Either I’ve toughened up or, like the paint on a statement wall, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen has calmed down since he was last on our screens. In the old days, when he and Linda Barker were mostly destroying the nation’s living rooms and all semblance of peace in suburbia as everyone began to fear returning home lest they find their perfectly acceptable three-bed semi suddenly covered inside and out with gold spray paint and plastic crystal chandeliers, I couldn’t find the off switch fast enough. The cuffs, the hair, the performative suffering of Handy Andy – it was hard to avoid entirely in the early years of this century, but I did my best.
LLB hasn’t exactly gone away since then, but he took small parts rather than central roles. You could, with a modicum of care, let him fade from memory and – despite a brief Changing Rooms return that involved building, oh Jesus, a hair wall that I still see when I close my eyes at night – begin to heal.
