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The Great British Bake Off is a programme I’ve never seen before, but when it was announced that it was making the move from BBC1 to Channel 4, in an expensive £75m three-year deal, fans blew their top as if their families had all been kidnapped by ISIS.
I was surprised Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins didn’t follow the money trail, since they could end up richer than astronauts by taking the cash, albeit I was less so with Mary Berry who been around the block a time or three so won’t mind so much making the odd series for BBC2 here and there, since there’s never any shortage of cooking shoes on the BBC.
Paul Hollywood took the money, though, and headed across with newcomers to the franchise Prue Leith, Sandi Toksvig and The Mighty Boosh‘s Noel Fielding, but is it any good? Well, it didn’t look promising when the only availability to watch this before broadcast at a London press screening – so no use for anyone outside of the capital.
So, 12 new bakers, 30 baking challengers and 75 minutes a week to make it a 60-min show plus adverts.
They had two hours to make a fruity cake, apparently a good one to kick off with as it’ll test whether you can bake properly or will leave your offering with a soggy bottom (oo-er, missus!)
And I understand that while there was loads of innuendo in the BBC original of this programme, on Channel 4 you’ll be struggling for them to give you one. That said, Prue came out with: “I don’t know what he’s doing but I want to dip my finger in it”.
Also add in for the first contest as Sandi was hoping for a “fruity conclusion”, one male contestant observed, “I’ve lost some bottom”, and a female contestant was “dripping all over the place”.
For the challenge of making a chocolate swiss roll, “Do not worry about leaving a bare bottom” – leading to more chat about an “exposed bottom”, while in the Showstopper Challenge, where they had to make a sponge cake, one turned out very phallic, yet was a champagne bottle top.
However, I didn’t give a hoot when this week’s Star Baker was announced, who was…. I’ve forgotten.
The Great British Bake Off continues next Tuesday on Channel 4 at 8pm, and then later on All4, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. None of the previous series went on those formats, although quite a few are available on Amazon Prime.
If you want An Extra Slice of Bake Off, Jo Brand presents it on Channel 4 at 10pm on Thursday evening.
Score: 2/10 for Prue’s first innuendo, and some impressive cakes in the final round, but overall, I couldn’t care less who won.
Presenters:
Paul Hollywood
Noel Fielding
Sandi Toksvig
Prue Leith
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.