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Antiques Roadshow returns with new presenter Fiona Bruce
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Antiques Roadshow
Day and time to be confirmed BBC ONE
 Programme copy
Fiona Bruce, perhaps one of the BBC's best known presenters, prepares to spread her wings as she swaps the comfort of the BBC News studio to embark on a 10,000-mile journey around Britain as the new face of the Antiques Roadshow. She travels to all corners of the UK – to Lanhydrock in Cornwall, to Dumfries in Scotland, to Belfast in Northern Ireland and to Colwyn Bay in North Wales, among many other destinations – along with the show's experts, including Philip Mould, Hilary Kay and Lars Tharp, to meet the public and hear their remarkable stories about the wonderful items they have brought along to the Roadshow.
Along the way, Fiona visits her old college in Oxford, meets Earl Spencer and hears what it was like for him and his sister, Diana, Princess of Wales, growing up in the stately home of Althorp, near Northampton, and, she tells Jane Dudley, she learns a lot about antiques.
"I'm not an antiques expert and I'm never going to be – how could I when the programme's experts have done it all their lives and it's their livelihood and their passion? But I'm learning and picking up little bits, so I'll do my best," she says.
What she's found harder than learning about antiques, though – not that she's a complete novice, having presented three series of the Antiques Show on BBC Two from 1998 – is having to slow down her usual pace of presenting live news bulletins and, until last year, live editions of BBC One's Crimewatch. "It's a learning curve I suppose in that it's a gentle show, and they haven't been the kind of shows I've done in the past. You have to get into a slightly different groove for the Roadshow. You don't rush around, which is my natural modus operandi, so they have had to slow me down a bit," she laughs.
"I knew I'd like doing it," she reveals, "but I didn't realise quite how much fun I'd have and hopefully that will come across."
Fiona takes over from Michael Aspel, who had presented the series since 2000 and left as he celebrated 50 years in television. Prior to that, the Roadshow, which has run from 1979, has had only three other presenters: Bruce Parker, Angela Rippon and Hugh Scully. "Michael was terrific at doing the Roadshow and he was incredibly generous with me, with his time, and incredibly kind before I started," she says. "Everyone on the Roadshow is so fond of him and having met him a few times I can see why. He's a lovely man."
The format changes very little from when Michael presented the show but it is now an hour long so, says Fiona, there are some slight differences in the new series: "I'm doing a section each week with one of the experts where we ask them: 'If your house was on fire, God forbid, and you had to rush from your home clutching just two items, what would they be?' Of course, we are presuming their loved ones are all safe and sound!"
"It's a way of getting to know the experts better and a way of getting to know their private passions, if you like. Lars Tharp is a ceramics expert but his secret passion is Hogarth [an 18th-century portraitist], so we learn about that and then via that we learn about Hogarth and about that period, and we also learn about Lars, who's a great character."
Fiona has travelled the length and breadth of the UK for the show but one of her favourite trips so far has been back to Hertford College in Oxford, where she studied as a young woman. "It was great," she says. "I've only been back to Oxford once or twice since I left and when you're a student there it just feels like it's your town. When you're not a student you feel like an outsider, so it was an odd feeling. Going back there as a person with a job felt very weird."
While filming, she was reunited with her old French tutor, Dr Ann Holmes and, says Fiona, she was amazed Ann remembered her. "She was such a lovely woman, a darling. She even remembered what my dissertation had been about and the fact that I'd kind of campaigned to get a woman tutor in the college for women's affairs. Apparently – and I didn't know this – every college followed suit soon after that so it was nice to think I'd actually made a difference."
The day also brought back memories for Fiona of running late for lectures and grabbing free meals whenever she could: "Just being in the quad brought back so many memories. I remember when I used to leg it through the quad because I'd got up so late. I'd always miss breakfast and the only way I'd get fed was to make it in time for lunch, so I remember running to the quad, half-dressed, trying to get a free meal!
"And there I was, with the whole paraphernalia of the Antiques Roadshow, and there was a sign up with my picture on, and it was just surreal. I spent a day doing the links and I was cycling around Oxford and I went punting and it was lovely and sunny. For me, it was a fantastic trip down Memory Lane."
Another memorable trip for Fiona was the Roadshow's visit to Althorp, family home of the late Diana, Princess of Wales. "My goodness me, it's just incredible," she enthuses. "At one time Althorp had one of the biggest private libraries in Britain, with 40,000 books, which drove the then Earl into penury and he had to retreat to one room in the house, with a candlestick.
"And there's an extraordinary art collection," she continues. "They've got Stubbs, Sargent and beautiful charcoal portraits. Absolutely wonderful.
"The Earl was utterly delightful," says Fiona. "I interviewed him and asked how it felt growing up around this and knowing it's going to be yours one day. He said you very much feel that you're there in passing – you're a custodian of it. He said he had a very funny moment with his son, who's about 14, and he had one of those family conversations – one day this will all be yours – and the son said, 'Yeah, well I know dad. I suppose if I get hard up I could always sell a painting!'
"He also talked about growing up there with Diana, and we talked to one of the housekeepers who was there when Diana was young and asked her memories of that time.
"They've got more history there than they know what to do with. They've had that house for 500 years. We were poking around the stables and they had all these old uniforms and things from previous Earls, so I tried some of it on, including a helmet. It was incredible. I think they've got great plans to put it all on display."
But, as usual on the Antiques Roadshow, it's the public that have the most interesting objects and tales to tell and the most fascinating objects to bring, and this new series is no exception. "There are quite a few extraordinary ones, including one person who found a painting on a skip 20 years ago and never liked it and, I have to say, neither did I – it didn't look much cop to me! It turned out to be by a very significant American artist and was worth about £20-30,000. It was a complete and utter shock to them.
"We had another person bring along a Russian painting that Philip Mould, our art expert, described as the most significant he'd ever seen at a Roadshow. Russian art is burgeoning at the moment – the market for it is massive. A man brought along a painting that belonged to his aunt, and it was of a kind of Russian worker I suppose, or peasant, and it was valued at about £200,000.
"Philip said – and would usually say to someone – sit on it for a while and get it insured, don't rush into a decision about it. And if people do want to sell then we'll point them in the right direction."
Fiona also managed to go back to her news roots while presenting the Roadshow in Belfast, at the Titanic Drawing Offices, where, along with some memorabilia from the Titanic, the team was asked to look at a signed copy of the Northern Ireland Peace Treaty, in Irish. "It was signed by all the leaders, so David Trimble, Tony Blair etc. were all there. It was brilliant. Gerry Adams was right next to David Trimble – they were far closer on paper than they were politically. For me, as a journalist, it was incredible to be there. I've been to Stormont and done stuff about Northern Ireland so many times."
When asked about the weirdest object Fiona has come across while filming, she has an instant answer: "A ram's head that also doubles as a snuff box with a snuff container inserted in between its eyes," she laughs. "It was disgusting! I ended up having to take some snuff from it. The producer didn't tell me what it was, so I opened this box and they said we'll film as we go along, and I thought okay, fair enough, a lot of that goes on. But it was quite the most grotesque thing I've ever seen and taking snuff from it wasn't a pleasant experience!"
So does Fiona's resurrected interest in antiques and all the advice from experts mean that she now spends all her free time scouring around antiques shops, searching for bargains and looking for design marks on plates and other objects? "Oh my God, what a busman's [holiday] that would be," she laughs. "Absolutely not, not in a month of Sundays! I'm a firm believer in leaving your work in the workplace. Although now you mention it, I should be able to drive a hard bargain now! Next time I go to an antiques shop I might get a reasonable price on something, as people might assume that I know the value, and therefore wouldn't try to put too much of a mark-up on it. I'll have to put that to the test!"
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