Almost hit boiling point
SO HERE we are, at the first semi-final (my, how time flies) of this year’s CELEBRITY MASTERCHEF (BBC1, 9pm). “I am feeling like a big old nervous bag of shaky jelly,” one person announces.
Luckily it’s not presenter Gregg Wallace suggesting this is what he fancies for his dessert. No, it’s reality star Vicky Whatsername, formerly of Geordie Shore and that sort of nonsense, now tantalisingly close to adding a further honour to the I’m A Celebrity crown of twigs she won in 2015.
Vicky is one of just eight stars now left standing. Another is fellow reality person Joey Essex, formerly of The Only Way Is Essex and similar twaddle. “This is Joey Essex at his best,” he boasts. “He’s going to come through.”
Presumably hoping he doesn’t, at least not at their own expense – are Dom Parker, Jenny Ryan, Neil Ruddock, Kellie Maloney, Dillian Whyte and Greg Rutherford, Vicky and Joey’s remaining competitors.
All those, plus at least one viewer whose instinctive response whenever he hears a TV personality referring to themselves in the third person is to lob a slipper at his telly.
But of course we’ve reached the point in the competition where the pressure gets cranked up several notches.
And quite right, too.To call yourself a proper chef you must be able to do so much more than just knock up pretty meals in a fancy kitchen.
You need to be able to cook, for example, on the White Cliffs of Dover (or the “iconic” White Cliffs of Dover, as Gregg insists on calling them).
Well, all right, you probably don’t, but that’s what these eight, split into two teams, are being asked to do tonight, as they’re set the task of feeding 100 local coastguard staff.
Joey finds himself on the red team, whose choice of ingredients includes several shoulders of lamb. “What are these?” he goes, when he spots them. “Are these chickens…?”
Elsewhere, there’s an entirely meat-free opening episode to WHAT BRITAIN BUYS AND SELLS IN A DAY (BBC2, 9pm),a new three-part documentary series that examines Britain’s trading relationships with the rest of the world at a time when they’re “facing their biggest change in decades” (and manages to go an impressive three minutes and 15 seconds without using the B word).
Ed Balls,AdeAdepitan and Cherry Healey are our hosts, beginning with a look at our import and export of fruit and veg.
Ade travels furthest afield to start with, reporting from Peru on how we Brits are buying more and more of their avocados. Or aubergines, as Joey Essex probably calls them.