Format is a work of art
CAN there ever be a Bake Off without cakes? Even before the legendary challenge show migrated from the BBC to Channel 4, broadcasters were trying to hack the format. Sewing, pottery, allotments, hairdressing and barbecuing were all tested, some found more wanting than others. The vegetable growing was fun because we like to watch people gardening far more than we like gardening ourselves.
The pots were a good bet too because, like cakes, they had the potential to go disastrously wrong, before and after the oven.
One of the more unlikely successes has been THE BIG PAINTING CHALLENGE (Sunday, BBC1) whose second season ended last night in a bout of frenzied brushwork at Chatham Dockyard. The 10 hopefuls were down to a final four and the games commenced with self-portraits. To some, painting is interesting in itself. Perhaps you’ve tried it a bit, perhaps you never have.
At any rate, via its contestants, mentors and challenges, this series provided a join-the-dots guide to the craft and even explained why artists do that funny thing when they hold their brushes up and squint at them.
It might have helped as well that painting has a lot in common with cakes. There was a similar amount of time pressure, canvases having to be knocked up in the same period as you’d get for a pavlova.
There was mess, there was colour and, factoring all the times Welsh bricklayer Callum abandoned his canvas and started another, the potential for disaster. The Big Painting Challenge also mirrored Bake Off in having a good-cop bad-cop situation among the staff.
Reverend Richard Coles and Mariella Frostrup were chummy, supportive hosts, offsetting the stern directions given by mentors Diana Ali and Pascal Anson. They even brought in extra judges for the finals, which meant that Chatham Dockyard was about the only place in Britain that could have hosted everyone as well as a film crew.
In our household there was much love towards the lovely winner Oliver but far from unanimous agreement about his final painting.
That old cliché “you don’t know much about art but you know what you like” is a cliché because it’s true, we all have a point of view. That’s the secret of the show, as it is for Bake Off, the way it gets everyone arguing as they watch the telly. Doing something more than just watching, in fact. Taking part.
Talking of which, THE DURRELLS (Sunday, ITV) for reasons not entirely clear, started helping out a travelling circus, dishing out flyers among the suspicious Corfiote public and ultimately performing themselves. Unlikely as this development was, the “here today, gone tomorrow” mood of the circus reminded us that nothing lasts, not the idyllic life the Durrells led on Corfu for five years, not the peace Europe enjoyed between the wars, nor the hopes and plans blossoming within this lovely TV series.
Leslie (Callum Woodhouse) proposed to pregnant Daphne (Elli Tringou), only to find that he wasn’t the father of her child after all. Spiro (Alexis Georgoulis), touchingly, called Louisa “Louisa” for the first time.
It was to be the only time, before his estranged wife returned from Athens and Louisa (Keely Hawes) returned to being Miss Durrell. As a finale, it could almost have been too sad for words. For once, we were glad they sent in the clowns.