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Stars feel the pressure in the celebrity bake off tent
THE Great Celebrity Bake Off has become an unmissable TV event. Big names from the worlds of acting, comedy, entertainment and sport attempt to impress judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith with their cake-making skills.
In each episode of the five-part series, four celebrities battle it out over three rounds - the Signature, the Technical and the Showstopper - in a bid to be crowned Star Baker.
It’s all in aid of Stand Up To Cancer, the award-winning national fundraising campaign from Cancer Research UK and Channel 4 which has raised over £62 million since it launched in 2012. Here, the first four contestants tease what to expect from their time in the tent.
LOUIS THEROUX
The much-loved documentary maker, 49, admits he hasn’t “done a lot of reality TV”.
“Maybe I’ve been a bit precious about not doing TV that wasn’t essential to my work,” elaborates father-of-three Theroux, who was born in Singapore, but moved to London as a child. And I thought, ‘I’m going to turn 50 next year, maybe I’ll start saying yes to things that, in the past, I might have viewed as frivolous if I feel like my kids might get a kick out of it’.
“So, I’m slightly doing it for them and for myself, as a family adventure.”
So that’s a motivation behind doing the show, but what about his baking skills - does he have any strengths in particular?
“I don’t know if it’s a strength, but I’ve made a LOT of banana bread over the years,” suggests the journalist and author, who’s famous for TV series When Louis Met... and Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends.
Asked if he’s competitive, he says: “Sometimes I don’t know how much something is going to matter to me until it happens. I’m not always in touch with my feelings. I think, if I could win the technical, that would mean a lot.”
But if the technical challenge ends up involving bread of some kind, we could be in for some very interesting telly...
“I think bread would be really hard. I’ve never successfully made bread. Bread, bread rolls... Things like cupcakes, cakes and biscuits are relatively straightforward, but bread has got this mysterious quality where I think it’s hard to get it right.”
RUSSELL HOWARD
Bristolian comedian Howard had never baked before deciding to be part of the show. In fact, he’d never even watched a whole episode of The Great British Bake Off. “I didn’t know that the aim was to get a handshake from Paul,” quips the 39-year-old.
“I lived on my own from the age of 20,” he continues. “I started on Pot Noodles, substituted that with pasta, now I can make decent fajitas. Neither me or my wife are any good at cooking. My wife’s a doctor, and I’m a comedian, and by the time we both get home we are frazzled, and Deliveroo is our friend!
“I find it more stressful trying to make vanilla slices in a tent than trying to make 15,000 people laugh in the O2. Anything that raises money towards trying to win that battle is a good thing to do. So if you flip out for an hour-and-a-half making a vanilla slice, and it makes people laugh, then great.”
JENNY ECLAIR
“I’m a savoury girl, I like a pork pie and a lump of cheese,” declares the 59-year-old comedian and author, who was born in Malaysia, but grew up in Lancashire.
Calling herself a “remedial baker”, Eclair didn’t have any of the right equipment at home - say, a baking tray, or rolling pin. So, the Bake Off team sent her a whole load of kit to try out.
“I spent possibly the most miserable Sunday afternoon I have ever had in the kitchen with my daughter [Phoebe], who’s equally remedial,” recalls the mother-of-one, best known for being a star of the hit show Grumpy Old Women.
“She’s 30, and she literally can’t cut an onion. So, the two of us just started bitching at each other, fell out, she went to bed for an hour with a stress headache, and it ended in disaster.”
But Eclair loves watching Bake off normally.
“I sit there, criticising, when I can barely crack an egg. It’s very reassuring television.”
OVIE SOKO
Soko, 29, was everybody’s favourite contestant on the 2019 series of reality show Love Island. He’s also a professional basketball player. And, discussing why he wanted to support Stand Up To Cancer, the Londoner recalls how a former teammate, who was also his best friend, lost his mum at an early age to breast cancer.
“I saw how that affected him firsthand. We lived together for years, so I know how it can affect people. I think we all have a role to play when there’s something hits the world as hard as cancer does.”
A big Bake Off fan, he doesn’t have much confidence in his own cakemaking skills, particularly after an incident as a young teenager...
“Mum wasn’t back from work yet, and she came back to a lot of her baking equipment burnt,” he explains. “It was cupcakes, which sounds like it should have been easy, but I definitely burnt those.
“She wasn’t very happy with me, and the kitchen was an absolute mess. I stayed away from baking since then!”
He definitely had nerves ahead of filming: “It’s pretty surreal, coming on to such an iconic show.”
The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer, Channel 4, Tuesday, 8pm.