British Bake Off as we know it is cooked
After longtime stars’ exodus, it’s uncertain whether new version will air here
North Americans, The Great British Baking Show as you have known it is coming to an end.
The season finale was broadcast in some markets on PBS, which has aired only the four most recent of its seven seasons. The broadcaster said it would air one of the three earliest seasons of the show — which is called The Great British Baking Show in the U.S. and Canada, and The Great British Bake Off everywhere else — but after that, things will be different.
For one, PBS, which also licenses The Great British Baking Show to Netflix, said it had not yet decided whether to air future seasons in the U.S. What is going on?
The Great British Bake Off has been celebrated as a cheerful vision of multicultural modern Britain and built its brand on the preternatural charm of its hosts and contestants, who compete in complex baking challenges without the lure of a cash prize. But in a twist perhaps fit for American reality TV, it is cash that may lead to its undoing.
Last September, the show’s producer, Love Productions, set off a public outcry when the show left its longtime home at the publicly funded BBC for a rival network, Channel 4, that offered more money (and will air it with commercials, which the BBC does not).
Three of its hosts — celebrity chef Mary Berry and comedians Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc — quickly quit in a messy public airing of grievances over the financially motivated change. They have been replaced. So what comes next? And will North Americans be able to watch any of it? The New Great British Bake Off Paul Hollywood, the one host who did not quit, will be part of what amounts to a reboot with three new co-hosts: chef and writer Prue Leith, and comedians Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding. The season premiere is “coming soon,” the show said on Twitter.
It also tweeted an apparent nod to the turmoil that has shadowed The Great British Bake Off since last year: a video in which anthropomorphized baked goods sing “we all stand together,” even as they are thrust into an oven. So who are the newcomers? Leith is a chef and TV personality who founded cooking schools in both Britain and her native South Africa. An advocate for healthy eating, she told the Sunday Times her catchphrase for dismissing unappetizing baked goods would be: “It’s not worth the calories.”
Toksvig is a veteran TV presenter best known in Britain as the witty host of the quiz show QI. She is also a political activist: in 2015, she helped found the Women’s Equality Party.
Fielding is a comedian best known as part of the comedy troupe, and surreal BBC sitcom, The Mighty Boosh, which gained a following in the U.S. as part of the Adult Swim lineup on Cartoon Network. His brand of humour may be an odd fit for Bake Off. Last week, he faced a backlash in Britain after he told an interviewer he would not eat cake on the show, saying, “I get more work when I’m thinner, so I can’t put on weight.” He later said he had been joking. Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc Perkins and Giedroyc were the first to quit the show after its move to Channel 4 was announced.
The pair was the show’s comic re- lief, sprinkling witty banter and double entendres throughout each episode, and their lack of baking expertise let them act as stand-ins for home viewers who may not know a dampfnudel from a dacquoise.
Both are wildly popular in Britain. Perkins is outspoken on Twitter, where she comments on current events and her political views (she is against “Brexit”).
Last month, the BBC announced that Perkins and Giedroyc would host a reboot of a popular familythemed game show, The Generation Game, first aired in the 1970s. PBS said it had not made a decision about whether to broadcast the show. Mary Berry Mary Berry, a celebrity chef and fan favourite who has been cooking on British television for decades, has been busy since she quit Bake Off last year.
When she left, she said it was out of loyalty to the BBC, “as they have nurtured me, and the show, that was a unique and brilliant format from Day 1.”
The BBC has been happy to continue working with her. In the last year, she has hosted two BBC shows, Mary Berry’s Secrets From Britain’s Great Houses and Mary Berry Everyday. And earlier this month, the broadcaster announced a third show to be hosted by her: Britain’s Best Cook. The BBC said the new show would look for the best of “modern British home cooking,” like roast beef, chicken curry or chocolate pudding. PBS said it had not made a decision about broadcasting Berry’s new projects.