The wife of ‘Handy Andy’, DIY expert in popular BBC show Changing Rooms, has revealed people should refer to her husband as just Andy, since it’s 'far more factually correct'.
Long-suffering Geraldine Kane broke years of silence as she described that, far from being handy, clumsy Kane is actually ‘useless, just useless around the house’.
‘To be honest Andrew struggles with the simplest of joinery tasks. What you see on screen is all done off-camera by carpenters from the production company; usually while Andrew’s fiddling with his PSP in the corner. He just steps in to finish off the job, and take all the glory,’ she sighs.
While the Handy Andy nickname was her idea, it was originally meant as a joke. ‘I was just being sarcastic. We’d got tickets to the filming of Can’t Cook , Won’t Cook and Andrew managed to lock our keys in the car outside Television Centre. Linda Barker overheard me say 'Oh that’s handy Andy', and it kind of stuck. The producers told us they’d been searching for a down-to-earth Cockney character for the show for a while, and we needed the money, so we went along with it. But now that we have our second home and the swimming pool I think people deserve to know the truth.’
Last night the BBC admitted that during the height of Changing Rooms fame the show’s participants were sworn to secrecy to protect Kane and the show’s image. ‘He actually thought a 2x4 was some kind of half-sized jeep,’ added a BBC executive. ‘It’s shocking.’
Geraldine eventually decided to come clean after fears that, under strict new advertising regulations, her husband could be prosecuted for promoting himself using fraudulent terms. ‘I saw a story about Michael Barrymore. His agent was trying to overturn a court ruling that banned him from referring to Barrymore as 'popular TV funnyman'. There’s a lesson for us all.’
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