It sounded like a brilliant idea: take the best bits of the Antiques Roadshow – the quirkiest finds and the all-important valuations – and add a dose of gambling drama, some charismatic dealers and a timeslot well removed from the daytime schedules. But when Four Rooms first arrived on Channel 4 nearly two months ago, it somehow didn't quite deliver; a great idea that on screen was rather less than the sum of its parts.
Seven episodes in, however, and I think it's rather improved. The balance of objects and time still seems all wrong; we spend ages with some artefacts, whistle through others and then do far too much recapping and trailing. But as we've got to know the dealers better and started to spot patterns of behaviour among those selling the goods, the programme has started to make more sense. And then, of course, there are also the objects themselves, which on the whole have been more interesting than your average Roadshow articles – although in fact we learn far less about them.
Last night's mechanical elephant and stuffed frogs-in-a-bar scene summed all that up. Great, odd things for sale, dealers interested in handing over cash for them and vendors who named their price, but then changed their mind once they were offered it. I love this final element of the show, which happens with surprising regularity. Partly the seller's actions come down to greed: the desire to squeeze every last penny of profit – because it is quite often profit – out of an object. But there is also, I'm sure, a more defensible motivation when sellers demand more cash: they're desperate not to feel like they've been done over by the dealers; that they've received the price their object is really worth.
It's fascinating because there is no right answer to the question of worth. Some things don't have an easily found market price. Others are subject to fluctuations as they become more (or less) fashionable. Sellers in love with their treasures, or who have long thought of them as being worth fortunes, seem unable to revise their price expectations down, despite what the dealers tell them. Most infuriating are those who place a price on their objects based on something else entirely – the cost of a new ballroom, for instance, a trip on the Orient Express, starting a new life somewhere else. People! The price of an entirely separate project does not determine the price of the thing you own! It is completely bonkers.
And yet, while I groan inwardly (sometimes outwardly) whenever someone arrives at a figure because they "need" it, I still cheer them on against the dealers, who have either been cleverly cast, or are cleverly cut. Each now has a clear identity: Jeff, while rather too knowingly "maverick", what, with the dice and everything, has a nice line in scarves and a brusque line in bargaining; Emma can charm men, women and, I'd warrant, inanimate objects – although I think she perhaps paid too much for things in early episodes; Gordon huffs and puffs madly if he doesn't get his deal but has increasingly been making bold purchases (that gorgeous fossil, for instance); and then there's smooth, tasteful Andrew Lamberty – who does rather seem to have lost his wallet.
Individually they're fun, but it's the dynamic between the four that makes great television – and the tension between their desire to acquire the artefact ahead of their competitors and their determination to strike the best deal. The moment when they reveal how much they paid - or would have - is fantastic. It's a brilliant mix.
So, have you been watching Four Rooms? Are you hoping for a second series? And what have been your must-have objects of the series? Personally I'd have snapped up the miniature zoo, and also the Gilbert and George gin bottle. Oh, and the Banksy. With my fantasy bank account, of course. What about you?
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