The Block celebrates 20 years on our screens

Heroes and villains. Lovable larrikins and loud-mouths. Rookies and professionals. Drama queens and kings.

They are the contestants from The Block’s 20-year history, many of whom have gone on to careers in renovation and design, the media and even back on The Block.

Yes, there’s season five contestant-turned-assistant foreman Dan Reilly, but in the upcoming season – set in Hampton East – another former Blockhead is back on the tools.

“It’s been cool to see how the show gets put together and how real it actually is,” says Tom Calleja. He and his wife Sarah-Jane were favourites of the judges during last year’s Tree Change season, and now Tom’s back on the show as the resident plumber for all the houses.

“We loved being on The Block. We have no regrets,” Sarah-Jane says.

With the show’s 19th season about to kick off, it’s easy to forget just how different it was from anything else on TV when it first aired in 2003. There were reno shows, reality shows and soap operas – but not really a combination of them all.

It’s something show creators Julian Cress and David Barbour realised while they were working
on Channel Nine’s renovation series Changing Rooms with their now fellow executive producer Justin Sturzaker.

“They had an idea of, ‘What would happen if you combined Changing Rooms with the other big soap operas of the day?’ You know, 90210 and a sprinkle of Big Brother and a sprinkle of this and that,” Sturzaker says.

“They took it to [then Nine boss Kerry] Packer and Packer loved it and gave them a blank cheque to go and buy a building in Bondi – which was kind of unheard of.”

Two seasons, a hiatus and another Sydney season later, 2011 saw the show move to Melbourne, at the insistence of its producers.

Sturzaker says high ratings out of Melbourne played a part, but it was also “the access to the incredible property, the different types of buildings, the homewares stores, the leading edge in fashion – we just knew that it would be an incredible fit”. They were right.

“You can equate The Block season to a giant sporting game – The Block renovation game,” Sturzaker says. “You can back your team, and Melburnians love that.”

It’s something season 14 (2018) contestant, sports commentator and former professional netballer Bianca Chatfield, knows well.

“You don’t realise how much you learn from playing sport.” Chatfield says. “You are instantly
an organised person ’cause you have to be; you’re so used to working with people, having to find a mutual respect to get to a goal.”

That goal? To renovate one of the most notorious and run-down buildings in the show’s history – The Gatwick Hotel. Still, Chatfield and teammate Carla Dziwoki (also an ex-netballer) were cool and calm.

“We had so many mums of daughters coming up to us going, ‘Thank you so much for showing people how to do it,’ ” Chatfield says.

For season 17 (2021) contestant, artist and make-up artist Tanya Guccione, the experience was altogether different. “My season on The Block was pretty tumultuous,” she says.

Block aficionados may remember the cheating scandal in the Fans vs Faves season set in Hampton. Guccione and her husband Vito found a production schedule that was meant to be off-limits to contestants.

She took a photo of it, and instead of fessing up, kept it under wraps until the finale – mainly, she says, to protect her kids from the online backlash.

She was right to be worried. Death and rape threats were levelled at her on social media, and
she began to fear for her safety.

“It is so archaic to behave in that way,” she says. “I’m just a normal chick who went on TV and did
a dumb thing … call me an idiot, not a villain!”

Sarah-Jane Calleja reckons she could have wound up a villain on her season. “I was lucky that I was known for being loud and outspoken, but there was no drama, per se,” she says. “My mum would be like, ‘Are you using your vulgar words?’ and I’d be like, ‘Yes Mum, I say f— on the show all the time!’”

That brassiness has seen her co-host podcast I Just Can’t with fellow contestant Rachel Carr. She and Tom are also expecting their second baby – a brother for their two-year-old daughter, Cleo.

Despite the couple’s impressive room-win count during last year’s mammoth build in Gisborne,
their auction result was less so.

“Deep down we wanted to win a few hundred grand – bloody oath – but we weren’t like, ‘Oh my god, this is gonna kill us if we don’t win anything’,” says Tom, who is also presenting awards (sponsored by hipages) on the upcoming season for quality building work. 

“When we only made $20,000, we weren’t that gutted,” Sarah-Jane adds. “I mean, we were gutted because we worked our arses off!”

Sturzaker admits the sheer size and expense of the properties made it a very tough build for everyone. 

“I don’t think we will ever do anything like that again, but it’s not to say that we won’t do anything equally challenging,” he says. “We were incredibly proud of it and the audience loved it.”

Pride is something that shines through when talking to all of the past Blockheads.

“I think we realised what a moment in time it was to be working on something that’s been so iconic in Melbourne – the good and the bad of that building,” Chatfield says of The Gatwick. “We’re proud of it.”

Guccione now has a flourishing online art shop and also hosts a podcast called Let’s Talk About It. She says Cress told her it would take time for her rocky experience on the show to feel more positive.  

“He said, ‘Give it two or three years and you’ll think it’s the best thing you ever did,’ and he’s right,” she says. “People have done much worse for free!”

The producers are now on the hunt for next year’s properties, rumoured to be in Daylesford. Sturzaker says though the show might leave Melbourne at times for a “holiday”, it will always come back. 

“Island Block – I keep pitching it every year,” Sturzaker says. “But I think we’ll always come home to Melbourne.”

THE BLOCK \ New season starts August 6 on Nine. 

Nine is the majority owner of Domain.