I have, in the past, interviewed both Gregg Wallace and John Torode, though not together. The interviews were quite different experiences.
I talked to Torode in person, in a test kitchen in London; our meeting was something to do with a brand of frying pans he was marketing. I remember liking him quite a lot.
We had a pint afterwards and he was grumpy but fairly affable, clearly loved food but didn’t overdo it. Duty bound, but up for a laugh.
My chat with Wallace was over the phone, some years ago now, when he was flogging some sort of diet book. He talked about pudding and exercise for a long while, over our allocated slot, which irked me a little because I was away in Padul, near Granada and wanted to get back into the sunshine to play table tennis.
One quote he gave me that day which I have been thinking about recently was about feeling so good about himself, having lost a lot of weight, that he wanted to “give himself a kiss” while looking in the mirror in the gym.
The long list of allegations made against Wallace make for grim and unsettling reading. They seem to be endless, and from chefs, fellow broadcasters, contestants new and old. The BBC and its associated production companies need to act quickly so that anyone in need of closure may have the opportunity to find it.
As far as Wallace is concerned, the New European’s lawyers would be likely to object to any further comment I might make. Regardless, I was buoyed to read on Tuesday that the MasterChef Christmas specials have been pulled, those inconsequential celebrity episodes in which hopeful, would-be chefs hoping for their break are unaffected.
This was a no-brainer. I would also hope Wallace reconsiders his social media strategy.
Beyond the specific issue at hand, both Wallace and Torode have enjoyed a coterminous tenure on MasterChef since 2005. That’s 20 years presenting one of the BBC’s most popular shows, unchallenged and unrelenting.
Maybe that’s just it: MasterChef is something of a behemoth, in stature and – remarkably – in relevance, still. Recent viewing figures hover at around 3.5m, which is solid in today’s world of on-demand streaming. Only shows like Strictly, soaps and sporting events eclipse it.
You might say that apart from removing Wallace for the next and future seasons “the BBC shouldn’t ‘fix’ what isn’t ‘broken’.” But it seems to me that MasterChef is broken, if not by success but by culture, and haplessly ingrained.
I reckon the show needs a total overhaul, a reformatting and a changing of the guard. It is a programme that has been allowed to stagnate, to regress; for 20 years it has largely remained unchanged when others were making progress and evolving.
How and why is dispiriting and anyone’s guess. Could it be those viewing figures? I hear television is awash with similar stories, each still unchecked and unrepented.
What might a new-look MasterChef look like? Back to the gentler, simpler days of Lloyd Grossman, where there was less drama, more cooking? There is a romance to older food television, isn’t there, but I shouldn’t think younger audiences would buy it. And it was not without its problems, I’m sure.
Now is the perfect time for the BBC to have a rethink and a reshuffle. Possibly there would be a role for Torode somewhere on the BBC. Some sort of wily, owl-like figure proffering referential cooking advice from afar.
I was about to fondly remember a clip on This Morning in which Torode, in lockdown, was cooking breakfast muffins live on air only for his kitchen towel to catch on fire. Unfortunately, it involves a certain Philip Schofield, so, yeah. No can do. Bloody hell.
It is fitting, though, that This Morning has two new presenters. Given MasterChef is now a tainted, haunted beast of a similar vein, I should think it requires a similar treatment.
Keep a bold, fun, happy springboard for aspirational chefs in need of a break by all means. But bring in new faces that represent Britain today. When the time is right, put the food back front and centre. I would consider Anna Haugh – a brilliant Irish chef, who has already featured on that country’s version of the programme. What about Andi Oliver, too? She has worked wonders on Great British Menu. And I’d love to see Ed Gamble and James Acaster find their footing – their Off Menu podcast, which covers food in a whimsical way, would fit brilliantly. There are options abound.
MasterChef – for now – is toast. It’s not a breakfast show, so there’s no need for the boiled egg.
