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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Entertainment
Jessica Sansome

The Great British Bake Off has been filmed and Channel 4 promises it will be like 'normal'

Filming on The Great British Bake Off has officially wrapped after being put in doubt due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Recording of the Channel 4 hit show finished last week and bosses promise that it will be no different to the series we know and love.

This is because the new amateur bakers and Bake Off crew are living and filming "in a bubble", a Channel 4 executive has said.

This includes judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood, returning host Noel Fielding and brand new addition Matt Lucas who replaces Sandi Toksvig as the programme's co-host.

Kelly Webb-Lamb, deputy director of programmes and head of popular factual for Channel 4, said the measures that had been put in place including testing and quarantine regimes.

She admitted it has been an "enormous" feat of getting the show back on air but "important".

Kelly said: "The feat of getting Bake Off back was enormous and enormously important.

"I think we all felt, I certainly felt that working to ensure we could get Bake Off back on the screen was such an important thing for us as a channel, such an important thing for the audience and Love Productions (who make Bake Off) were just full of ingenuity and determination to get it to happen."

Explaining the strict health and safety measures, she added: "We have worked hard with them to put testing and quarantine regimes in place beforehand for all talent, all cast, all crew, so that when we go into the bubble we know everyone there is negative.

Matt Lucas will join co-host Noel Fielding for the new series (PA)

"And that comes down to…

"The car you're driving to set also has to be quarantined, nobody can have been in it for the time of quarantine and then everything that comes on to set has to be properly disinfected to protect everybody on set and the production.

"That then means that set is Covid-secure and that enables a little bit more flexibility so in the tent what you will see looks like normal Bake Off because it it is normal Bake Off and we've been able to do that.

"That does mean the talent and cast and crew lived in that bubble for the duration of production which is obviously different to how we would normally make Bake Off.

"I think that on screen it will feel like Bake Off, in the way they were living it was different but it was an incredible feat from Love (Productions, which makes it) to pull that off."

An air date is yet to be revealed so we don't quite know how long we'll have to wait for a baking fix.

The show usually begins in September.

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