Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen is glad that original host Carol Smillie is not returning for the 'Changing Rooms' reboot.
Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen
The 56-year-old TV star is the only expert returning for the Channel 4 revival of the home improvement show from the original BBC run and is pleased that Carol - who has been replaced by Anna Richardson - wasn't asked back as he quipped the new series would have resembled "Jurassic Park" and felt that show needed to be a "reinvention".
Asked if he wanted Carol to return as host, Laurence told The Sun newspaper: "No, and hand on heart, what the producers and what Channel 4 have done is actually very clever. They have moved on and it wouldn’t have worked if it had been 'Jurassic Park' — it had to be a reinvention.
"And to be fair, I resisted it for a long time. I was very keen that they really should look at finding possibilities with other people.
"Otherwise, it would just be a revival, actually it always needed to be a reboot."
The series was originally broadcast between 1996 and 2004 and Laurence claims that it was one of the first reality TV contests - and that 'X Factor' mogul Simon Cowell was influenced by his style on the show.
The star said: "I think he’d adore the comparison with me.
"I know him reasonably well — we’re involved in the same charities. And we are nearly always the two men in the room with the highest heels.
"Obviously with me it has more of an impact, shall we say.
"There’s a whole group of middle-aged, middle-class men at the moment like Gordon Ramsay, Jeremy Clarkson and me, and actually we were all doing our own schtick which was, ‘We are who we are, and we are not going to do it anyone else’s way’.”
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