In a way – now that the initial anguish has simmered and a statement like this is less likely to result in my immediate decapitation – it’s a good thing that the Great British Bake Off won’t be on the BBC any more.
I’m not saying this because the BBC has taken a stand against Love Productions’ unrepentant thirst for cash, nor because Paul Hollywood – finally unburdened from the loveliness of Mel, Sue and Berry – can now restyle the series as an orgy of Old Spice and leather. No, it’s down to the quality of the baking itself, which this year has collapsed like an overbeaten souffle.
Just look at the faces of Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood as they judged last week’s tiered botanical showstoppers, many of which looked like the aftermath of that time your aunt got trashed on sherry and vomited all over the village flower-arranging competition. Candice’s boiled fruitcake had to be torn apart like a week-old animal carcass. Rav’s blossom cake crumpled like a crying bride. Jane’s orange cake looked like a pair of granny curtains having an acid freakout in a mashed potato factory. Benjamina’s floral tea cake, as listing and battered as a condemned building, couldn’t even get it together enough to be cooked properly. By the end of it all, Hollywood seemed actively unsettled by the onslaught of hopelessness laid before him. As a viewer, you couldn’t help but feel his pain.
What has happened to the Bake Off? This all took place during week six, for crying out loud. You expect the chaff to have been neatly removed from proceedings. But this year, things have taken a sharp turn downwards. The meagre quality of the food produced is unlike any series since the very first one, where naive contestants applied to a then-unknown cookery competition and were heartily applauded if they managed to knock out a jam tart without accidentally ramming their fist through it.
This dismal turnout is light years away from more recent Bake Offs. Gradually, over time, the bar has been raised so high that last year’s winner Nadiya Hussain found herself producing miniature art installations called things like Peacock in Nan’s Door just to stay in the running.
You could argue, if you felt like it, that this soggy bottoming-out is actually for the best. Things were getting a bit too polished, a bit too perfect, a bit less fun. The joy of the early Bake Offs were their simplicity; if the viewer wanted to replicate something they’d seen onscreen, it was never too difficult. But over the years, as the prestige of the show has grown and the quality of the contestants ballooned, this element was lost.
But we’re now getting to the point where the main draw of the show is laughing at the untalented, and surely that’s what The Apprentice is for. So, yes, maybe it’s a good thing that the BBC hasn’t got the Great British Bake Off any more. If the downturn had continued, next year’s would have just been about 12 idiots burping at yeast, and that would be heartbreaking.
