There's a lot going on in that title, isn’t there?
There’s the charity bit, which is the main thing, and using the Bake Off tent as the arena for a nationwide bake sale to fight cancer has to be a good thing. But let’s look at the other bit.
The word “British” has been replaced by “Celebrity”. That’s certainly how it feels sometimes, as if our once proud nation has been turned into light entertainment, a reliable source of mirth for the rest of the world in which our most eliable export is our ability to self-satirise (not always intentionally).
Now let’s take a look at the celebrity guests.
The most famous of them is Michelle Keegan, who used to be in Coronation Street and has now established a career in which once being in Coronation Street isn’t always the first thing that people think of. “The presh,” Michelle keeps saying, meaning pressure. “Right now, the presh.”
Then there’s “fellow thespian” Russell Tovey. He is also an actor. James Acaster is a comedian who did a good turn or two on Would I Lie to You, in which he suggested that he once spent the night in a bush near Basingstoke and (in a separate incident) had a 12-year-old arch-enemy called Mick who put cabbage leaves in his bed.
Then there’s Rylan. He has other names but we don’t need to bother with them. Rylan has become so good at being a celebrity that the reasons for his fame are less important than the fact that he embodies it with such unstinting brilliance. The life of Rylan is like a relief map of shallow celebrity, taking in The X Factor, Big Brother, Eurovision, MasterChef, This Morning, Most Haunted and other things involving John Bishop and Katie Price. Facts about Rylan. (1) He is very tall. (2) He has famous teeth.
So, baking. The thing to know about the celeb Bake Off is that the bakers talk back, because — with their celebrity knowledge — they entertain the illusion that they are as important as Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith. Rylan, at least, is in touch with his less famous id. “I can’t believe it,” he says on entering the tent, “I think I’m just gonna be like, ’ave a look, it’s Prue Leith.” And it’s true. ’ave a look: Prue’s celebrity game is now in full bloom. No longer the posh replacement for Bake Off’s abdicated monarch, Mary Berry, she is all blossoming flamboyance, like the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. Her dress sense is Salvador Dali doing panto, yet she still knows the secrets of a perfect flapjack.
Last week’s celebrity baker Russell Brand set a high bar for showstopping when he sculpted a vagina cake to represent the birth of his child. This week the symbolism has been scaled to a more comfortable level, pitching somewhere between a saucy seaside postcard and Carry On Baking. The celebrities have to make cream horns. Well, you can imagine.
Actually, once you start, it’s hard not to see Barbara Windsor (or perhaps Hattie Jacques) playing Prue as she utters the line: “I’ve made a lot of cream horns in my life.” And Rylan, now in the spirit of Kenneth Williams, replies: “Ooh, I’ve never greased a horn.”
