on the bar (we could almost hear the sigh of relief from his carpenter), and he also made a clock feature wall behind the bar to reflect the exterior of the building.  I thought it looked great - and was also practical (we know of at least one eliminated contestant who would have painted the busy bar in cream or light beige).

Craig arrived at his venue, and was less than enthusiastic about its current state ('looks like a bad student room from the 80s').  It would seem that the 80s weren't far enough back in time for Craig, who went for a serious Granny Chic feel using rolls of 1970s wall paper and 25 assorted old lampshades.  He also was keen to claim the phrase 'intentional clutter' as his invention, giving him carte blanche to fill the bar with sundry bits of dust-gathering old tat.  Not content with this, Craig also invoked his version of punk aesthetic using cut out letters to spell out 'I love Edinburgh' in an illuminated heart, but then went a bit glam rock with a silver sparkly revolving guitar.  Even then Craig wanted to add more, so in went a cardboard life sized cut out of himself as a drag queen and some bespoke tartan wallpaper in case someone hadn't read the 'I Love Edinburgh' sign and had forgotten what country they were in.  By the time he'd got to the last wall in the performance space I think he'd run out of ideas as he mounted some LPs  - an idea I don't think he'd get away with if he claimed as his own.

Which of these was featured on your Granny's walls?

Craig tells us that his drag alter ego is 'Coco Canal'....

.....but I think 'Droopy Cables' would be more appropriate

Being the semi-final, we got to see a bit of background for the three - cue shots of John teaching and then down the pub with colleagues; Rita using chalk to draw rooms plans on an old piece of land before going for a dog walk with a friend; and finally Craig and his husband showing off their home (absolutely full of intentional clutter) and their beach hut.  Did anyone else recognise Maria McErlane, who spoke as a 'friend of Craig'?  You don't have to go back quite as far as Only Fools & Horses, but she was the voice of Eurotrash back in the 90s and 00s.

Maria McErlane (Antoine and Jean Paul Gaultier not pictured)

Back to Edinburgh, and joining Head Judge Michelle Ogundehin was this week's Guest Judge Shayne Brady.  Both Shayne and Michelle were looking for spaces that encouraged people to come in and stay, but which also valued the importance of performer over scenery.  Needless to say, they both loved Rita's Monkey Barrel and thought she had done an excellent job without going too over the top with the circus theme.  They loved the ticket booth and the fairground horse, and also thought that the bright colour scheme worked in a windowless environment.

John's Royal Dick (I can't type that without sniggering) was next for inspection, with both Michelle and Shayne loving the black ceiling, the graffiti words, and the chandelier (although both thought it should hang significantly lower to make a greater impact).  Shayne wasn't keen on John leaving the original shabby chairs and tables......but was then won over by the transformation in the bar, which he thought was a triumph.

On to Craig's space, where this time it was the upstairs bar that impressed both judges.  Michelle felt that Craig had created a warm and cosy feeling, said that she would be happy to linger here.  However, the fuzzy feeling didn't last very long once Michelle and Shayne descended into the performance space, where they felt that Craig had overdone the design, giving mixed messages and a lack of - wait for it - 'cohesion'.  They both loved the tartan wallpaper (hmmmm), but were divided as to whether the mixed rolls of 1970s paper had worked (Michelle liked them; Shayne did not).  They thought the flying guitars were okay; the punk heart just confused matters, and neither of them liked the revolving glitter guitar at all.  Oh dear.

Back to Design HQ and the verdict.  Rita (wearing a gold dress that I am informed costs about £900!!) was crowned the winner of Standout Space and thus also a berth in the final; and John and Craig were left to fight it out on the sofa.  I think Craig's fate was sealed when asked what the connection was between all his intentional clutter, signage, guitars and drag queen cut outs.  His reply that 'they were all connected by the fact that I liked them' didn't convince Michelle, and she sadly decided it was time for him to leave the process (but not before one last hug with host Alan Carr, who had been a Craig superfan throughout the show.

So: a final of Rita versus John.  Who would have thought this a few weeks ago?  Will Michelle favour the designer who has been consistently good (Rita won Standout Space in Week 1), or the designer who has been on 'a journey' (that would be John).  Those of us who have watched IDM from the beginning know that the only predictable thing will be Michelle's unpredictability........