In a recent interview, Julian Casablancas explained that his decision to leave New York was based on the ludicrous volume of people eating brunch. It’s fortunate he didn’t relocate to London, where sightings of one specific type of brunch have just exploded by 600%. For the next couple of months, Channel 4’s phenomenally popular Sunday Brunch will also be Daily Brunch, leaving only Saturdays untouched by the charms of its hosts, Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer. While the Sunday edition lasts three hours (though appears to span several millennia), the new weekday show lasts just one, which feels more manageable than the black hole of hangover viewing with which many viewers may already be acquainted. Regular Sunday Brunch viewers will be sad to hear that time constraints have put the kibosh on the celebrated playlist feature – usually an excuse to play a Kasabian single – and live music element, but Simon still cajoles guests to cook along with his dish of the day, and Tim still stands in the middle asking questions with his hands on his hips.
Arriving at the show’s west London studio for Tuesday’s pre-record, I ask Tim Lovejoy whether he agrees that brunch, as a concept, is a bit annoying. “Brunch is exciting,” he states with almost demonic certainty. “There is often bacon. It can involve eggs benedict. You can have a lot of it without feeling guilty. Brunch is an exciting treat.”
Sunday Brunch has been on air since 2012, or 2006 depending on how you look at it. Simon and Tim were originally fronting BBC2’s chat-and-snack show Something For The Weekend. When that show was axed, production company Princess took Simon, Tim, the snack and the chat to Channel 4. Something For The Weekend finished on 18 March 2012; the next week Sunday Brunch appeared.
While today’s guests – actor Kevin Bishop and Olympic swimmist Rebecca Adlington – are in makeup, Simon offers me a piece of blackberry streusel cake. Thankfully, he is used to people addressing him mid-chew. “I always do the links out of cooks because Tim’s always got his mouth full of food,” Simon admits. “It’s not the dream, really, is it? Someone on TV talking with their mouth full.”
But that sort of semi-shambolic, ultra-relaxed presentation style is what makes Brunch so captivating. It’s a winning nonchalance that continues now that the show’s a daily affair. “We want it to still feel special,” Simon says. “We’re dead proud of Sunday Brunch and how we’ve become a part of people’s Sundays. It didn’t set out to be quite as laidback as it is, but I’m glad it’s that way.”
As subtly hinted in its full title, Daily Brunch With Ocado has been conjured to life by Channel 4 in partnership with a certain food delivery firm. As sponsored TV shows go, it’s a good match (although the synergy does not extend to the show’s allotted one-hour timeslot being silent for 50 minutes until someone phones you to tell you that it’ll actually start broadcasting 10 minutes into the next programme). “It’s just the way TV’s made now,” Tim explains when I ask him about the partnership. “We embrace it. It brings in money to pay for us. And it’s quite subtle isn’t it? I don’t think it’s killing the content.”
I grab a moment with James Hoffmann, an amiable coffee expert who’s on the show to discuss high-end brews. What I really want to ask him is which high-street coffee chain is the least shit, so that’s exactly what I do. For a split second he looks like I’ve accused him of snorting Mellow Birds, but he soon regains his composure. “That’s a difficult question to answer, at least on the record,” he begins. He then adds, in a manner that is both diplomatic and subtly barbed: “In a funny sort of way, it’s Starbucks. They do good work in recruiting: a lot of people start at Starbucks, then move on to drink coffee from an independent cafe.”
The show is recorded as-live, and features a recipe for ribs. Afterwards, Tim regales me with stories about the time Simon’s pulled-pork recipe “went mental”, how something called “bongocam” was a surprise success, and the occasion on which he cut the top of his finger off during a show. It’s strange, I tell him, that with his increased presence on the nation’s screens he now actually seems like a proper TV personality. “I’m not sure about that,” he laughs. “I can never be classed a proper TV host.” In my head I’m thinking he’s probably right. But it’s also true that his insouciant manner – that of a man who’s there to quite abruptly ask Simon what he’s doing with a carrot and occasionally chop off the top of his finger – is the secret of the show’s success.
I ask Simon whether a successful run during weekdays could eventually persuade him to give Sunday Brunch a rest. Moving aside could allow for the reappearance of the type of a weekend morning pop show that’s been replaced by cookery. “No,” he says. “I love that three hours on a Sunday. I like us owning the morning.” Bad news for Union J, then, but if they fancy bashing out a blackberry streusel cake they know where they can go.
Daily Brunch, Mon to Fri, 10am, Channel 4
