BEHIND MITCH AND MARK'S RETURN TO THE BLOCK

It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week.

I'm right, how.

Would I describe a television set, oh.

Man from a headline grabbing point of view, the hack producer from me says one hundred percent put him in.

Welcome back guys to TV Reload. My name's Benjamin Norris, and on this podcast I go behind the scenes with the biggest players in television.

Yeah, great questions. The show's about the game.

There's a lot of great television out there in Australia.

But I've also got to go behind the scenes with writers. The truth is, when I started writing it, it wasn't had nothing to do with the news and casting agents.

They know from a casting point of view what they need.

And editors because that's what we do as editors where storytellers them. Not to forget some incredible executive producers who are making some of the best TV content in Australia.

I have been on the program since the beginning and it's kind of in my DNA.

So thanks for joining me each week and I hope the podcast continues to give you real insight into the magic of te Today on the podcast, I have Mitch and Mark from Channel Lines the Block fans versus favorites. Mitch and Mark make up a large percentage of the Block's favorites part of the twenty twenty one competition, and very quickly into the chat, I worked out why the boys are so much fun to work with. They are

It's Mitch and Mark. I think Australians have got a fascination for innovation. It's a coup of all stars, Mitch and Mark. Our true cells come through. We can't fake it.

A few years ago on the Oslow, Mitch and Mark, We're Blindsided.

It's a peak inside of people's life.

You Mark, I'm.

Really taken aback at how wrong this feels.

Even watching it, I felt physically ill.

Next up Mitch and Mark performing Wake Me Up Before You Go Go.

But this time I did keep reminding Mark and the team we are going to have fun.

Hey boys, how are you well?

Thank you Ben, nice to be here.

I have to start this podcast by saying that my partner and I fight over which one of you we.

Are really which one do you want to be?

I was just going to say I think that my partner is the best part of both of you, and I think I'm probably the worst part of both of you. So I'll leave, I'll leave that amount of information with you.

Then then I want to you describe then your qualities. I want to hear one of the worst both of us together.

Yeah, oh my god.

No, It's kind of funny when you're watching the show, doesn't matter who you are. And I've been on reality television, so I know even when you're watching yourself, you kind of hit the television like why would I say that? And so I find the two of you the most relatable out of this season. I mean, you're both way more glamorous than my partner and I, so I'll just give you that much.

Stop it, Okay, if you're talking through a young face, just stop it.

Well, the one thing that is so obvious to me while the drama goes on throughout the show is the love and respect that you both have for each other, which I think is just so amazing to watch in twenty twenty one to see same sex couple like this, you know, like the fur flies around with everybody else, but you guys, you know that love is still there. It's quite amazing to watch.

Yeah, seventeen years in. But we've always had the philosophy of if it's not working, it should be. And I love when people can work things out and stay together, but I don't think people should be together if they are going to say nasty things to each other.

I think a lot of people were maybe surprised to see that the first season when we did the OSLO because a few people said to us, but is that real? You really know? Didn't you really fight? And I think even we even had a few people suggest some of the people who might have been on the block before suggests, oh, well that's not real. If you're not fighting, that it's not real.

So well, we don't know.

We's agree about everything, but we've always said you have to respect each other and you can disagree and have some respect. And for us on the block, it was like, we choose to be with each other and we're not going to take offense. We care. So you meet, You would often say on the block, you have time where you don't know what to do next because it's so you're so tired and it's so overwhelming, and then things

But we would look for signs in each other. You can generally tell when when you're working such long hours the block hours, probably regularly this season it would have been eight an hour days and little sleep and physically

I think some of the other couples on the block could deal with learning some of these life lessons from the two of you.

Well. I think it was actually nice to be to portrayed this time. More so, I thought we were portrayed as a couple, whereas the first time we were always described as the gay granddads. And I do remember saying to one of the producers early in the piece, I'm cool with been called the gay granddads, but if you're going to do that, I'd like you to call the other couples the heterosexual couple with no children or the heterosexual couple married with two children. But they probably weren't

Well, what's nice, I guess for us has been we're just being ourselves. Yeah, and what you see on the block a lot of people you've had it with reality TV is can you pretend to be something you're not and then when the cameras aren't around, drop that facade. That's too well for us, it's too hard. We're too old to do that anyway. So oh, for God's say, we're just us, you know, And I guess in our own journeys, you know, we worked hard to be who we are. So we're really happy to be where a

Look, that's one of the advantages being older. And it's only to talk about being the oldest on the Big Brother Mark and I two years ago with the oldest couple ever on the block, and then two years later we're older than that couple. So we're older, oldest couple ever on the block. Even more so, the block's been running forward.

We can't win a challenge you, but we've got that.

But the block's been running for seventeen years. We are older than any couple today. We're older than any couple that have ever appeared on the block, So couples that appeared seventeen years ago, it's still still way younger than us. And apart from a gay couple can work. It was also nice to show that a couple that's older can still have the youth to work alongside the other guys and not be disadvantaged. You don't have to be like the twins are twenty seven and everyone else. Everyone's all

You know, we're well and truly into the series of the Block, and I just wanted to ask, you know, this is probably something people asked you at the start, but I wanted to know, how did the block come up again? Did you guys have an inkling that they'd ask you back and you would do it all over again.

I knew that was coming up. I knew I knew that back.

No, No, not at all. You know, we felt very lucky first off to be on the Block the first time around, and that's probably that was never expected. That's another story. And then when we were asked to come back for the All Stars thing for the few days last year, like, we've felt really privileged that when this came up, we were sitting basically at this desk talking and doing some other work that we've got planned and

And we were like, and he did ask, you know, look, you want a few days to think about it, and I said no, because I have a few days. I don't know what I'll say, but right now it's hell yes.

And he was really respectful, like he said to us, before I go and talk to the network about this, I need to know whether or not, like I don't want to pitch you doing it if it's not what you want to do. So and the bizarre thing, too much is our builder Jason that everyone got to know because we've a tag team and he and his wife and Steven, he's like for best mates.

Now.

We talked almost every day. We've been speaking to Jason saying, oh, somebody is going to approach you to do the block this year. You know, what do you think about it? We were talking with him and he was like, oh, I'm not sure if I'll do it again. You know, their business has done very well.

I think ten in a Vide did approach it.

Tan you well, we found out later Tanya Video did, but at the time he was like, I don't know. And we were really saying, you know what, Jason, You're going to have so many people want you. And I'd even joked with him and said, well, why don't you let me interview them, because I don't want you to like them better than us, you know, so you can't have someone that you like better than us. So I joked with him and said, well, why don't you get

Think Jason might have been approached to do the High Pages Angel thing. Yeah.

So we then rang Jason's wife and said, guess what heads up? We're back, but don't tell Jason. And she rang Jason and said, you need to come home. The boys need to talk to you. And apparently he thought something was wrong. He was really worried at our age. You thought it was some we're going to say we were sick. And we zoomed him and just said, guess what, Jason, you're back on the block. And he was. And his first response was, I could not watch you build with

The show still resonates all these years later, probably the longest running reality TV show probably in the world. I like it at this stage. Why do you think the show resonates so much with Australian audiences.

I think Australians have got a fascination for renovation. I think we're probably the one nation where owning a home is such a big thing, and although it's getting tougher for young people in the big cities, it still is the thing we all aspire to and most people at some stage do end up owning a home. They might have to move out out of town or whatever they get there and then making our homes better, making our

And it's aspiration too. I think people look for the aspiration of taking something and changing it and making it into something beautiful. I think people like that almost Cinderella story. Each week of the dirt floor and Sunday night, people go, oh my god, look at that amazing room. I think that's also a bit of fantasy.

And it's raw. People are doing amazing work and they're out of their comfort zone, and we're working seven days a week and we're exhausted, and we become real. Even if people do go on thinking they want to betray themselves as something something, but not necessarily, our true cells come through. We can't fake it. So people get to know us, whether they like us, lovers like or hate us, they get to know us, and we're putting ourselves out there. So it's a peak inside people's lives.

But you know, with the block, I think also it's something that is kind of hard as well. It's not something that everyone can do, and I think that's probably where the longevity is as well. I think if everyone was sitting at home thinking like big brother, oh, I could just be in house, more people would do it and it probably would die off where it is a real competition that seems to me to be almost impossible at times.

But I do think they've been that if any of us are told you're going to work seven days a week, you'll be You'll be getting You'll be working physical labor for eighteen hours, sometimes twenty four hours right through. I don't think it for seven days for twelve weeks. I don't think any of us would think we can do it. But to me, the block taught us the first time that there's something in everybody. We're not special, and none of the contestants are special human powers. We're just people

Can blossom in some of those like we survived, but also blossom. You see what in the OSLO that first one like I'll never forget walking into the Oslo for the first time, and when we watched it back, I remember that and even now I feel like it it's like the overwhelm of the size.

It just was overwhelmed and the mess and the mess and having seen other couples go into those broken places and then when you walk in yourself, you think, oh shit, this is real.

But I think, Mitch, you know, under that pressure the other thing that hit me and the Oslo, It's happened again. I guess this time with the Oslo because it was so big. When we watched the formal living room being delivered, and that was like week two. I think we did the bedroom bathroom, first time we ever did a bedroom bathroom in the same week, and I think it was the next week we went down did the formal and

How do you compare these two experiences though, because I mean, there are different themes to both of these, but there's also different people, so the experience must be somewhat different. Can you even say without knowing the end result at this point, but how did the two experiences compare to one another?

This was better. I think we got a chance for a rerun and having a chance for rerun, and I'm seeing it in It's now where we're up to in the show. Now, I'm seeing that we're getting caught up again. We're so we were so folks on doing the best job we could that we didn't stop and spend any time to enjoy the first time enough, there were of course members of joy, but this time I did keep reminding Mark and the team we are going to have fun.

How long did it take to work out all the fashion? Because the fashion is phenomenal and I'm just like, if you've been on the show before, you kind of know what angles work. You know, how long did it take for you to put this fashion together?

Well? I worked out there there were going to be twelve reveals and reveal nights.

There are a lot more reveals that you didn't see that were tough, right, I did do it.

I did a full naked scene that was that was quite quite knowing needs quite power. But so I put together twelve outfits for for both of us, for that shoes, belts, everything connected, and I timed them to be for each week. And there's there's a stylist, Emma's an amazing style who styles people. And I presented our looks and she said, look, I just want it all and I told her which

See.

I've actually been designing clothes for the past few weeks because I just decided I've worn all those new ones. It needs something good for most of those clothes I designed and have made.

Will send me photos of all of it because, let me tell you, my partner and I, after watching the season the Block, we want to chuck out all of our stuff because it's all it's all bloody rubbish. Let me tell you what's the strangest story that you guys have read being on this season of The Block?

Last time we were seeking treatment for oh yeah, we were seeking treatment for a botox addiction, and the photograph they had of us seeking treatment for a botox addiction. We both looked so haggard. I thought, seriously, find an image where we look stunned.

If we were that addicted, we wouldn't look like this, right, we would.

And then there was another occasion where where I was walking out on mark, but it was actually the photograph was of us arriving arriving at the block together. I just love this then, and I had a wasting disease.

The only thing I have seen was an insiders said that maybe auction day won't go ahead because none of us can stand to be in the same room with each other. And that's not true. That's absolutely not true. Mitch talks to Georgia every couple of days. You're here at the phone, is that you Georgian? Miki? You talk to the boys probably every at least once a week, Furst in Jesse, probably every couple of days. It's fair to say, you know Tanya and Vito. You've reached out

It's happened, And there was crap went down, but that's behind us, like having been through the block before, it is behind us, and we know how tough it can be. So I did sort of say, look, if you want, he's my number. Everything's water on the bridge, happy to help you through. But you know, and they're working out, and I suppose they're working.

So that's the weirdest story, the story. No one can stand each other and they won't be a sitting.

I did read yesterday though, somewhere it was like Tanya and Vito I have been ranked the most annoying or something on the block history. But is that fair? Is that a fair assumption?

I don't know. Is there a ranking I didn't know there was a ranking system. I'm sure we'd be on there somewhere too.

And it depends. You know, you're annoying everyone, and one of us is annoying to somebody and to some part of the audience. I always get a bit cautious when you read something from a source.

Yeah, but the most, the most. I'm sure we're all up there. I think my good friend George will be there too, because she's well, Ronnie's annoying, not Georgia. Ronnie's annoying. I had to take what I had to take Ronnie on an anti annoying training program whilst we're on the block, and I was doing well, But now that we're not together every day, I'm worriedy slipping back.

I'm sure she would have told you by now. To be fair, do you think that it might have been better to have everyone as an All Star or do you think that the mix this series has is a good contrast.

Very good question. I think it was interesting. It was really interesting not being all All Stars, and it would have been a very different show with total All Stars. The viewers are tuning in, so it must be working, and what's really interesting all Stars. I felt like like once we got in a few weeks, like I don't know what point it was, whether it was three weeks or four or two, but we're all block contestants. Yes, we're all there fighting to do the best we can.

Well, I think that I think the twist of this season and it's kind of in a way, I kind of feel well night. In a way, I do feel proud of the fact that, you know, Mitch and I by chance got the biggest block that they've ever done, and they will never do anything as big, and now we've got to do the block that has been one of the most challenging because you had no floor plan

Also we all finished our first week room. So on our first year, one couple properly finished their first week room and ours wasn't painted right. I think Jesse and Jesse in mel their room was finished, completed and really beautifully finished. Ours was completed, but the painting will take wrap. I think that was the advantage. Week one was an advantage because we knew to bite off what we could chew and what we could finish, but it isn't finish.

Yeah, do you need to have a level head? I mean, this is something I keep thinking about. And do you worry too much about upsetting the producers or presenters? I mean I can see a frustration at times, and I would worry that they would panalize you. You know, do you just have to be like, this is authentically myself and this is how I would react to any given situation. Or do you try and factor in the fact that you don't want to upset anyone.

Iried up?

You know?

In our experience on this season this time around, it's fair to say that we'd worked with the camera crew and the sound guys before. Some of the producers were new, but we were really excited to go back and work with them because they're amazing people, and you know, they create this show. They're carrying heavy cameras through work sides, with boots and with stuff everywhere, and the sound guys and the sound guys are amazing. So they're friends to us.

You just have to be yourself. I remember where you were accused of painting, and you just were like, there's no way that that happened, and then you held your ground.

So you seriously think having done this in two seasons one we would let him painting.

I'm going to tell you what I saw.

No, I'm asking a different question, Keith, I'm asking you a different question after after two. No, well it does, I'm entited to ask a question or lax mine.

Sometimes you need to be a little bit level headed and just you know, you've got to respect other people, but you've also got to be true to yourself.

You know, you've got to be I think sometimes and it's probably been from my perspective the work that I have done, because my career was in a very different area than on the block, so I had dealt with people a lot and conflict a lot in my career, and in that situation, you know, to me, it's like, it's okay to be angry and frustrated. I need to have some rational kind of thought here. And sometimes it's

One hundred percent? And how much of the show do you actually watch back? So I heard before you said that you watched every episode of the first time you're on the show. You're watching every episode that's on this time. And how much do you need to drink to calm your anxiety.

I don't have any problem drinking. I don't think we've missed an episode this season. I think I think it's I think you've got a responsibility to be on top of what's happening on the show. Part of agreeing to do the show. You agreed to do the show, and if you if you're not paying the respect by watching it, you can't then engage with media or with whether whether radio interview properly or with the or social media discussions, because just because you lived it, you know it doesn't

Heard criticism of it's the reality of how you get through your journey.

They won more so they could afford more labor. We won less, and luckily for us, we saw that coming, so we were able to make up for the lack of winnings with labor. So basically we painted all night and I labored as well as doing the styling thing.

I think it's interesting. Then you know a couple same sex couple on reality TV. One question raised with us now and then these people said, but they never took vision of you in bed. You know, you would see that people walking in the mornings, and you see contestants in bed and they're working up and we've had I know the last season two. A couple of people said, oh, was that because it was the same sex relationship. I said, no, it's because they never caught us in bed. Because we

And then I think by kitchen or little living room. Week we then moved out. We had our alarm set for five fifteen, and I generally wake up just for an eln I don't know. It's a weird thing though, I do. But then we moved it for we thought we need another forty five minutes. For the last five weeks, we've got at a four thirty every morning to paint, to paint and do stuff.

Well, I don't know where you guys get the energy from. I mean, it's just it's madness. It's just mad I do if you could change one thing, I mean, you guys are officionados on this now, so you've done it twice. But is there a rule that you guys would like to change on the block, like maybe painting.

Oh you know, in some ways I understand it because it's a level of all contestants. We don't have a trade, and in our first season a number of the couples did have a trade. It was interesting the promos there were, you know, we were so experienced its yeah, but we're not builders, like Matt's a builder, Luke was a builder, Jesse was a tyler and this season this season, yeah, so painting levels everything, So I don't have an issue

Sometimes I thought for the builders it's a disadvantage because they get they become part of the building team, they lose control of coordinating the project.

It's tougher for them sometimes if you've got a trader's to get called into stuff. I think the one thing I have not been we have not been shining saying this, I think, and particularly given this season with the architecture and changing rooms and design. I think judging should include maybe an architect and a real estate person. The block

I've never seen the New Zealand version of the Block. I want to check it out.

Now watch it. You've gone and watched, We've had all we've had New Zealander friends tell us that the New Zealanders prefer the Australian bloc.

Oh wow, I think we should go be judges on the New Zealand.

You really should. Well, we should pitch that. You know. A few comments, yes, a few comments around this season is that this is the Maths version of the Block, especially with the biggest cheating scandal. What did you think of that? I mean, I wanted to ask you boys if you'd ever seen Maths. But then also ask you whether or not you felt like the drama was escalated more this time around.

Well, Juells and Camp from Maths live not far from us, and they're very good friend mates. So if we're kind of and they got married, they're still married and they have a beautiful baby, so.

They bring us after watching the block most nights, what happened?

Yeah, what the fuck Michie? You said that?

You know this season, Let's say a lot of people and there's a lot of conversation around the block every year about I'm got the drama? Can't that just show more building? And at some level I would like to see a little more of building. You know, there are things that every couple transforms. So our living area was dirt and we had to dig the stumps and put

Like a bit of.

People like to say whatever they you know, like if you don't do one small thing, they'll pick at it, do you know what I mean? Like, there's never I worked out. There was never a correct answer because like I remember, after doing Big Brother, I was like, maybe if I explained to people online what happened, because it obviously was different in real time, And then I just realized there's no right answer. So there's no point.

We've had people write us long emails telling us about how we should have designed a room, or I really like that that you could have done this and done this and stuff.

I'd really get alive.

Anyways, we need to talk about who do you think is going to win? Like, can we talk about how you think this is going to play out?

I think it's highly likely that Jesse in Cursey's house will win. It's a much bigger block of land. They keep talking about it being a much bigger house. It is such a not much bigger. It's bigger. I don't think it's hugely bigger.

It was interesting because when you look at all the houses, I think most of them are four bedroom houses. So in terms of facilities that they offer, far from Tanya and Vito. They've got three bedrooms, but you know most houses are four bedrooms. Have got three Cursing just have four bathrooms, but the function and the facility is the same, but the property is bigger. And I think the land value, somebody will be really interested in that. So I think

Last season, they did, but they did it and it south all through, which.

Was sad for Jimmy and Town because we know them, and that was horrible. And then it took maybe nine months to sell that property. So in terms of the real estate market, if the block's a real estate competition, the people the judges choose through their assessment haven't won the block in the last three or four years. Who knows.

I just loved it. You're like when they were talking about those pantries in the kitchen, and you guys were like, oh, well, this is where we put the dry food, and I was loving it.

There's simply not enough space to store food. This is a major issue Jana thinks you have to add some somewhere.

No, No, it is something that you kind of have to factor in, especially if you do know the show as well as you guys do, and that is pleasing the judges and getting the scores isn't the big picture at the end of the day.

So well, we want the judges vote the first time round and came last, and look when we did believe we presented a house worthy of a win, and probably, in our opinions, whether we're right or wrong, the house that was potentially least appealing one. So it's really hard to predict. I think Kirsty and Jesse they have a point of difference. That's why I picked their house out.

It's a different market to the rest of us. But Mitchell, on that basis, who knows the judges loved our house so much, maybe we'll win.

Well, I just ask this, wasn't going to plan on asking this question. But is Jesse as cute in real life as how he is on television.

He's a beautiful angel.

Someone put on Twitter or photo without his top on last night and I may have retweeted it.

Jesse is, but he's such a beautiful soul. It's just so beautiful.

I remember saying to Kirsty in the early first few weeks or something, said are you prepared? So what I said, you do know he's going to be Australias sweetheart. You do understand that. And at one point, I think Ronnie at one point there was some issue going on and Runny was, oh, I need to go and have a chat, and it was like, running do you really want to be on camera having a go at Australia's three? I mean, do you want to be the do you want to be the one that's kill?

But do you want to go back to that one thing? Mark said that the one who wins where the judges doesn't necessarily win. I think Ronnie and George have also presented a winning house so and I think their house is beautiful regardless of whether the judges thought it was beautiful. I think the home is beautiful. I guess they well, no, but but I think it's a beautiful. Think that George's styling is exquisite.

But I guess the reason I say that feedback though, is in looking at who's going to who we think might win the block, I would disregard completely what the judges are saying, and look at it from a real estate perspective. Whatever they said, I just go, yeah, whatever, let's look at the properties in terms of what they offer, their position in the coulder, sat that kind of stuff. It's it's not about whether or not Neil or Shane

It is.

It's but dare I say it? Ben? I do? I believe, and of course I'm biased. I believe we have built and designed and planned and styled and landscaped the whole kitten, the boodle, the best house. Whether or not that wins, I don't. I don't have I don't hold, I don't hold hope to win. I'm not hanging out to win. I don't expect to. If we did, hallelujah, it would

No.

The last question I do ask all of my guests before they go is what's an amazing story from behind the scenes that we as an audience may not have seen.

This year on the block, we actually had Kinsman Kitchens offered to do all of our laundry, so they had someone come and collect the laundry for us every week, whereas previously on the block, your laundry was your problem, and until you had a laundry, you had to either go to a laundry mat or wear dirty clothes. And I remember sitting in a laundry mat. There was a one Insecurita that I sat in in the middle of the night getting some laundry done. When we needed to,

I knew this was at that point.

I knew with this, let's to take my trousers. And then I said, look, why don't I get clean under it? So I took off my underwear and I was staying there stark naked in front of forty fifty people, which was for me, it was amazing. It's like, oh my god, I'm naked, and it's sort of like that dream you wake up and you're naked in a crowded room.

No, it's a nightmare. You've got it wrong. It's not a dream. It's a nightmare when I wake up, when I have that dream and I'm completely neuded in front of people. Oh my god.

Yeah, well I well I was, and it was it was people were like for all the right runs, I hope, but I was. I found it very invigorating. I found it empowering, empowering.

However, the poor guy who was taking the laundry. One of the interesting things is two of the guys working on a unit show, travel Guys, the Target Boys, Deng and Kevin and Dorian. Deng and Kevin were working as runners on the block that was pantestic? Were they yes, Evan who took kids laundry, who was in shock singing naked?

That's the story.

Then after I did that strip in front of him, I didn't think to myself, well, should I should have checked that it was actually like not affected by the people weather. I should I should have.

Teased me no time for fluffing boys. Can I just say it has been so amazing to talk to the two of you. I have absolutely loved every single second. My partner is going to be devastated when the show's over, because you inspire me every day in very different ways of tiding things up around the house. I would want to present myself better. I want to have a better relationship with him, and I think it's just been amazing

Thank you, it's a pleasure.

Thanks for being that's that's too kind.