Showstoppers Sandi and Noel are the icing on the Bake Off cake
Sue who? Mel what? Sorry, never heard of them . . . Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding proved their takeover of the baking tent is now complete, as they averted disaster on a charity Great
Celebrity Bake Off (C4).
The fun-and-fundraising episode was verging on anarchy from the outset. Loud- mouthed comic Johnny Vegas seemed staid and sensible beside hyperactive rapper Big Narstie.
With his helium-squeak voice and frequent outbursts of gibberish, Narstie bounced around like a fireworks display trapped in a hot air balloon. Bake Off has never seen anything remotely like it.
He made caramel shortbreads shaped like dog poo and, for the pork pie technical challenge, baked a Caribbean pastie instead . . . because he didn’t know how to make pork pies.
This couldn’t last. Next day, Narstie didn’t turn up, pleading a poorly tum.
Perhaps he’d eaten too many of his own shortbreads: Paul Hollywood did say they had the consistency of bubblegum.
As the episode was just for larks, to raise money for Stand up To Cancer, the others could simply have carried on without Narstie.
But Sandi demonstrated how throroughly confident she has become, by launching herself into the fray to bake her own showstopper. When he wasn’t counting down the minutes, Noel was at Sandi’s side to help build a banana-loaf masterpiece.
The cake was Sandi’s tribute to her co-star, she said fondly: ‘Noel’s a real nana.’ He gave her a cuddle, picked up a teeny baking tray and asked innocently if it was her bed.
Their early days on the show, when they seemed ill-matched strangers struggling to fill the void left by the previous presenters from the Beeb, are all forgotten. Bake Off is theirs now.
Sandi was rewarded for her efforts with a ‘Hollywood handshake’. In return, Paul got a ‘Toksvig hug’.
She had only just stopped weeping with laughter after judge Prue Leith cut into the middle of a self-portrait cake shaped like Olympic heptathlete Katarina JohnsonThompson and declared: ‘ Your knicker section tastes amazing.’
Without Bake Off, the Corporation’s best bet for a contest based on ‘home economics’ is The Great
British Sewing Bee (BBC2) — and they’re fortunate that the new presenter, Joe Lycett, is also performing with such aplomb.
All the competitive aggression that made the Bee an awkward watch has gone, replaced by Joe’s sheer foolery.
He introduced the challenge round, featuring fabric from deckchairs and beach parasols, while wearing a knotted hankie on his head. The seamstresses (and one bloke) rose to the occasion, creating a Victorian bathing costume and a beach dress held together with Velcro . . . for those quick skinny-dip moments.
Two people stitched the arms onto linen jackets backwards. This was a quarter-final, but it seemed as haphazard as a charity special. The Bee isn’t all lighthearted, though. Contestants are marked from best to worst on every round, which leaves the viewers constantly calculating who could be facing elimination.
With minutes ticking away, the tension sent a couple of sewers into a real tizz, and the official judgments of Patrick Grant and esme Young were harsh.
Joe accused them of having ‘an absolute bloodlust’ and one poor woman looked ready to faint. ‘Well, that was characterbuilding,’ she gulped. ‘ They crucified my coat.’
The BBC is never going to win back the ratings titan of Bake Off. But it has a worthy substitute shaping up in the Bee.