‘Sorry, but I can’t stand the show’
“WHAT we really don’t need right now is a programme all about cakes and sugar. What we need is the Great British Veg Off, where the challenge is to come up with delicious ways to get us all eating more vegetables. The awful irony is, there has never been more obesity and type 2 diabetes in this country and the most popular thing on television is all about baking cakes.
“I am not a ‘ my body is a temple’ person, but this programme makes me uneasy. It indulges the idea that we should all just lose ourselves in the comfort of cakes.
“Aside from the health issue, I find it unbearable to watch. I’m not a fan of reality shows where you have people pitted against each other in silly competitions. I’d rather watch something educational, like Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey, or Yotam Ottolenghi’s Tour of the Mediterranean. GBBO manipulates the emotions and contestants are deliberately put in situations where they have to emote for the cameras which I find insulting.
“I also think the way the BBC contrives to create a diverse cross section of society in the contestants is simply a way of showing off to the world what a wonderful United Nations the BBC is, how diverse and inclusive. Except that this is manifestly not true across the rest of its output because it is still an institution dominated by old white men.
“I realise that it’s considered heresy to speak this way about a programme that is so loved and which reveres the national treasure status of Mary Berry, but in this country if you don’t bend the knee to populism, you’re somehow out of touch. For me it’s just cultural laziness.
“I’m not even sure people are being turned on to baking. If GBBO is all about getting Britain cooking again, we’ve failed. You can’t preach about obesity when your primetime programme is all about sugar. And putting avocado in your cheesecake or beetroot in your brownies is not going to cut it.
“So bring on the Great British Vegetable Challenge. Get Yotam Ottolenghi in as a judge. He’s done more for the vegetable cause in Britain to date than any native of these isles. Imagine the watercooler moment at work revolving around celery instead of cupcakes.”