The Home That Two Built, review, BBC Two: 'chortling at the past' The Home That Two Built (BBC Two) was the first part of a talking-head history of lifestyle programmes. The phrase "lifestyle programme" itself probably belongs to history too, because you hardly hear it now, but the genre was certainly popular in the Sixties, when it was created to appeal to a post-rationing middle class with money to spend and neighbours to steal a march on. Hence programmes sternly instructing viewers how to improve themselves, and their social standing, via their cookery, gardening, home décor and more. The actual information contained in The Home That Two Built was often interesting. Fanny Cradock, the first superstar TV chef, was renowned off-air for her blistering gracelessness ("Fanny Cradock was a cow" - Esther Rantzen). When she visited her friends the Worrall Thompsons, their young son Antony - yes, the future TV chef - used to hide under the stairs because he was so scared of her. "It was," he recalled, "like a witch had flown in." At times, however, the programme suffered from a tendency to chortle at the past for its provincial innocence. Ho ho ho, silly old past! If only it could have been as clever as the present! Would you just look at its clothes, my dear! And that hairdo - what was it thinking! Still, I suppose it just didn't know any better, poor thing! Eventually, of course, the future will gain vengeance on the past's behalf, by making programmes that chortle about the programmes we make today. "So in the year 2014," some talking head of 2034 will drawl, "they had this series called The Home That Two Built, and it was about like things that had once been fashionable but weren't fashionable any more and how amusing that was. And like the most famous talking head the producers could get was like Laurence Llewelyn Bowen. Laurence Llewelyn Bowen! What a name, right? God knows what else he ever did, but he was like this posho in a deckchair-striped shirt, floppy hair and a big fat goatee. Basically looked like a Waitrose Dave Grohl. Then they'll probably have to explain that Dave Grohl was the singer with this like rock band who... Anyway. Shows like this would be fine if they just played it straight. Off with their talking heads.