As The Great British Bake Off returned for its fifteenth series on Tuesday night, there was potential good news for anyone who’s not a fan of Alison Hammond. Because, after Hammond delivered a slice of comedy perfection towards the end of the Showstopper round, she would be well within her rights to retire from show business on the grounds that her work here is done.
I don’t care how many more shows she presents or how many more Hollywood stars she interviews for This Morning. She will never top the moment she gave the Bake Off viewers precisely what they had been yearning for from the second it was first revealed that one of this year’s contestants, Georgie, has a pet hen called Fanny.
As Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith sampled the spectacular cake version of her farmyard pet which Georgie had lovingly created, Hammond allowed herself just enough of a pause before dropping the killer question: “How does Fanny taste?”
The timing was impeccable and, although some viewers may not agree, I’d say Hammond’s line was just on the right side of acceptable for a show that has prided itself on its double-entendres ever since the early days of Mel & Sue. With that, Bake Off was officially back. And, obviously, Alison Hammond is going nowhere.
There will always be grumbles about her suitability as Paul O’Grady’s successor on For The Love Of Dogs, but Channel 4 definitely made the right move in deciding to bring her into the tent following Matt Lucas’ departure.
In terms of Bake Off as a watchable TV show, we now have a presenter who also does jokes, rather than a pair of comedians whose presenting often felt like it was getting in the way of their main objective: trying to outdo each other’s jokes. I’d be interested to know whether Noel Fielding is having a more relaxing time hosting the show with Hammond than he did with Lucas. From the outside it certainly looks that way.
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Away from the presenters, the early signs are that Channel 4 has learned a few lessons from last year’s series, which some viewers labelled the dullest in the show’s history. Last year’s contestants, though generally very competent, were a bit samey, which led to a rather bland final.
Without wishing to sound rude, based on our first glimpse of the 2024 intake, it already looks like there may be a fair few disasters waiting to happen. That would seem to tally with this quote Hammond in gave in a pre-show publicity interview: “A few things got burnt. A few things crumbled. There were accidents. I fell off a workstation.”
There are some entertaining characters in there as well. Farmer Mike, carer Nelly and midwife Illiyin look to be good value in the comedy stakes, and I was also taken with bingo fanatic and grandmother of ten, Hazel from Kent, whose guilty pleasure is designer handbags.
Meanwhile Essex geezer Andy, who looks and sounds like he’s just walked in off a Guy Ritchie movie set, was giving off some definite live-wire vibes. The first thing Andy said was, “If Paul Hollywood don’t like one of my bakes I’m gonna jack up his car and take his wheels off.”
At first I hoped this might be some sort of brutal Cockney euphemism. Then Andy revealed that his day job is as a car mechanic. Life is full of disappointments, eh.
Of course, as ever there’s bags of baking talent in this year’s cast — and they were certainly put to the test in the series opener.
The first big challenge was a ‘taste and bake’ technical round, in which they were allowed a quick taste of Paul Hollywood‘s mini Battenberg cakes before having to bake them entirely from scratch, without a recipe. No, I never even knew you could make marzipan from scratch either. I’d always assumed it just existed in its natural form, like clay.
Then came the showstopper round in which the 11 bakers — poorly Jeff had been sent home to recover by this point — were tasked with creating a “hyper realistic illusion cake”. Now, if I’d been told to bake an illusion cake I’d have just put my feet up for three hours, then strolled up to the judging bench with an empty plate and asked Hollywood and Leith if they could tell what it was.
No such luck for the bakers. This was basically a game of ‘Cake or Fake’, which is exactly the kind of crowd pleasing spectacle Bake Off should be doing if it wants to keep casual viewers interested. Leave the clever, technical (ie. boring) stuff to the professionals version of the show.
That said, some of the resulting bakes were nothing short of outstanding. I was particularly impressed by Andy’s leather overnight bag and Sumayah’s incredibly lifelike take on her pet duck Pato relaxing on a tree stump. To be honest, they all did a fairly good job, and for once I agreed with Hammond and Fielding when they said no one deserved to go home in Week one.
How lucky then that Jeff’s temporary illness meant that we all got our wish. Everyone survived to bake another day. Sadly, at least one of them will not be as lucky next week. And when I say one of them, I’m obviously mainly talking about Christiaan.
The Great British Bake Off airs at 8pm, Tuesdays on Channel 4.
