Celebrity Masterless Chef raises a smile
ELL DONE Celebrity Masterchef (BBC One, Monday & Tuesday). The cooking was mostly awful but the banter was hilarious. And there was also something reassuringly “old normal” about seeing Gregg Wallace and John Torode grimace as they looked anxiously at a Danish meatball which ends up absolutely raw on the inside... but burnt on the outside! Thank you, actress Rita Simons from Eastenders. Only a “Mitchell” could get away with serving that.
Best with the bants was Hi-de-hi! legend Su Pollard who, if she wasn’t already booked for panto this year, will get a call after a brilliantly funny turn – “I’m representing the culinary-challenged…” It was a Michelin-starred performance.
Did the celebrity bookers just realise that bad cooking is actually very funny, because they lucked out with series 16? Even those among the first five fear-struck contestants who made some claims to chop a mean onion or to open an oven door to put in something other than a favourite ready meal, were also a bit rubbish. Most credible was bullet-proof Bez, from Happy Mondays, who had some knowledge of cooking even though every meal he produced looked like a dog’s dinner.
But the judges do like a journey. Pollard’s first effort involved doing something ghastly with a poussin. I don’t think this tiny delicate bird deserved any of this treatment, including the disappearance of that onion and lemon... To serve, she then hacked it to pieces like a frenzied serial killer. “It looks like it’s been prepped in a mixer,” said Gregg, politely. Earlier she’d rightly worried: “I’m never going to get married this way.”
But something happened in the interval. Perhaps Bez showed her how his famed maracas worked. Pollard triumphed in the final cook-off by wrapping some fish in ham. You would think nothing good can come from that but they loved it, probably sensing that Pollard’s special brand of “camp cookery” would continue to make great television. It will. It might just be the best series yet – if Gregg and John can stomach it!
Comedy of a more intentional kind, Ghosts (BBC One, Monday) returned for a third series. It has the makings of another quality run, not least because of the amount of content they cram into a half an hour. Can the Ghosts team please be put into contact with those writing the woeful new comedy I mention above, Buffering to show them how to write gags? One would do – a 100 per cent improvement!
There were at least five separate mini-plots in Ghosts’ first episode which was centred around a documentary team visiting Button House, while the headless man, Sir Humphrey Bone, told us how he misplaced the remainder of his body when his French wife messed about with the Catholics. A head-severing worthy of a Horrible Histories “Stupid Death”.
There was a wonderful cameo too from one of my favourites, Barclay Begchetwynde (superb Geoffrey
Mcgivern), a brilliant busybody neighbour who can’t really understand why, with such an impressive name, he doesn’t own this marvellous house. None of us can understand why we don’t live in the manor house.
But this was an episode laden with irony, with Alison (Charlotte Ritchie) telling us, “I’m not going on the telly!”
Even half a joke was funny. Ben Willbond’s Captain was joke-telling with Jim Howick’s Scout
leader when we caught a mere punchline “...but I’m still the pâté-familias.” I don’t know why it’s amusing but a Frenchman will know.
Professor T (ITV, Sunday) trundles along with viewers surely wondering why they’re still watching – in much the same way that the Prof cares so little about whether he solves a case. For distraction last week, he channelled Morse – sitting in a car listening to classical music. It will be a pint of best bitter next week, “Your round, Lewis!”
We all want Richard E Grant’s job. Not content with reviewing luxurious hotels, he’s now visiting the glamorous locations where famous novels are set, in Write Around The World (BBC Four, Tuesday). Strange how successful authors mostly gravitate to picturesque, sunny climes. Is Grant (below) part of an experiment to see how much good living a TV presenter can endure? Good luck to him. It’s wonderful TV – and Grant is handling the privations well, too!
And a final word on the Olympics (BBC One). Congratulations to the previously most-decorated Olympian, Sir Chris Hoy, who appeared to have been held against his will by the BBC in Media Centre, Salford, for at least five days on back-to-back shifts – all the while seeing his record slip by.
Why not let the man go home and quietly weep – or was he on the minimum wage? He was great value either way. If someone has seen him since his incarceration, my mind can be put at rest.