Ramsay’s anguish as new series is shelved

RESTAURANTS may be open again after the lockdown, but the coronavirus crisis has shut the doors on Gordon Ramsay’s latest venture.

Future Food Stars – an Apprentice-style BBC1 series in which the celebrity chef was due to travel Britain to find entrepreneurs in the food and drink industry – has been halted days before filming was due to begin.

It has been postponed until next year and is just one of dozens of casualties at the BBC, which has been left reeling as the pandemic lockdown forces film sets to shut down.

An insider said: ‘Gordon was really keen to get this show made. It’s something of a passion project for him. But at the eleventh hour the BBC decided it was too big a risk, with a second wave of Covid-19 predicted later this year. They want to protect the safety and wellbeing of the contestants and production team.’

The BBC has already suffered a heavy blow to scheduling this year, having cut its regular output of soaps as well as postponing its hit series The Apprentice.

It is the first time The Apprentice, which follows Lord Alan Sugar as he whittles down a group of entrepreneurs battling for his investment, has been taken off air since it first began in 2005.

EastEnders has been taken off air for the first time in its 35-year history and is due to return later this year, but with 20-minute episodes.

Filming on the new series of Call The Midwife and Line Of Duty has been postponed. ITV has also been hit, with the live finals of Britain’s Got Talent pushed back to the end of the year.