Grand designs in Prue’s new life but her garden has a soggy bottom
Prue Leith, the Dame of Bake Off, has a theory for happiness. ‘i really believe,’ she says, ‘every 25 years you should have a revolution in your life and do something completely different.’
that’s worked pretty well for the Michelin-starred restaurateur turned celebrity chef turned tV presenter. Now 81, with her rainbow specs and barn-door earrings, Prue is forging a new career as one of the most recognisable faces on telly.
On top of that, after being widowed nearly 20 years ago, she remarried in 2016 to retired fashion designer John Playfair, eight years her junior.
it’s all very well if you’re fizzing with energy like Prue. She says she wants a revolution — well, so do we all, but some of us get tired just changing a lightbulb.
Not our Prue. her latest seismic upheaval means selling her Cotswold rectory for £10 million and moving a few miles up the road, where she has demolished an old farmhouse and its outbuildings to replace them with a sprawling Grand Designs modernist house.
the old place, where she’s lived since the 1980s, belongs in a trollope novel. the new one appears to be a showstopper bake gone wrong, all lopsided gingerbread and slabs of marzipan. Still, Prue designed it so i suppose it’s meant to look like that.
Prue’s Great Garden Plot (More4) follows her and John as they set about turning their four acres of soggy fields into a landscape of orchards and vegetable patches.
their problem is that the soil is claggy clay, and the ground drains like a blocked sink. Waterlogged, their fruit trees simply start to drown.
even the trees in pots aren’t thriving. A red acer behind the house withers until it’s a twig with a handful of leaves, like scraps of old tinsel. the problem proves to be twine knotted around the roots, which must have been there since the sapling was first delivered.
Prue is refreshingly honest about her ability as a gardener. She’s an enthusiast, not an expert, she admits. rather than pretend it all goes smoothly, she talks us through her mistakes and passes on tips she has picked up from the professionals.
John, who seems to have a gift for getting his own way without ever disagreeing with his wife, adds garden touches that aren’t actually alive — an iron wigwam to hide the cesspit, a copper water feature disguised as a tree.
his favourite is a gravel pitch for the French game of boules. it’s a civilised pastime that can be played with a glass of wine in one hand — ideal, he says, ‘for us coffin dodgers’.
the couple are an affectionate pair, whether they’re cutting each other’s hair during lockdown or bickering about the best way to gauge an oak tree’s age.
there’s precious little affection between theresa and her partner Fraser (Anna Maxwell Martin and rhashan Stone) in the child murder drama Hollington Drive (itV).
the edgy entente between the duo feels as though it could shatter at any moment like an eggshell under a size 12 boot.
Bitter, rude and selfish, theresa is an unlikeable character. her ten-year-old son Ben is aggressive and deceitful: even his mother thinks he might be capable of murder.
the fact that Maxwell Martin somehow makes us want to see theresa escape this nightmare is testament to what an exceptional actress she is. rachael Stirling, as her uptight, disloyal sister, is both a foil and a match for her, and their scenes together are thrilling.
Add Jim howick from Ghosts as a dishevelled detective and this gripping psychological drama is simply unmissable.
STRIP-OFF OF THE NIGHT: Within the first 15 minutes of Iceland With Alexander Armstrong (C5), our host was in nothing but his swimming trunks. He’s one of those presenters who just can’t keep his kit on — a thinking woman’s Gino D’Acampo.