Bake Off stars in a bubble to beat the virus
THE Great British Bake Off will look just like it always does when it returns to screens – thanks to the “enormous” effort put into filming safely during the pandemic, TV chiefs have promised.
Presenters, contestants and crew have been sticking to stringent guidelines and living in a “bubble” for the past six weeks to ensure the set was completely virus-free, a Channel 4 boss revealed yesterday.
Kelly Webb-Lamb, deputy director of programmes, said: “We have worked hard with them to put testing and quarantine regimes in place beforehand for all talent, all cast, all crew, so that when we go into the bubble we know everyone there is negative.
“The car you’re driving to set also has to be quarantined. Nobody can have been in it for the time of quarantine and then everything that comes on to set has to be properly disinfected to protect everybody. That means that set is Covid-secure and that enables a little bit more flexibility – so in the tent what you will see looks like normal Bake Off because it is normal Bake Off.
“Working to ensure we could get Bake Off back on the screen was such an important thing for us as a channel, such an important thing for the audience – and [show makers] Love Productions were just full of ingenuity and determination to get it to happen.”
In the upcoming 11th series of the show, Matt Lucas replaces Sandi Toksvig as co-host alongside fellow comedian Noel Fielding.
The pair join judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood in the giant white tent after filming was postponed in April.
Strong
Kelly added: “We have been able to get the vast majority of our big shows back into production or they are about to go back into production. This is really important not just for the audience but for the industry and for freelancers.”
Channel 4 programmes chief Ian Katz, who was speaking with his colleague at the virtual Edinburgh Television Festival, claimed the network faced the autumn with a “really strong schedule, all things considered”.
He said: “The schedule looks great and, really hearteningly, advertising revenues have bounced back better than we could have hoped for. “We learned how to make some telly cheaper, we learned there are some compromises you can make and some telly you can’t make cheaper because they come out a bit crap.”