Changing Rooms: When Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen came to York

Better still, its leading man, the eccentric and flamboyant designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, is back too - with his fabric swatches and paint charts - to transform the rooms of neighbours and friends across the country.

It's 17 years since the final show was aired. The series ran from 1996 to 2004 and became must-watch TV.

For 2021, it has jumped channel - from BBC to Channel 4, airing at 8pm tonight.

Laurence returns in iconic TV show Changing Rooms tonight on Channel 4

Turn back the clock to November 2000, York was in the midst of the worst flood in centuries, but Laurence still made it to the city to meet fans. He had a new book out - Display - and was determined that no rising river waters would stop him from promoting it.

I interviewed him, in the less than elegant manager's office of WHSmiths in Coney Street.

We've dipped into the archive to find that piece - from November 4, 2000 - and you can read it here...

TV's favourite interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen puts on a charm display for MAXINE GORDON

YOU'D never believe Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen had been up since 4.30am. He looks pristine and regal in his deep-pink shirt, matching tie and grey wool pinstripe suit. Then there's the hair. Long and lustrous, flowing over his collar, it would put a supermodel to shame.

Aware of the rail chaos, the road jams and the rising floodwaters in York, his entourage had decided to make an early start from London to make sure Laurence was on time for his 11am book signing date at WHSmith in York's Coney Street.

He's here to promote his new interiors book, Display, which he jokingly refers to as "1001 things to do with knick-knacks".

The subtitle on the book cover is more pretentious: Using Everyday Objects To Create Great Interiors. "Considering the weather, maybe I should have written a book about water features," he quips as he lounges majestically in a leather swivel chair in the manager's office at Smith's.

Humour is a big part of the LLB personality. I'm surprised, because from his numerous telly shows - Changing Rooms, Home Front and Fantasy Rooms - he comes across as eccentric, yes, but quite serious about what he does.

He's also won the tag as the enfant terrible of the TV design shows. Who can forget the poor Changing Rooms contestant reduced to tears after Laurence created a Queen Anne dining room, complete with mock-Royal portraits of her and her husband?

However, in the flesh, he seems more like Larry the Lamb: chatty, charming and utterly inoffensive.

Laurence has a new rival designer in the new series of Changing Rooms

Laurence maintains he never sets out to upset anyone, and believes Changing Rooms and other home-style shows have given people the confidence to make their homes into places they really want to live in.

He says his new book is not prescriptive about interior design, rather it's a guide to helping people make the most of what they have got.

One thing is for sure: Changing Rooms propelled Laurence to celebrity super stardom. On the back of it, he's won more TV commissions (Fantasy Rooms, with a new series in January, and Home Front, in which he co-stars with gardening guru Diarmuid Gavin every Tuesday at 8pm on BBC2), launched his own wallpaper range and brought out the book.

He is in discussions with the BBC about projects for the next three to four years, which he admits is "scary".

First and foremost, he insists, he is an interior designer - he runs his own company and still does commissions. He says he enjoys telly immensely, but would draw the line at other suggestions, such as panto or a chat show.

I put it to him, he'd be great on an entertainment show, or a game show.

He nods his head: "I suppose I could do an interior design game show - but to a certain extent Changing Rooms is that."

I wonder if the growing band of TV interior designers have the same bent for behind-the-scenes bitching as displayed by the so-called celebrity chefs? After all, many Changing Rooms fans have witnessed the slanging matches between Laurence and resident handy man Andy Kane.

"We are famous for bickering, but we tend to bicker with the entire team," says Laurence. "It is a very, very pressured situation and very stressful. You have to feel confident in your relationships with colleagues because we do shout at each other.

"As far as I know, nobody has been sniping. We all get on really well and I've never slagged anybody off."

I ask his opinion of York's home-grown TV interior designer Peter Plaskitt, ex of Home Front.

"He was really, really nice whenever I met him. We got on really well and I think he's a fantastic designer," says Laurence.

Anna Richardson, right, of Naked Attraction, presents the new series

I tell Laurence that when I interviewed Peter last year, he wasn't so generous in praise and called the Changing Rooms star a "set designer... and that's what he should have stuck at".

Laurence raises his eyebrows on hearing the news, but refuses to bat back except to say: "I think it's silly of Peter. I hate the way the chefs have all dissolved into this back-biting. We are all part of the same industry... showing people different ways to do things."

Laurence's trademark flair for ostentation comes out in his interior designs and his clothes - and he insists he is just the same away from the TV cameras.

His bungalow in London's Blackheath - home to wife Jackie and daughters Cecile and Hermione - is decorated in his favourite colour: lilac. As for his wardrobe, what you see is what you always see.

"I am a formal person. I feel comfortable dressed formally. I don't do leisure wear," he says, pronouncing leisure in the American way with a long, lazy 'ee'.

"I don't have T-shirts and shorts. It does cause marital grief at times. Jackie says to me: 'You can't be in chintz when everybody else is in shorts'. But how you dress is a way of broadcasting how you feel about yourself."

I'm tempted to remind him of that old joke: Doctor, doctor, I feel like a pair of curtains. Doctor: Pull yourself together, man!

Instead, I bid my goodbyes, acutely aware a legion of LLB fans are waiting downstairs clutching books for him to sign and bits of fabric and wallpaper for him to approve.

Changing Rooms, Channel 4, 8pm on Wednesdays and on catch-up on ALL 4