If you haven’t seen the BBC’s
Great British Bake Off, well then you must be one right chuffed chap. They tried a similar show over here,
The Great American Bake Off, but it didn’t take off. Perhaps that’s because we don’t talk funny or call cookies “biscuits.” We also don’t feature cut-away shots to sheep in between scenes.
The show is a huge success over in England and involves a roaming band of hosts-slash-judges who set up temporary quarters in various areas of Britain and then slowly hack away at people week by week until one champion baker stands triumphant. Each week they are given a baking genre; this first episode was “cakes” in Barkshire. What makes this show so charming is the cast of Agatha Christie characters they assemble. There’s the kindly widower who used baking to stave off the loneliness, the chubby college girl with loads of personality, the seasoned grandmum who everyone underestimates until she poisons the Roly Poly Pudding so that she can run off with her much younger tennis pro lover. Oh wait, that’s an actual Agatha Christie plot.
