Recently, at a friend’s house, I was given the remote control and told to “put something on”. This is a big responsibility and the sweaty-palmed pressure might explain how I ended up on a channel they didn’t know they had, with no idea of what combination of buttons I pressed to get there. More importantly, it’s how we all ended up watching several episodes of a series of MasterChef from at least five years ago. Note “several episodes”: we might have arrived there by accident, but we stayed by choice.
MasterChef is about to enter its 20th season, and the BBC is, rightly, in a celebratory mood. In 2005, the format was revived, jazzed-up and modernised. The Loyd Grossman days, from 1990 to 2000, were fussier and far more formal. In 2005, Gregg Wallace and John Torode came along. Over almost two decades at the helm, they’ve made “buttery biscuit base” happen and competitive TV cooking fun again. I say fun. I’m not sure how much fun the contestants are having when they serve a sloppy collapse that was supposed to pay homage to their mother’s cherished recipe to three tight-lipped former champions, but if they aren’t having fun, at least the viewers are. The tension is palpable. Give me a scrappy, raw talent who can’t plate-up for toffee but makes exceptional-tasting food and I’m all in.
