Bonus ingredient
As Bake Off’s companion show arrives on our screens, James Belfield samples the first episode and finds it is very much to his taste.
Five seasons into The Great British Bake Off, the producers felt it had become such an institution, such a watercooler conversation-starter, such a beast of a show, that it required its very own companion programme.
And now, to accompany the latest (and eighth) series – and prove we’re still a long way away from peak-Bake Off on this side of the world – An Extra Slice is to be included in Kiwi fans’ weekly diet of gluten-friendly, tentbased competition cookery as well.
It’s good timing to bring in this bonus ingredient, what with the shake-up at bakery HQ and viewers still coming to terms with the departures of saucy pun twins Mel and Sue, and the blessed Mary Berry. Certainly, the first episode gave long-time host Jo Brand an opportunity to show off new judge Prue Leith while dropping the odd introductory anecdote about new hosts Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding.
Full disclosure: I’m a big fan of the new Toksvig-Fielding odd-couple combo and feel that any jitters around some clunky scripting are far outweighed by their fast banter and surreal antics. For example, Fielding chowing down on a marigold and declaring it tasted “like a clown’s nose” seems a fair indication of where they’re heading.
Brand, though, is steering a more stable ship and An Extra Slice, though new to us, is sticking to its familiar formula: out-takes, highlights, gentle banter with trusted guest comedians and a quick chat with the week’s voted-off contestant interspersed with viewers’ bakery photos and examples brought in by the studio audience. There’s also an occasional mariachi band to celebrate monumental moments such as the first “Hollywood handshake” of the series, but whether they last the full 10 episodes is yet to be determined.
If this all seems a little too daytime telly for your tastes, rest assured that Bake Off’s tendency to fruity doubleentendres flows seamlessly into this after-show (“tent-flaps” earns a strange audience laugh before the admission from Leith that she writes romance novels receives a nice “What, like 50 Shades of Gravy?” from Pointless host Richard Osman).
In this first episode, Leith is the undeniable central character as they seek to stamp her authority on the now Berry-less mix and a quick game of “What would Prue do?” (Osman: “Pretty much anyone!”) reveals that her fellow judge Paul Hollywood is spreading rumours that the one-time Great British Menu judge is drunk every night, writes pornography and has to be dragged away from her pole-dancing at 3am. Yes, definitely not Berry territory!
The whole thing is held together masterfully by Brand, whose blunt repartee and dry humour make for amusing take-downs of audience baking fails (a female vicar’s chocolatebroccoli cupcakes get a thorough roasting) while her genuine enthusiasm for some of the skills shown by the contestants and studio audience echo the overall positive tone of the whole Bake Off universe.
It would be too easy to slip into the confrontational, car crash television of competitive cookery shows like MKR and MasterChef – especially in an after-show devoted to banter and mishaps – but Bake Off’s success lies in its thoroughly British mix of honesty, amateurism and gentle wit. And, in
An Extra Slice they’ve created a commentary show that’s the icing on the cake.
Although I’ve often felt Embarrassing Bodies to be a slightly queasy excuse to gawp at the misfortunes of others, occasionally the show airs specials which focus on remarkable people.
Embarrassing Bodies: Changing Sex might have originally been broadcast more than five years ago, but its stories of Adeleh Deane and Jenny-Anne Bishop remain confrontational (both in terms of their quests to look and feel female and in the visuals from their surgery and examinations) and gripping.
Bishop is a now 71-year-old transgender woman who had surgery aged 64, and Deane was brought up as a boy only to be told when she was 28 that she had been born intersex (with characteristics from both genders) and has spent the past decade undergoing surgery to turn Adam into Adeleh – including disastrous procedures “done abroad on the cheap”.
Both talk about the terrible bullying they endured growing up in the wrong skin and it’s abundantly clear from what they’re prepared to go through, quite how important surgery is to their identity.