Neither coast nor country... it has to be Glasgow for homeboy Kerr

“There were stunning views over the water and it was a jaw-dropping place.”

Coast vs Country has become a real daytime favourite on Channel 4, with Kerr showing prospective buyers round three seaside options and fellow presenter Kirsty Duffy giving them a trio of countryside alternatives. The properties are varied and the choices plentiful, but they are so well tailored to the potential purchasers that many do end up buying.

“I’ve just done my 250th house tour in the past three years,” revealed Kerr. “So I’ve seen a heck of a lot of properties.

“There are such a range that I don’t get bored or blasé.

“And with my interior designer head on, I’m always looking at what they’ve done and thinking I either would or wouldn’t have done

it that way.” Kerr’s TV career hasn’t been the result of any carefully-calculated plan. He has his own interior design business in Oxford and got a call one day from a production company asking if he’d like to talk to them about working on a show called Kitchen SOS. “They pretty much said, ‘Do you fancy being on telly?’ and I thought they were taking the mick.

“I went along for a meeting thinking it would be production people and found Nadia Sawalha, who was the presenter and ran the company, sitting there on the couch.

“We hit it off straight away and I ended up doing 20 episodes of that.

“I went back to my day job afterwards, thinking it had been a nice experience, and then Channel 4 came to me with Coast vs Country. “This is the third series and it’s going from strength to strength.”

The result of the success is that Kerr’s “day job” of his design business has had to take more of a back seat. “With TV you never know where your next gig is coming from, so when I was doing series one I was still full-on with the business.

“I was going away to film on a Sunday night, getting back on a Thursday night and I’d be back in my showroom again on a Friday morning. “It just got too much.

“It was very stressful and I’ve had to slow things down.

“I have a few months off from TV coming up and I will get more involved, although I tend to have one or two jobs ticking along at any one

▼ Kerr with co-presenter Kirsty Duffy.

time.” And scaling back his workload has given Kerr a bit of time for romance, too.

“I think I might finally have met ‘the one’,” smiles Kerr. “It’s been about 10 months. Her name is Dani and she’s from Scotland, which always helps. “She was on a night out and it was a bit like love at first sight.

“It really was like a movie scene, our eyes meeting across a crowded room. “We’ve been seeing each other just as much as we possibly can ever since.”

Coast vs Country, Channel 4, Mon-fri, 3pm.

nJODIE WHITTAKER finally makes her much-heralded screen debut as Doctor Who tonight.

Being the first female Doctor has generated an incredible amount of attention and is sure to have a few curious new viewers tuning in.

And Jodie says any newcomers don’t need to fear being baffled by Time Travelling lore and all that has occurred over the past half-century and more.

“If you’ve never seen the show before, this is a great season to start with,” insists the former Broadchurch star.

“It doesn’t need an encyclopedic knowledge of Doctor Who to get into it.

“Every time there are new cast members, and new Doctors or new companions, the show is regenerated in a literal sense with the character. “New energy is brought into it.

“We wanted to make a series that was very inclusive because, for people like me, we’re all very new Whovians as well. “We’re introduced into this world as new fans will be on this season. “This season is 10 standalone episodes, with contained storylines in every episode.

“So you have a huge series character arc for many of the characters. “But if you come in at episode five, you’ll get a stand-alone story which feels like a film, and which stands up amongst all the television that’s available to anyone now.”

And co-star Bradley Walsh is sure she’ll be a huge success.

“Not only is she an exceptional actress, the energy she brings, is extraordinary,” says Bradley.

“To keep up with her is hard work! She leads from the front and she’ll trailblaze for a lot of other shows. “The new series of Doctor Who is forwardthinking, innovative, bold and brave.” Doctor Who, BBC1, tonight, 6.45pm.

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