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'I'm an Antiques Road Trip expert and this is the toughest part about my job'

'I'm an Antiques Road Trip expert and this is the toughest part about my job'

Edinburgh Live08-05-2025
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Irita Marriott, one of television's beloved antiques experts, has been gracing our screens since 2021.
She first shot to fame on BBC's Bargain Hunt, quickly winning the hearts of viewers nationwide. Irita has since become a regular presenter and antiques expert on Antiques Road Trip and Antiques Roadshow, before launching her own show, The Derbyshire Auction House, in 2023.
Now, the Latvian antiques dealer stars in a second series of her daytime show on REALLY, which began airing on May 5. While promoting her upcoming series, the mother-of-two revealed some of the challenges of her job that fans might not be aware of.
In an exclusive chat with the Express, she confessed that she often plays the role of a "therapist as well as an auctioneer" when sellers struggle to part with items they have strong emotional ties to.
She shared: "You always have to take emotions into account with everything that we do.
"We are therapists as well as auctioneers because every single day, people walk through our doors, and there will be people who are vulnerable. Whether that's people who have lost somebody, or that items have a lot of memories and attachments, so you always have to be gentle."
(Image: PR Handout)
The TV personality gave an example from the forthcoming series in which she had to reassure a client who was apprehensive about selling her mother's items on the show. Irita reminisced, "In this series, we had a lady who was selling her mother's items, and she was very cautious.
"During the clearance, she was very strong and brave with it, and she said, 'No, it all needs to go'. But then afterwards, it took us quite a few phone calls and a lot of messages and a lot of communication to reassure them that those items won't just be sold for £5 or £10.
"The items she had are desirable, and they will go to someone who wants them again rather than being stuck in the drawers.
"So sometimes it's just talking people through the process and how it all works and what's going to happen, because when you've never sold anything in the auction, it's a scary environment."
(Image: BBC)
She also shed light on the occasional tension between auctioneers and sellers regarding the pricing and sale of items. BBC star Irita added: "As auctioneers, we all love a come-and-get-me estimate, and if there is a cheeky way of getting away with the lower estimate, we are going to say that.
"But from the seller's perspective, it's about building that trust with us and ensuring that they can really believe in what we say, that there is nothing to be worried about. That the items will sell and they will do well, but I think for a lot of people that's the scary bit – but that is also what makes good TV and what makes amazing results at auction."
The Derbyshire Auction House is available to watch on REALLY.
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One set are in the original location, the second at the landing site. All the contestants need to do to figure it out is read the microscopic names on their identity badges. 'That is the nuts!' chuckles the executive producer Dan Adamson. 'We just thought: wouldn't it be funny?' Very sly. But while they go to extreme lengths to confuse the contestants, presumably they don't deliberately make them think they're in completely the wrong place? For example, at one point in Destination X's first episode we're shown a teaser of a screen being driven up alongside the bus as it barrels down the road, and playing a video through the window. That's not an attempt to show fake scenery, is it? 'No, we're showing them a clue,' says Adamson. So we can trust what we're shown through this bus's windows should they open? 'We don't have the budget to CGI,' says Brydon. 'Otherwise I would have been a bit taller!' As if on cue, the bus window pops open. We're crossing the Thames on Tower Bridge! 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They point out to me that they had a 'carbon action plan' whose measures included crew taking big minibuses to reduce the number of vehicles and minimising the diesel generators used – meaning they were certified two out of a possible three stars by Albert. The coaches were also not petrol, but Euro 6 diesel engines. So choosing to do all these miles is less an issue with the climate crisis, and more one of the air quality local kids breathed. Talking of air quality, that presented its own challenge for the contestants cooped up on a coach together. 'We set ourselves one rule: no number twos on the bus. That gave us a problem. Suddenly it was like: why do these people have to go to the toilet so often?' says Adamson of the fact that they had to pull the coach over every time anyone needed to go. 'Everyone had to be really open about it – you couldn't be discreet. You'd be blindfolded, chaperoned, have someone waiting outside while you did your business … I can't believe how much time we spent talking about toilets.' At this point, Big Ben starts chiming. For a brief moment I can't work out whether it's real or coming over the coach's sound system, until I look at my watch and realise it's 2.12pm – not a usual time for a clock to chime. 'He shouldn't have been allowed his watch!' exclaims Brydon. Sign up to What's On Get the best TV reviews, news and features in your inbox every Monday after newsletter promotion 'On the original Belgian format, they had a clock on the bus that they controlled the speed of, and they would slow it down,' says Adamson. 'But we decided not to do that, because it was a little too machiavellian.' 'You know what they did have on that bus, though?' shoots back Brydon. 'Very good air con.' Over the course of the next hour, the windows pop open again, only to reveal that we are once more crossing the Thames, this time on London Bridge, now going north. Production staff repeatedly insist that there are clues all over the bus even though all I can see are a couple of half-inched boxes of popcorn and some flyers from the Curzon, plus a few bags of rapidly melting mini Wispas. 'Is it worth mentioning to the driver that the air conditioning is ineffectual?' asks a reddening Brydon. 'We're all sitting here like lobsters in a pot.' By now, he's looking a tad dishevelled. Which is a shame, because one of the most fun things about Destination X is Brydon going all flamboyant with his sartorial choices: from dressing like an airline captain to checked blazers that wouldn't look out of place on Toad from The Wind in the Willows to a moment he turns up dressed as Indiana Jones. 'I did look to Claudia Winkleman on The Traitors,' he says. 'I've gone for it!' At this point, the coach grinds to a halt. We're ushered to a recreation of 'the map room': the cubbyhole that contestants use to make their guess by placing an X on a digital map. They normally get two minutes – I'm given one. Bearing in mind the Big Ben bells we were played, I try to scroll across the map to find where Big Ben's bell was created: Whitechapel Bell Foundry. But I can't find it on the map. So as I run out of time, I go for plan B: Westminster, home of Big Ben. 'The person whose guess was furthest from the location is …' announces one of the show's producers, once we've all placed our X, '… Alexi!' Great. Last place. If this were the actual show, I'd have been booted off the coach at a random European destination. But as I step off the X bus, I find that we are … back at the Curzon cinema where we started. Exactly what sort of clues were meant to tip us off to that being our destination? 'Didn't you see the tubs of Curzon popcorn and Curzon flyers?' I thought they'd been nicked from the cinema! 'There were fake tickets hidden in the cushions as well if you looked.' Brilliant. Clearly, I'd be terrible at the show. But it's not like I missed out on much. 'The prize?' I hear Adamson reply. 'Oh yeah, it's excellent … have a bag of melted Wispas.' Destination X is on BBC One on Wednesday and Thursday at 9pm.

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