Show of the week: Dream Builders

Dream Builders represents something of a departure for Banijay International, which is most closely associated with loud studio entertainment formats.

The show is billed as “uplifting and emotional”, with the premise seeing a group of homeless people with a variety drug, crime and personal issues attempting to start afresh.

A presenter initially lives with them find out more about the realities of life on street and the reasons behind their predicaments before tasking them to renovate an empty building and turn it into a home. Six months after the work is complete, the host returns to check on the inhabitants’ progress.

Banijay’s sales executive Siobhan Herriott says that the first season in Sweden was both a commercial and existential success.

“Putting real drug addicts on TV is not something you always see but it rated really well and a second season has been ordered, in which more than half of the people are coming, some of them as mentors,” she says.

Furthermore, producer Skare Productions has hired on the formerly homeless women for its production staff.

Herriott says Kanal 5’s series has hinged on the host’s tough love personality, which she describes as “Gordon Ramsay-like”.

The show: Dream Builders

The producer: Skare Productions

The distributor: Banijay International

The broadcaster: Kanal 5

The concept: A strong willed host lives rough with homeless people and then challenges them to renovate an empty building and create a home for themselves