When Craig Doyle was invited to take part in Celebrity MasterChef 2024, it was a dream come true for the TV presenter, who's an enthusiastic home cook.
The first heat of the new series sees Craig vying for culinary supremacy with pop star Ian 'H' Watkins from Steps, broadcaster Edith Bowman, reality star Charlotte Crosby and Radio 1Xtra DJ Snoochie Shy as they all attempt to impress judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace with their skills — but will they be able to handle the heat in the kitchen?
What To Watch caught up with Craig ahead of the competition to find out how he got on...
Craig Doyle interview for Celebrity MasterChef
Why did you want to take part in Celebrity MasterChef?
"I love to cook, I've always cooked. My mum and dad both worked, so when I was a kid, if you didn't cook, you didn't really eat. Back then, all the stuff that's seen as cheap food now — you know, Findus pancakes and proper fish fingers — that was expensive! We didn't buy that, so we had to make our own versions of it. My brother and I spent a lot of our childhood trying to recreate the expensive frozen foods that all our friends had, or trying to make our own McDonald's Big Macs!
"We always played with food; I just loved it. My dad had a garage, and people used to drop food in to him — he'd come home with a couple of pheasants, or bags of different shellfish, and we'd go, 'right, what are we doing with these?' We'd sit there, exploring and cooking and eating it. I loved that, I thought it was a very creative thing to do."
Were you working from recipes, or just instinct?
"No, just 'does this taste nice?', 'do we have food poisoning?'! On a Monday, my dad would fry up all the leftover vegetables from the Sunday roast and plop an egg on top of it, and that's just the most delicious thing in the world. I learned two things from a young age: that it's OK for men to cook, and that it's okay to be adventurous and try lots of different things. If it doesn't taste nice, you just do something else! I was quite an anxious, jumpy kid, but cooking was one of those things that I loved. It's always been my safe space to go to. I'm not saying I did it very well, I just did it!"
What do your family make of you being on Celebrity MasterChef?
"My wife got tired of the food explosions in the kitchen! There was such a mess all the time. In our kitchen at home, we have a big center island and an Aga — I haven't cooked on a traditional cooker where you actually know what temperature things are for years, so that was interesting on MasterChef! But my kids sit around the counter doing their homework, and we're chatting and we cook and they try bits, it's lovely. They know how much I love cooking, so they were thrilled I did this. They knew it was an itch I had to scratch."
How did you find the atmosphere on Celebrity MasterChef with all the cameras and the other people around you? Was it stressful?
"Oh yeah - listen, I cried a lot! It was crazy, it was the stress release of it all. I couldn't believe I was on a show that I'd watched all my life, it was like I'd climbed into my TV, so that was kind of emotional and very stressful because it's real. So it was brilliant, but really scary. My main job is hosting rugby, and also I was presenting This Morning during a lot of the filming, so I was rarely at home. I didn't get to practise dishes; most of the time, I was cooking that dish for the first time on the show. It was chaos — honestly, there was more food on the ground than on the plate half the time."
What was the dynamic like between you and the other contestants in your heat?
"It was so lovely! I've known Edith over the years, she's a complete legend of broadcasting. The problem with Edith Bowman is, she's so good at everything — I saw her and I was like, 'well, she's going to win, because she's amazing at everything she does!' I loved H immediately; in fact, I was driving back to Ireland from Bath last week, and I stopped off at H's house and had a couple of cups of coffee with him and his other half, and met his gorgeous kids. He's a friend for life."
What was the biggest challenge you faced?
"Day one, minute one, walking into the kitchen and facing the Under The Cloche challenge. I thought 'yeah, I'll be all right' — someone got prawns, someone else got apples, but I didn't recognise whatever it was that was on my plate! It looked like an alien had landed on there — it turned out to be sweetbreads. I wasn't scared of it, I embraced it, but I tell you: day one, I could have done with a flipping carrot or something."
Did you pick up any useful skills from the competition?
"I am so much better at cooking now. I always had basic skills — like, I had good knife skills, and I knew how to make a sauce, bits and bobs like that. But in terms of planning, and being organised, that's really helped me. And being cleaner — here's the thing, you don't have to look like your house was broken into after you've cooked dinner! I learnt a huge amount, and I loved it so much. I love my job, but if I could go off and become a chef — which I think I'm too old to do now — I would, because there are very few things in life which give me that satisfaction."
Would you like to host a cooking show?
"Honestly, I would love that — that would be my dream! I'd love to go on Saturday Kitchen. The joke in our house is that if I'm out with the kids and go, 'oh, I love that view' or whatever, they go, 'oh, do you love it? Do you love it like you love Rick Stein?' So I watch all those shows, and I'd love to go on them — but I never get invited because I'm just this rugby guy, I'm useless to them!"
- The new series of Celebrity MasterChef launches on Tuesday August 13 on BBC1 at 8pm.
