“Tents, bunting: Glastonbury, Glyndebourne, I love a classic British event,” says Sue.
“I wish we were going to one, mate,” says Mel.
“I might have the very thing, chum. Welcome to the final of The Great British Bake Off.” (BBC1)
Think about Glastonbury for a moment, if you’ve been. A lot of people, right? Now multiply that by about 70 – SEVENTY! – if you can imagine it. That’s how many people watch GBBO; it’ll be more for this final.
Maybe the comparison isn’t entirely valid (because they’re completely different things), but you could say that in five years Mel and Sue, and Mary and Paul, have become bigger than the Foo Fighters, Kanye West, Florence + the Machine. Bigger than London, bigger even than Simon Cowell, whose X Factor can’t even dream of 10 million viewers.
There are many reasons: a winning formula; a hitherto unknown national obsession for baking; nostalgia for a bygone age but cast in modern Britain. M’n’S must take credit, too. There’s a clue to their success in that opening exchange, the key words: “mate” and “chum”. Even if you find their insatiable (admittedly knowing) punning groansomely awful, they are friends, and that warmth spreads throughout the show like something chocolatey, oozy, lickable. Bake Off is not just inclusive and reflective of our nation, it’s also just kind of nice. Maybe nice is the new nasty, Mr Cowell?
Everyone’s friends here: Mary and Paul, even the finalists, who have become our friends, too. Nadiya and Tamal – Muslim mum and gay trainee anaesthetist – share whispered secrets in the iced-bun challenge. I want both to win. Ian? That would be fine also, though it’s not going to happen, is it? To be honest the baking’s not as good as you’d expect in a final. Tamal’s creme pat doesn’t set; it’s more like the consistency of cow pat. Ian’s buns are a disaster: they’re crispy baps with icing on. Nadiya’s efforts are more accomplished, without blowing anyone away.
In the technical challenge – raspberry millefeuille – Tamal’s feuille haven’t bonded, they’re like mille individual feuilles. Ian’s raspberry spacing is all over the place, a joke frankly. Even Mel and Sue’s jokes are a little sparse; you’d think they’d have gone to town and iced their own puns with big dollops of innuendo. Has the occasion got to them, too? The baking picks up for the final showstoppers, with extraordinary creations in sticky toffee and spun sugar, cascading carrot cakes, a jewel-encrusted sari-clad lemon drizzle wedding extravaganza. During which we drop in on the three finalists’ families to remind us of their journeys and add a few tears to the mix.
And the winner is … Nadiya, of course. I think we all knew. Her Bangladeshi parents settled in Luton; now with three kids of her own, she’s doing something for herself for the first time in her life. It’s perfect, and moving. And it gets better, because then there’s tea and cake for everyone.
It’ll be busy at the watercooler today, because Doctor Foster (BBC1) came to an end as well. Gliding to a gentle halt before letting us alight? Ha! Are you having a laugh? It ploughs into the buffers, mounts the platform, and keeps on going, causing carnage to concrete and credibility as it crashes on. The dinner party at the Parks’ is fabulous, a great TV scene. A favourite vase is deliberately dropped, followed by the bombshell: your lovely daughter – her – is shagging him, my husband. Awkward! It’s a brilliant, watch-this performance from Suranne Jones, I imagine acting doesn’t get much more fun to do.
But there’s still 40 minutes left and it just goes on getting dafter and dafter; more ultimatums, threats, attacks. Is Doctor Foster dead, her head smashed into glass by her cheating husband? No, there’s plenty of blood but she’s OK. Son Tom also, not jealously scissored in a field as Dad (and I) feared, after all. Even Kate’s unborn child returns to the womb, unaborted. Well, never aborted in the first place, of course …
The end – victory of sorts, separation, back to work, a chance encounter in the square – feels like it doesn’t really know how to (end). I guess anything was always going to be an anticlimax after all that, but is it really just going to fizzle out happily in the sunshine with a song? No, a man collapses, someone else needs bringing back from the edge. Doctor Foster ends with random CPR.
