For nine series, TV viewers got to follow Dick and Angel Strawbridge as they rescued a semi-derelict, 45-room chateau in France and turned it into family home.

Now the couple are touring the UK with their Forever Home show in which they will share stories from their epic challenge as well as seeking out the champion Jack of All Trades at every venue.

Considering the amount of work the pair have undertaken over the years since buying Château de la Motte-Husson - it’s not unusual to catch Angel up on a roof fixing new tiles or Dick need deep in sewage installing new pipes - you would have thought a six-week jaunt around the UK with a show virtually every night would be the last thing they’d want to do.

Poster for the tour

But if the TV show - which ended in 2022 - has shown us anything, it is that Dick and Angel are no ordinary couple and they are approaching the live dates with genuine relish.

“It’s just a lovely way to get around the country,” said Dick, the retired lieutenant colonel with a knack for fixing things. “We’re not actors celebrating Shakespeare. What we are doing is chatting to people who have come to see us, who are interested in what we have done and want to know more. If they ask a question we will answer it.

“We did a tour of Australia and that was a bit like herding cats keeping the show on the road. But this is just something to look forward to.

“You know what the biggest problem about touring is? Laundry. You can’t really pack six weeks of shreddies can you?”

“The idea of touring is not at all daunting,” said Angel, the artistic half of the partnership. “Our chateau community is a wonderful thing. So many people have been over and perhaps have got married at the chateau - the couple hosts around 12 weddings each year - and we get to see them again at one of the shows.”

The tour is a real family experience as the couple’s two children Arthur and Dorothy will be accompanying them.

“The kids are much more absorbed into French life than we are,” said Dick. “This tour allows us to do a refresh as a family and show them the many differences between different parts of the UK which I know all about but which is new to them.”

Dick and Angel at their chateau

For anyone who has ever watched one of their TV programmes, the couple’s positivity and exuberance will come as no surprise.

“We love what we have done,” said Dick. “It was something which we chose to do and we both know that we made a good choice. But the thing is, you don’t know that until you have put both feet in the water.”

Angela added: “It doesn’t have to be as big a task as renovating a chateau. It could be learning a craft or growing something in the garden. The important thing is if you are thinking about it, just give it a go.”

“It doesn’t matter how impossible a task might look, there is always a way around it,” said Dick. “We never felt daunted by any problem we faced. Our attitude has always been ‘of course we can do it’. It’s so important to have that mindset no matter what the challenge.”

That attitude was omnipresent in the Escape to the Chateau series.

“We spent four years of searching for the right chateau before we found it,” said Dick. “I’d done some TV presenting by then (he’s probably best known for Scrapheap Challenge) and I knew it was an interesting subject and we decided to see if a TV crew would follow what we were doing.

“But we were very clear, there wasn’t going to be lots of jeopardy and tears. We were doing something as a family and we knew we’d make it work.

“At one point I was told that without the jeopardy no-one would watch the programme but we’re not the type of family to start crying and running around the first time something goes wrong. We’re going to tackle every problem head on, solve it and move on.

Angel added: “We did have big dreams and aspirations and before we embarked on the whole thing we brainstormed how to make it pay for itself so we could achieve what we wanted to achieve. One line of that was TV. We had no idea if it would even get commissioned let along if anyone would watch it. But we were doing it TV or no TV.”

Dick and Angel putting on the style

Now after almost 10 years the couple estimate that the chateau itself is around 80 per cent complete but the various outbuildings and land are probably barely 40 per cent being fully utilised.

“I think we’ve got to this point faster than we thought we would,” said Dick. “But there’s still masses more to do.”

As part of their tour, the couple are holding what are effectively entertaining job interviews as they seek to find each town’s Jack of All trades.

Dick said: “At every location we’ll get someone up to prove they can do more than one thing. We’ll put them through a number of diverse tasks and least one or two of them they won’t be comfortable with. At the end of the night we will have somebody chosen by audience as the person represent their town then from tour we’ll choose one of them to come to the chateau for a festival we’re planning next year.”

Dick and Angel’s Forever Home tour comes to King George’s Hall, Blackburn, tonight (www.bwdvenues.com) and Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall Saturday, November 9 (www.bridgewater-hall.co.uk)