Celebrity MasterChef
BBC One
It’s weird becoming a convert to Celebrity MasterChef. Or even regular Masterchef. It’s happened very suddenly. Perhaps it’s because of Come Dine with Me, the ingenious, ridiculous, dinner party show, which I have been hooked on since its beginning. But where Come Dine with Me is gently wicked, Celebrity MasterChef is oddly proper and serious in its chef’s whites - witness Jan Leeming,
whose eyes gleamed with something approaching sociopathic resentment when John Torode quite rightly laid into the gloop of pesto she deposited on some egg noodles. Her pork à la creme wasn’t up to much either, but she did score well with her plum fool, which was sweet and acidy at the same time: as it is with pets, people’s recipes seem to reflect them.
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There were certain points during MasterChef when the incidentals, such as the thrumming menacing music when a result is to be announced, seems a little de trop. But then you realise you’re watching someone drizzle balsamic as beadily as a dog waiting for its owner to throw a stick, so the conceit has worked. It is ridiculously overscripted. Gregg Wallace and Torode swap such laboured thoughts about the contestants - “But has she REALLY got the commitment?” - you think, “Guys, really, this is just saut?ed potatoes”, but then you find yourself thinking way too intently, “That tuna was supposed to be rare, not raw”.
So clearly Celebrity MasterChef has infected me, as has Saturday Kitchen, something else one used to avoid, then pretend to endure. Now I’m there, every week, wondering if some soap star is going to get their “food heaven or food hell”. Sad, sad, sad. Is there a cure?
This is how TV addictions seed and bloom: you start with a snatch of Shipwrecked, graduate to a passing interest, then before long, you’re a signed-up Tiger or Shark. Celebrity MasterChef goes on for an hour and has a rigorous format. First the celebrities have to cook at MasterChef HQ. Michael Obiora from Hotel Babylon served overcooked fish and unseasoned pasta. John Torode raged: “This is MasterChef, not Master Disaster.” Rosie Boycott paired quails’ eggs with endive - how could she? honestly, tut tut - while the Joel component of JK and Joel (the great thing about Celebrity MasterChef is its loose definition of “celebrity”) went for cauliflower cheese so cheesily unctuous that it immediately made me want some.
The second task is to cook at a posh restaurant. All the contestants - bar Obiora, who burnt one or two scallops - seemed to do brilliantly. Maybe that’s why Celebrity MasterChef works. It’s not absurdity layered upon absurdity. It’s not try-hards trying hard. It’s a serious, fuss-free competition, where you watch people perform well rather than humiliate themselves. The people who take part in it love food, and the people who judge it know about food, despite their clunky nods (pauses, pointless ratcheting up of tension) to reality entertainment convention. The contestants take it very seriously; there is no calculated misbehaviour or manufactured meltdowns. Boycott is an innovative cook: she partnered partridge and pears. Obiora made a green-coloured pancake.
Leeming was the standout competitor in last night’s second trio; she professed nerves but was a steely whizz at preparing salmon in a restaurant. Jayne Middlemiss dished up some predictable tuna and a lacking salad, gardener Joe Swift took great pride in his crab and avocado salad and the little towers of scrumptiousness he prepared at the restaurant. In the end Boycott’s partridge and Middlemiss’s scallops wrapped in pancetta and clementine and lime cheesecake proved triumphant. On they go, buttressed in the most weirdly compulsive format on TV, towards the semi-finals.
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Coronation Street
ITV1
Is Maria’s pregnancy in Coronation Street the longest on television? Will she ever give birth, or will we learn to live with it, like Jack and Vera’s stone cladding? Didn’t Liam die about four years ago? Another false alarm awaited her in Corrie last night (below). Kelly Crabtree had an electric shock from a sewing machine in the factory. “He’ll have to pay for ‘us’ funerals,” Sean said of Tony, the man who killed Liam and who seems to be on the verge of having an affair with his victim’s widow, as well as electrocuting his staff. David Platt is also indulging his inner villain after framing Gary Windass for burgling Audrey’s house. Joe’s addicted to mood-destabilising painkillers. Gail, go to the Rovers and never come back.
Big Brother
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Big Brother shock: They’re all quite nice and it’s quite nice watching them being quite nice. Tuesday’s episode saw brewing discontent only: Sree has a problem with the way the girls dress; Freddie the posh one used all the eggs. This is not pacy drama, but “mundane” is a refreshingly perverse register for Big Brother to operate within. Perhaps it’s getting soft in its old age.
tim.teeman@thetimes.co.uk