So where are we with the new Great British Bake Off?
In a week where photos of Paul Hollywood wearing a Nazi uniform appeared in several newspapers and a contestant seemed to make a phallus out of bread dough (actually it was a snail; it happens, we’ve all been there), one might have imagined that the seven-year-old series was on a natural high, rising like a hot souffle in the public’s affections.
But what is this I see before me, prostrate on the gingham altar? Is it the twitching corpse of a much-loved TV series as it whisks itself into oblivion?
Not quite, not yet. However, three weeks into the C4 relaunch, the baking show’s audience has halved since its BBC heyday, with under six million tuning in this week to see Flo leave the tent.
Contestant Steven with judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood, and presenter Noel Fielding
To make matters worse, huge numbers switched over to watch Doctor Foster on BBC1 at 9pm, not even interested enough to see what would happen to Flo’s marine-themed bread sculpture (it sank without trace). Who was star baker? They didn’t give a damn.
And this is part of the problem. The fact that the show has moved to a commercial station means that GBBO now runs from 8pm to 9.15pm — and it just seems to go on for too long. Who has got the time to spare on a weekday night when every minute counts; when there is only a tiny window marked ‘Fun!’ between getting home, cooking dinner, jimjams ahoy and bed?
However, there is a much bigger issue at stake here, and no one is being honest about it.
I’ve read all the reviews and the cheery online posts about the new Bake Off. The consensus is that everything is fine, a hunky dory story, the show merrily rolls on, nothing to see here, Mary who?
Prue Leith is a fine, intelligent, highly seasoned replacement for Mary Berry, she is still not Mary Berry
But I simply can’t agree. While I think that Prue Leith is a fine, intelligent, highly seasoned replacement for Mary Berry, she is still not Mary Berry.
She does not nibble on a biscuit with the same squirrelly, regal bravura. She does not have the correct degree of cinnamon-scented certitude.
And, most importantly, she does not have the same rapport with Paul Hollywood.
Mary was the sweet to his sour, the Sundance Kid to his Butch Acidly, and it worked like a dream.
Now Prue and Paul are just another couple of cake show judges, respectable but dull, expertly fussing about crumb structure but lacking the show-stopper factor.
Yet the real crisis is the miscasting of new hosts Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig, drafted in to replace Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins. Like plastic aspic or twin saucers of jam that won’t set, Noel and Sandi just don’t gel. Ever.
Like plastic aspic or twin saucers of jam that won’t set, Noel and Sandi just don’t gel. Ever
It is hard to imagine any question asked by a television executive to which the answer is: ‘Noel Fielding.’ And Miss Toksvig has always been as funny as an ingrown toenail.
On the show, Noel floats around in a baggy blouse, clearly afraid of cakes and rarely engaging in any meaningful discussions with contestants.
His voiceovers are the stuff of nightmares, as if he was reading bedtime stories to some very dim troll children trapped in the dungeon of the Munster Mansion.
Sandi may have the advantage of being able to look inside the Bake Off ovens without bending down, but her smart-alecky bluster plays better with the panel-show Radio 4 artsy crowd than here.
She’s hardly ever in the tent anyway. Probably too busy on the phone to her agent, to see if there’s any chance of a gig on Only Connect instead.
Noel Fielding with contestant Kate during Episode 1 of Channel 4’s cookery contest, The Great British Bake Off
It makes one realise what an important ingredient Mel and Sue were in the GBBO recipe for success. I miss their unbridled, unforced enthusiasm for cake and cake bakers.
They brought warmth, humour and a prickle of anarchy to proceedings, while their interest in and affection for the contestants was genuine.
In contrast, Mr Fielding and Miss Toksvig are the thinnest layer of icing on the crumbling gateau, two fondant fancies scrambling through the tent of dreams on their way to something better. And for many viewers who have become emotionally invested in this show over the years, I suspect that is just not good enough.
Ready, steady, fake? I am afraid so.
A tragic life lived with dignity
Sad to hear that Stephanie Slater, the Birmingham estate agent who hit the headlines when she was kidnapped in 1992, has died, aged 50, after being diagnosed with cancer.
I remember the case so vividly. Stephanie was taken captive by Michael Sams, who posed as a potential house-buyer. She was held for eight days in a cramped makeshift wooden coffin inside a wheelie bin.
Stephanie Slater, the Birmingham estate agent who hit the headlines when she was kidnapped in 1992, has died, aged 50, after being diagnosed with cancer
During her ordeal she was raped by Sams, who had kidnapped and killed Julie Dart a few months earlier.
Stephanie was freed after a ransom was paid by her employer. She later moved to the Isle of Wight, but never really recovered from her ordeal.
Before her kidnap, she was a happy young woman with a boyfriend and a future. Afterwards, she never married, nor had children. Sometimes the ground opens beneath your feet, and nothing can ever fill the abyss.
At first, Stephanie kept it a secret that Sams had raped her, because she didn’t want to further upset her mother. It’s so humbling to think of this traumatised young woman, clinging onto the wreckage, but still thinking of others before herself. And now this early death from cancer.
Poor, poor Stephanie. Through no fault of their own, some people live unlucky lives. She was one of them.
Following her death, police officials paid tribute to her courage over the years for the work she did in helping them and other kidnap victims. She managed to wrest something positive out of the horror of her abduction.
Sams is still in prison. He has attacked a female officer, made official complaints about his prison bed being too hard and made false claims that Stephanie was in love with him.
This is very unchristian of me, but I hope he rots.
At a loss over gloss
Oh, dear! Now darling old stalwart Dulux is encroaching into Farrow & Ball territory with a rainbow launch of glum paints for next year.
Indeed, their Paint Of The Year for 2018 is a shade called Heart Wood, which is described as a ‘smoky neutral with a hint of heather’.
Listen. That’s not something I want smeared on the kitchen doors — that’s how I like my pheasant cooked.
Of course, Heart Wood is predictably awful. A kind of municipal, empurpled murk that suggests passing through the wall of a swollen liver en route to a diseased kidney.
The problem is that paint can’t be just paint any more. Even your emulsion has a back story. Dulux insists the pink colours in its new range excite ‘commercial interest’ and that ‘yellow sparks the synapses and encourages a creative approach’.
Have they ever been inside a branch of McDonald’s? A creative approach there would involve cutlery and table manners. But that is not likely to happen any time soon.
How to uncover the truth about Liar
Joanne Froggatt attends the WGSN Global Fashion Awards at The Savoy Hotel in London
Order in court! Jan Moir QC (Queen of Crime) now presiding.
Earlier this week, ITV launched Liar, a six-part psychosexual drama starring Joanne Froggatt as Laura and Ioan Gruffudd as Andrew.
The couple go on a date, but wake up the next day with different versions of what happened. Andrew insists they had consensual sex; Laura reports him for rape. Before the next episode, here are five questions that need answering.
- Andrew said that they undressed each other, so why did Laura still have her clothes on in the morning?
- Why did Laura have a shower, perhaps removing crucial DNA evidence, before going to the police to report the attack?
- If Andrew did slip drugs into Laura’s glass of wine, as she insists, why would he then swap their glasses?
- What happened to the taxi Laura ordered for Andrew after he walked her home?
- And would a surgeon really drink alcohol the night before he was due to operate?
Case adjourned — for the moment.
Lights, camera… seduction
Film fans, is it a mistake to fall in love with your boss on your latest film? Luckily, it’s a question I have never had to answer myself, but can Jennifer Lawrence say the same? After meeting on the set of Mother!, Lawrence and director Darren Aronofsky, 48, are now a couple. Perhaps they can comfort each other when the reviews come out. Mother!, which features Lawrence, 27, flushing a beating heart down a lavatory, has had mixed reactions.
‘It depicts the rape and torment of Mother Earth. It’s not for everybody. It is a hard film to watch,’ she told the Daily Telegraph. ‘Oh, Darren is brilliant,’ she adds.
Hmmm.
Lovely pictures of Catherine Zeta-Jones and her 14-year-old daughter Carys at the fashion shows in New York this week.
Carys is already a beauty — how quickly they grow up!
It seems like only five minutes ago that she was in beribboned pumps and a goofy hairband to see her mother receive a CBE.
Six years later, she looks like the kind of terrifying Manhattan kidult who always orders off-menu and has her own account at all the smartest department stores.
Carys is already a beauty (left) — how quickly they grow up! It seems like only five minutes ago that she was in beribboned pumps and a goofy hairband to see her mother receive a CBE (right)
While she may have Catherine’s raven tumble of hair, it is her handsome father Michael Douglas whom she resembles most.
In fact, the likeness is astonishing. Carys has much to thank her parents for, but, above all, she should be grateful for her gorgeous genes.