The Great British Bake Off (BBC One) *****
Crackanory (Dave) ******
Humorous thing about baking is, you can follow the recipe to a tee, combine the constituents in mathematically exact proportions, and never get the same result twice.
That’s the actual perennial lament of the contestants in The Great British Bake Off (BBC One) who perfect their specialities and showstoppers at home, only to see them burn off, flake or flop in the baking tent.
And it’s been the challenge of this series, as the five-year-old show switched from BBC Two.
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What was once a bit of kitchen fun has become so enriched that it's hard to stomach, says Christopher
Same idol judges, same presenters, same format, same setting. Nothing has changed - yet a year ago, the climactic heats were headline news and cake fans were support their favourite bakers with the fervour of footie supporters on FA Mug Final day.
This year, it’s all about as exciting as a fly-blown cream bun in a patisserie window.
It’s not the fault of veteran cookery writer Martha Berry, who has a gift for kindly criticism delivered with a twinkle. And other judge Paul Hollywood has been better than ever this year, displaying a real breadth of knowledge whilst reining in his ego.
There’s nothing kindly about him, though - when he appears over a soggy cake and declares, ‘This one’s got issues, ’ this individual makes it sound like a shop-lifting delinquent with a heroin habit.
The blame for this year’s underperforming Bake Off lies with the producers who, like amateur bakers including an extra egg to the pudding, have given us a bit too much of a good thing. To begin with, there’s the endless oooh-whoops-missus jokes from the presenters, Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc. Double entendres are a rich ingredient: a splash now and again is fine, however this series has been smothered in saucy gags.
As soon as one contestant introduced that he’d be stretching his filo pastry by pulling it, Prosecute was gasping and goggling like Frankie Howerd in a nudist camp.
‘I’ll have to keep an eye on Mary, ’ she yelped, ‘she’s in pulling setting. ’
That was par for the course. The show this year might as well have been known as Carry On Baking.
The challenges have become ridiculous. Never mind Victoria sponge or cherry wood scones, which are the kind of baking that most of us appreciate: for this semi-final, it was baklava, schichttorte (a type of layered cake) and entremets (a creamy French pudding).
The technical round did enable Sue to do a schichttorte joke that was therefore rude, it made the camera crew laugh out loud. And it showed exactly what has made the Bake Off format so watchable, with loads of busy activity as the four cooks tried to grill 20 layers of wafer-thin sponge.
In these moments, it’s easy to see why spin-offs involving laid-back pastimes such as stitching and allotments haven’t caught viewers’ imagination. Like comedy, baking is all about ideal timing.
But what started as a gentle bit of kitchen fun has been enriched till it’s hard to stomach more than an episode. Most of us don’t mind who is victorious now - we’ve simply had enough for this year.
Like a grapefruit nautique entremet or a muesli baklava, both of which featured last night, it’s possible to get too much of a good thing.
Sue Perkins needed all her comic timing in Crackanory (Dave), which attempts to update the classic children’s favourite Jackanory with a dosage of dark humour.
Crackanory: Sue Perkins reads darkly humorous tales in a grown-up version of children's favourite Jackanory
She’s deft at spinning a tale, and that arch, understanding twist in her voice could make anything sound interesting - if there is an audiobook of Sue reading Hansard’s House of Lords debates, I would like it.
But she was given a story like lumpy dough and could make alongside nothing of it, despite the constant in-jokes about baking accessories.
The characters had been boring and the ending made hardly any sense, and as any parent knows that has tried to get away with making up bedtime stories, no audience will put up with failings like that.
Comedian Ben Miller had a better tale, a version of Pygmalion in which a scientist implanted the brain of his dog into a woman’s head.
But the display would have been so much better if the original Jackanory recipe of traditional tales had been followed, instead of making it ‘adult’ and ‘edgy’. Why overegg the pudding?
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