Celebrity Antiques Road Trip
Some ideas ought never to be spoken aloud, even in jest. It's too dangerous. You don't know who's listening.
Noel Fielding, welcoming contestants Matty, Josh and Dan to the tent for the last time on The Great British Bake Off (Channel 4), joked, 'This is the final, so the judges would like you to bake in the nude.'
That's the quintessential Channel 4 concept. Now Noel has suggested the format, it is inevitable. The broadcaster is already enjoying a runaway hit in the U.S. with its full-frontal dating show, Naked Attraction - conceived as a quirky one-off but now in its eighth year.
The only surprise is that nude baking isn't already a Channel 4 fixture, under a banner such as Great British Baps And Buns perhaps?
Matty duly triumphed, despite coming last in the technical round
As in the past few years on Bake Off, the final was a bit of an anti-climax, compared to last week's heart-in-mouth penultimate round
Bake Off already supplies a rich recipe for innuendos. Judge Prue Leith's inadvertent double entendre in the first episode was still causing hilarity as it was replayed at the start of this final: admiring one female contestant's animal-themed cake, Dame Prue said, 'So, Nicky, tell us about your beaver.'
There's no limit to how smutty a naked version could be. Every reference to soggy bottoms could bring an Ofcom inquiry.
The jokes soon disappeared, driven away by the tension inside the marquee and, as a rainstorm raged outside, the criticisms became progressively more savage. 'Very soggy,' growled Paul as he prodded Dan's eclairs. 'You've destroyed it by adding too much cream.'
Matty was told his cherry decorations on a Black Forest eclair looked 'ridiculous', and Dan's lardy cake was compared to King Alfred's: 'Overbaked and too dry.'
That was a compliment, compared to the battering Dan's showstopper received. 'Those macarons are terrible,' Paul complained. 'I wouldn't even bother putting them on.'
Josh's progress towards the trophy seemed so inexorable that Noel proposed the only way to stop him was to put him in hospital. But his concluding bake proved a fatal disappointment: 'Not up to his usual standard,' decided Prue. Matty duly triumphed, despite coming last in the technical round.
The series has maintained a consistently high standard, boosted by the arrival of Alison Hammond , who radiates a genuine sense of cheerful enjoyment
As in the past few years on Bake Off, the final was a bit of an anti-climax, compared to last week's heart-in-mouth penultimate round. But the series has maintained a consistently high standard, boosted by the arrival of Alison Hammond, who radiates a genuine sense of cheerful enjoyment. After the year she's endured on This Morning, weekends on Bake Off must have come as delicious relief.
Gemma Collins might be Alison's spiritual twin. They're both graduates of reality TV - La Hammond from Big Brother, the G.C. (as she refers to herself) from TOWIE. And they both have fairground voices, the kind of boom that's audible over any crowd.
Gemma was roaming the bric-a-brac shops of Essex with DJ Melvin Odoom in a vintage Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, on a Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (BBC2). The Rolls broke down, and this clapped-out format looks unlikely to pass its next MOT too.
Gemma was roaming the bric-a-brac shops of Essex with DJ Melvin Odoom
It was always an oddity, the Beeb's attempt at a bit of low-budget wackiness. Tim Wonnacott's voiceover is as camp and knowing as Frankie Howerd reading aloud from a Sotheby's catalogue.
Though the Road Trip is approaching journey's end, the G.C. is a trouper and gave it her full energy. She taught the antiques experts to do fist-bumps, and haggled as though the money were coming out of her own pocket.
Throwing in a lesson in feminine wiles, she opened her eyes wide and flashed a brassy smile. It made her look like Bet Lynch warning off a troublesome customer in the Rovers.
Seasoned pro of the night
Telly's best-loved swinger, Jacqueline from Benidorm (Janine Duvitski), made a cameo appearance in wife-swapping thriller The Couple Next Door (Channel 4).
It's easy to guess her advice to the neighbours - stop all this flirting and just get on with it!
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