MasterChef must die
Wallace and Torde's antics have made MasterChef a joke. The stories about Wallace that have dominated the headlines over the last week have long since veered into ridiculousness – not least the piquant detail that he is apparently unable to wear underpants because of his autism. But when Torode put out a statement saying: 'Personally I have loved every minute working on MasterChef, but it's time to pass the cutlery to someone else. For whoever takes over, love it as I have', it became clear that, whatever the future incarnation of the show, it will not be the same.
You do not have to be the greatest fan of either Wallace or Torode to acknowledge that the reason for MasterChef's success in recent years was in large part because of their on-screen chemistry and how well they interacted with their guests. Each had their clearly defined persona. Wallace was the cheeky-chappie costermonger, ever ready with a quip or tension-deflating gag. Torode was the straight man, bringing a calming sense of order and confidence to proceedings.
The two began hosting the show in 2005, after Torode was chosen instead of the higher-profile and more acerbic food critic, the late AA Gill. An especially notable feature of MasterChef in the Wallace-Torode era was its kindness to contestants, some of whom made a veritable pig's ear of the dishes that they were preparing. Gill, you imagine, would have made sneering, sarcastic comments about their ineptitude. But Torode and Wallace managed to bring a humanity and jocularity to proceedings that kept matters light and forever entertaining.
Since it was invented in 1990 by Franc Roddam, who film buffs may remember was the director of the Who film Quadrophenia, MasterChef has been one of the BBC's most lucrative and beloved shows. The format has been sold to 65 other territories worldwide, where it is said to be watched by as many as 300 million people. Some of its most high-profile winners include the likes of Thomasina Miers, Dhruv Baker and Shelina Permaloo, who became the first woman of colour to win the show in 2012. It has, undeniably, been a great British success story, and the BBC will now be trying to find two permanent presenters who can replace Wallace and Torode and make viewers forget the scandals that have tainted the show in recent times.
This is understandable, but it is also tempting to suggest that it is time that MasterChef takes a break from television, perhaps an extended one. Thirty-five years is a very long time for any show to be on air, and the format was beginning to flag at times in recent years, despite the continued energy that its presenters brought to the screen.
While I don't believe that anyone will be put off watching a revived incarnation of the show because of the opprobrium directed towards its former hosts – 'Oh, John Torode said something dodgy seven years ago, I won't watch the series that he used to present' – now might be a valuable opportunity for its makers to pause and reflect what it could be in the future.
Axing MasterChef is not an easy decision. Should a Gill-esque host be hired to dispense haughty quips and withering put-downs? Or should the programme double down on hugs and tears, no doubt accompanied by would-be inspirational music? There are arguments for both, or an entirely different approach. But rather than the producers insisting on 'business as usual' and reaching for the contacts book of the usual suspects, recent events might lead them to take a step back. They should reconsider whether this show, now well into its fourth decade, could do with a proper rethink to keep it relevant and interesting and to ensure that the recent unflattering headlines are soon forgotten. Otherwise, this particular kitchen might end up shutting down, possibly for good.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Again and again, we are shocked by the treatment of learning-disabled people. Yet we never learn from the past
BBC Radio 4 has just aired a short series about the writer Virginia Woolf, to celebrate the centenary of her novel Mrs Dalloway. According to the publicity blurb, the aim of Three Transformations of Virginia Woolf was to explore what she 'has to say to us today', and how she 'captured and critiqued a modern world that was transforming around her, treated mental health as a human experience rather than a medical condition, and challenged gender norms'. Because the three episodes immediately followed the Today programme, I distractedly caught two minutes of the first, before flinching, and turning it off. The reason? Only a few days before, I had read a diary entry Woolf wrote in 1915, presented alongside the acknowledgment that she was 'suffering deep trauma at the time', but still so shocking that it made me catch my breath. It was a recollection of encountering a group of learning-disabled people, who were probably residents of a famous institution called Normansfield hospital. 'We met and had to pass a long line of imbeciles,' Woolf wrote. 'The first was a very tall man, just queer enough to look at twice, but no more; the second shuffled, and looked aside; and then one realised that everyone in that long line was a miserable ineffective shuffling idiotic creature … It was perfectly horrible. They should certainly be killed.' That passage arrives a third of the way through a brilliant new book titled Beautiful Lives, straplined How We Got Learning Disabilities So Wrong. Written by the playwright and drama director Stephen Unwin, its story goes from the Greeks and Romans to the 21st century. Much of it is a history of the misunderstanding, hatred and appalling mistreatment experienced by endless millions of people. But partly because Unwin has a learning-disabled son – 28-year-old Joey, who he says has 'challenged everything I was brought up to believe in and turned it on its head' – it is also a very topical demand for all of us 'to celebrate the fact that such people exist and have so much to offer'. A sign of the ignorance Unwin spends some of the book railing against is the fact that this superbly original work, published in early June, has not been reviewed in a single mainstream publication. In the context of the attitudes he writes about, that is probably not much of a surprise – but there again, the book is so timely that its passing-over still feels shocking. After all, it follows the same unquestionable logic as all those high-profile discussions and debates about institutional racism and empire, and demands a very similar process of reckoning. On this subject, there is a mountain of questions to ask. Some are about language that still endures: 'imbeciles', 'morons', 'cretins', 'idiots'. How many of us know about the first official Asylum for Idiots – later the Royal Earlswood Institution for Mental Defectives – founded in Surrey in 1847, and infamous for what Unwin describes as 'widespread cruelty … and soaring mortality rates'? However much young people study history, do their syllabuses ever cover the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913, which formalised the idea that people categorised as 'idiots' and 'imbeciles' (and all disabled children and young people) should be institutionalised, let alone the fact that it granted local councils powers to remove such people from their families by force? Why is the US's record on institutional cruelty and cod-psychology even worse than the UK's? There is another part of the same story, centred on a slew of 20th-century politicians and cultural figures who believed that learning-disabled people – and disabled people in general – were not just pitiful and wretched, but a threat to humanity's future, an idea expressed in the absurd non-science of eugenics. They included that towering brute Winston Churchill, DH Lawrence (who had visions of herding disabled people into 'a lethal chamber as big as the Crystal Palace'), and lots of people thought of as progressives: Bertrand Russell, HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, the one-time Labour party chair Harold Laski, and the trailblazing intellectuals Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Their credo of pure and strong genes may have been discredited by the defeat of the Nazis, but we should not kid ourselves that everyday manifestations of loathing and condescension that underlay those ideas do not linger on. Ours is the age of such scandals as the one that erupted in 2011 at Winterbourne View, the 'assessment and treatment unit' in Gloucestershire, where people with learning disabilities were left out in freezing weather, had mouthwash poured into their eyes and were given cold showers as a punishment. The year 2013 saw the death in an NHS unit of Connor Sparrowhawk, the autistic and learning-disabled young man whose life was dramatised by Unwin in a profoundly political play titled Laughing Boy, based on a brilliantly powerful book written by Sparrowhawk's mother, Sara Ryan. As well as its principal character's life and death, it highlighted the fact that the health trust that ran the unit in question was eventually found to have not properly investigated the 'unexpected' deaths of more than 1,000 people with learning disabilities or mental-health issues. Right now, about 2,000 learning-disabled and autistic people are locked away in completely inappropriate and often inhumane facilities, usually under the terms of mental health legislation. Only 5% of learning-disabled people are reckoned to have a job. Six out of 10 currently die before the age of 65, compared with one out of 10 for people from the general population. But this is also a time of growing learning-disabled self-advocacy, which will hopefully begin to make change unavoidable. One small example: at this year's Glastonbury, I chaired a discussion about the cuts to disability benefits threatened by the political heirs of Laski and the Webbs. The speakers onstage included Ady Roy, a learning-disabled activist who is involved in My Life My Choice, a brilliant organisation that aims at a world 'where people with a learning disability are treated without prejudice and are able to have choice and control over their own lives'. He was inspirational, but it would be good to arrive at a point where what he did was completely unremarkable. It may sound a little melodramatic, but it is also true: such people, and allies like Unwin, are at the cutting-edge of human liberation. Far too many others may not have the same grim ideas as Woolf, Lawrence, Keynes and all the rest, but their unawareness and neglect sit somewhere on the same awful continuum. That only highlights an obvious political fact that all of us ought to appreciate as a matter of instinct: that the present and future will only be different if we finally understand the past. John Harris is a Guardian columnist
Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Daily Mirror
BBC legend dies as devastated colleagues pay tribute to 'champion of local radio'
A star of BBC radio has sadly passed away as tributes from his former colleagues and friends pour in for the iconic one-time Managing Editor of BBC Radio Lincolnshire Colleagues have been paying their respects to Charlie Partridge following the announcement of his passing. The respected media figure had a long-standing career with the BBC, serving as Managing Editor of BBC Radio Lincolnshire from 1999 until his departure in 2020. Tributes poured in over social media on Saturday, July 19, led by former BBC News Foreign Correspondent and presenter Jonathan Charles. While the cause of death has not been disclosed, Jonathan shared his personal reflections on Twitter: "I am very sorry to hear of the loss of Charlie Partridge. More than 45 years ago, he taught me a lot about broadcasting @BBCNottingham - he was a great guy and we stayed in touch, occasionally swapping messages in the years since. Sometimes discussing @springsteen - My thoughts are with his family." He also shared a tribute from John Hess, who expressed his sorrow and celebrated Charlie's life and contributions to public service broadcasting and local radio. BBC Radio Lincolnshire's own Sean Dunderdale joined in commemorating his late colleague with a touching post accompanied by a photo of the two together. He wrote: "As others have posted online, I'm deeply saddened to have learnt yesterday of the death of Charlie Partridge." In a further tribute, Sean recalled his personal connection to Charlie, saying: "I remember - and often reminded him - of how, when a teenager, I listened to his breakfast show on Radio Humberside." "When he was appointed Managing Editor at Radio Lincolnshire, I showed him around Lincs FM and spent years winding him up with daft stunts - including parking my Lincs FM car right outside the BBC reception doors and other such tricks. "I was proud to then become his final presenter appointment before his well deserved retirement from the BBC. His love of radio - especially local radio - shone through everything he did. He continued to judge the National Hospital Awards for me right up until earlier this year and was always full of praise for the winning entries." Sean added: "He was the genius behind Lip Dub Lincoln (check it out on YouTube) and created Lincolnshire Day and the Lincolnshire flag - neither would have happened without Charlie. Next time you see the flag, think of the great Charlie Partridge. Lincolnshire is poorer for his passing but much richer for the time spent he with us." Former BBC presenter Andy Comfort posted on Twitter: "Oh my goodness. How sad. Charlie was indeed a champion of BBC Local Radio and I very much enjoyed working with him, especially in my NUJ role. Condolences to Jill and family and friends. RIP Charlie." BBC radio fans also paid their respects, with one writing: "Sad to hear Jonathan, John. Charlie was a lovely man, who believed in truly local radio. He was also very kind and supportive. Thoughts with his family." Another added: "It is indeed very sad Jonathan. Lovely man." This follows the announcement five years ago that the editors of BBC Radio Lancashire, Radio York and Radio Lincolnshire, including Charlie, had opted for voluntary redundancy.
Rhyl Journal
2 hours ago
- Rhyl Journal
Danny Dyer and Stephen Graham join for Adolescence-like show
EastEnders star Danny Dyer and Stephen Graham are reportedly putting their heads together for a show based on issues affecting society in the modern day. The new drama promises to be "gritty" and "unflinching" in its approach, according to an insider. A post shared by Netflix UK & Ireland (@netflixuk) Talking with The Mirror, the source said: "They are currently thrashing out what they want to do. It'll be in the vein of Adolescence. Something unflinching and moving.' Adolescence, which was co-created and co-written by This Is England favourite Stephen Graham, recently broke records when it premiered on Netflix, seeing it become the most-watched show of the year. The Four-part series starts with the arrest of 13-year-old Jamie (played by Owen Cooper) when armed police storm the family home. Over the course of the show, it explores misogyny among teenage boys. The Last time Graham and EastEnders star Danny Dyer worked together was all the way back in 2009, when they both starred in the British slapstick horror film Doghouse. Previously, Danny called on Stephen to get him involved in one of his projects and praised Adolesence. Danny said: 'It's such an important subject, but the fact they're doing it in one take. As an actor and being part of that world I find it f****** incredible. "So, Steve, you've got to roll me into something. I want a bit of this!'
