Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
IAN HYLAND on last night’s telly
The Great British Bake Off, Channel 4 ★★★★
Following an escalation in the Hollywood Handshake malfunction I first highlighted last month, drastic action was taken in the tent last night.
The Bake Off producers threw a vegan curveball into proceedings. At this point, I should explain vegan curveball isn’t the name of some (really) chewy plant-based snack – at least I don’t think it is.
In this case it was an unexpected change to the normal order of things, clearly designed to stop Paul Hollywood in his free-shaking tracks.
Telling a man whose life is so defined by eggs and butter he looks like he could be made of eggs and butter that he must judge a contest from which eggs and butter were banned was drastic in the extreme.
Let’s face it, trying to persuade Hollywood that vegan baking is a worthwhile pursuit is as futile as trying to
convince him bike leathers don’t look good on men over 50. It did the trick though. He only managed one handshake all night and he was having absolutely none of Noel Fielding’s cheeky suggestion that a vegan baking book might be in the pipeline.
I didn’t blame him. I’ve heard all the arguments for veganism but having sampled the food there’s as much chance of me adopting that lifestyle as there is of Seann Walsh persuading Rebecca Humphries to come and look at wedding venues with him this weekend.
It was still a lot of fun watching the bakers attempting to change Paul’s mind though. Highlights included Jon’s hilarious Only Fools Eat Horses Cake, which would have been the perfect Trotter tribute had Ruby’s heavily listing showstopper not topped it by doing a wonderful impression of Del Boy falling through the bar. Play it nice and cool, Rubes. Nice and cool.