Alison Hammond and I first meet in a production kitchen at Pinewood Studios, where she is rinsing a teacup and recounting a near-fall she had moments before. In truth, I hear her before I see her, such is the power of her cackle. Several other women are in the kitchen with her and they, too, are laughing, so the atmosphere is loud and raucous and, for a visitor walking in cold, mildly startling.
It is mid-July. She is filming The Great Celebrity Bake Off, an offshoot of the main series that airs in December and is Christmas-themed. The Bake Off tent, which is attached to the production kitchen, is decorated with baubles. Through its windows I can see a thin blanket of artificial snow. Hammond is wearing a long purple dress and a face of makeup and seems fit for a party.
