I’ve had my fill of Bake Off’s crumbling gateau
So where are we with the new Great British Bake off? In a week where photos of Paul hollywood wearing a Nazi uniform appeared in several newspapers and a contestant seemed to make a phallus out of bread dough (actually it was a snail; it happens, we’ve all been there), one might have imagined that the seven-year-old series was on a natural high, rising like a hot souffle in the public’s affections.
But what is this I see before me, prostrate on the gingham altar? Is it the twitching corpse of a much-loved TV series as it whisks itself into oblivion?
Not quite, not yet. however, three weeks into the C4 relaunch, the baking show’s audience has halved since its BBC heyday, with under six million tuning in this week to see Flo leave the tent.
To make matters worse, huge numbers switched over to watch Doctor Foster on BBC1 at 9pm, not even interested enough to see what would happen to Flo’s marinethemed bread sculpture (it sank without trace). who was star baker? They didn’t give a damn.
And this is part of the problem. The fact that the show has moved to a commercial station means that GBBo now runs from 8pm to 9.15pm — and it just seems to go on for too long. who has got the time to spare on a weekday night when every minute counts; when there is only a tiny window marked ‘Fun!’ between getting home, cooking dinner, jimjams ahoy and bed?
however, there is a much bigger issue at stake here, and no one is being honest about it.
I’ve read all the reviews and the cheery online posts about the new Bake off. The consensus is that everything is fine, a hunky dory story, the show merrily rolls on, nothing to see here, Mary who?
BuTI simply can’t agree. while I think that Prue Leith is a fine, intelligent, highly seasoned replacement for Mary Berry, she is still not Mary Berry.
She does not nibble on a biscuit with the same squirrelly, regal bravura. She does not have the correct degree of cinnamon-scented certitude.
And, most importantly, she does not have the same rapport with Paul hollywood.
Mary was the sweet to his sour, the Sundance Kid to his Butch Acidly, and it worked like a dream.
Now Prue and Paul are just another couple of cake show judges, respectable but dull, expertly fussing about crumb structure but lacking the show-stopper factor.
Yet the real crisis is the miscasting of new hosts Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig, drafted in to replace Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins. Like plastic aspic or twin saucers of jam that won’t set, Noel and Sandi just don’t gel. ever. It is hard to imagine any question asked by a television executive to which the answer is: ‘Noel Fielding.’ And Miss Toksvig has always been as funny as an ingrown toenail.
on the show, Noel floats around in a baggy blouse, clearly afraid of cakes and rarely engaging in any meaningful discussions with contestants. his voiceovers are the stuff of nightmares, as if he was reading bedtime stories to some very dim troll children trapped in the dungeon of the Munster Mansion.
Sandi may have the advantage of being able to look inside the Bake off ovens without bending down, but her smartalecky bluster plays better with the panel-show radio 4 artsy crowd than here.
She’s hardly ever in the tent anyway. Probably too busy on the phone to her agent, to see if there’s any chance of a gig on only Connect instead.
It makes one realise what an important ingredient Mel and Sue were in the GBBo recipe for success. I miss their unbridled, unforced enthusiasm for cake and cake bakers.
They brought warmth, humour and a prickle of anarchy to proceedings, while their interest in and affection for the contestants was genuine.
In contrast, Mr Fielding and Miss Toksvig are the thinnest layer of icing on the crumbling gateau, two fondant fancies scrambling through the tent of dreams on their way to something better. And for many viewers who have become emotionally invested in this show over the years, I suspect that is just not good enough.
ready, steady, fake? I am afraid so.