The Bidding Room — Series 1
If you happen to tune into BBC1 on weekdays at half 4 or at half 7 on Wednesday evenings, you will have discovered a new TV show from the makers of The Repair Shop — The Bidding Room! And if you have been watching closely, you may have spotted a certain recognisable face pop on your telly too. That’s right — ME.
All the way back at the start of 2019, I had an email in my inbox from someone that had found me on LinkedIn asking if I would be interested in applying to be part of a potential new daytime TV show based around antiques. All I had to do was film a 30 second video introducing myself and send it over. Sounds easy, but I am one of the worst people for talking about myself and honestly don’t think I have ever taken a selfie so definitely felt pretty awkward videoing myself!
I was then asked to come to a casting day in London and to bring along a couple of small items of mine as well to help with the process. So of course I dragged Emma along with me so she could sit in a café and look at mortgages (we were in the process of buying our first house at the time!) while I went off to audition with a number of other very talented dealers.
Once we got back to sunny Cheshire, I cracked on with my day to day life, buying & selling antiques all the while waiting for a call to come though until one day, it did! I couldn’t believe it when Adam called me to say they wanted me to be one of the “distinguished dealers” on their panel.
Fast forward a few months to February 2020, I turned up in Halifax on a very rainy Sunday evening, ready for a week of filming and honestly having no idea what to expect. The night before filming I barely slept, thinking to myself what happens if I’m shit? What happens if I swear on camera? What happens if I hate it? What happens if they hate me? Anxiety still through the roof, but 4 coffees and a full English breakfast later, I stopped being negative and jumped in the taxi with the film crew (who by the way, are some of the most awesome people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting!) A short drive later we arrive on set and what a place it is! Three whole floors crammed full of antiques, which is obviously pretty distracting for a dealer but I managed to block out the temptation and walked straight up to the third floor where the Bidding Room was being filmed.
I was greeted by Adi, Tash, Lucy and James G who made me feel at home straight away. Adi, James and Tash had all been here for a few days so their nerves were probably settled by now but it was mine and Lucy’s first day so we went fishing for tips. They gave us both some great advice, ‘just pretend the cameras aren’t there’, ‘just have fun’, ‘be as natural as possible’ etc. But the thing is, you can ask for all the tips you want, but nothing will prepare you. Out of all the advice I gathered, the best piece was from our amazing director Claire which was simply “DON’T BE SHIT”. Those simple words took all my nerves away and I was ready for the first item to come through the door!
After a week of filming, a whole lot of laughs, plenty of antiques, countless photos with Nigel (my Nana loves him), an empty wallet, a belly full of Thai food (we found an amazing Thai just across the road which we lived in for the last couple of days) and a few late nights, it was time to go home. Although I was looking forward to coming home to see my amazing girlfriend & parents, I also knew I was going to miss my Bidding Room family. We’d built a great connection and at this point, we had no idea that all of you amazing people were going to love the show quite as much as you all do, so we had no idea if there was going to be a second series.
After a long wait, the series finally aired in June, whilst most of the UK was still stuck at home because of this pesky pandemic meaning there were plenty of people around to see my first appearance on TV — most of them before I did!
I was at work (I am a fulltime Auctioneer alongside being an Antique Dealer) when the first episode aired. I looked at my phone about half an hour after it started and it had absolutely blown up with lots of messages from my friends and family along with from complete strangers on social media but I still had to wait a few more hours before getting the chance to actually watch my debut. Em had kindly already watched it without me (she said she just couldn’t wait) but was happy to rewatch again when I finally got home.
What a weird experience seeing yourself on telly is!! You notice things which others would probably never pick up on but overall, I don’t think I did too bad. Family and friends complimenting you is one thing, but complete strangers doing the same is another! I’ve gone from a young lad who detested public speaking and the thought of presentations made my stomach turn to someone who’s now on national TV talking about his passion, antiques — it’s all rather surreal.
As series one was such a success and had an average of 2.2 million viewers each episode, we were confident the BBC would commission a second series. A few months after the first series aired, I had a phone call from Adam again to ask if I would like to be a part of the second series, this was a no brainer for me as filming for the Bidding Room was one of the most exciting weeks I’ve ever had! But filming for series 2 was never going to be quite as easy as it was the first time round, the pandemic had hit the UK and things rapidly ground to a halt. Luckily, the production team had managed to put a Covid friendly plan in place so we could still go ahead and create a second series of one of the most loved day time TV shows — which is now factually correct as we have since be nominated for an RTS award!
And if you want to be in with a chance of seeing yourself on TV too, well click the link below and you can apply to appear on The Bidding Room series 3!
