Desert Island Duchess: Celebrity GBBO Returns

We’re in the famous white tent, there’s a man with silver fox hair, piercing blue eyes and a confident manner…and he’s just put his buttercream in the oven. No, Paul Hollywood has not lost his mind (that we know of, anyway), but this was one of the slight mishaps suffered by Spandau Ballet bassist and former EastEnders actor Martin Kemp as The Great British Bake Off returned with the start of a new celebrity series on Channel 4 last night.

Over the next few weeks, everyone from comedian Joe Lycett to US actress Teri Hatcher and leader of the Scottish Conservative Party Ruth Davidson will be entering the Bake Off tent to try to impress Paul and Prue and raise some cash for Stand Up To Cancer along the way.

Joining Martin – whose baking wasn’t exactly…brace yourself…’gold’ – in the first episode were actress and comedian Roisin Conaty, former BBC news presenter Bill Turnbull and funnyman Harry Hill.

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And what an episode it was. We had the first highly coveted Hollywood Handshake of the series, which went to Roisin for her red velvet cupcakes; we had multiple pancake-tossing fails, with Roisin quickly falling from her handshake high as she somehow welded her Crepes Suzette to her plate and Bill’s ended up on the floor; and we had 3D biscuit scenes depicting the best days of the contestants’ lives.

We have to confess we expected these to be along the lines of weddings and children being born, as we forgot for a moment that we were among music royalty here, akin to the likes of Freddie Mercury and Madonna. Yes, Spandau Ballet were on the bill at Live Aid back in 1985 and that’s the occasion Martin chose to depict in biscuit form. He explained/bragged just how spectacular a day it was, but admitted to still feeling a little uneasy about the fact that Noel Edmonds – yep, Mr Blobby’s mate and host of Deal or No Deal – flew the band to the gig via helicopter. We’re not sure we’d recover from that either.

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Bill did decide to depict his wedding day, but as if it had happened in his apiary, Roisin attempted to recreate a beach scene and Harry chose to show the time he went away to a desert island with Camilla Parker Bowles. We suspect he might have made that up…but who knows with Harry Hill? Anyway, that was definitely our – altogether now – “baking highlight of the weeeek”!

For his royally good efforts, Harry was the one who took home the Star Baker apron at the end of the episode, while Roisin was given a bouquet of flowers for her efforts, as it was her first ever time baking! And she got a Hollywood Handshake! Could Roisin be the next Mary Berry? After seeing her biscuit beach scene, we have our doubts, but we think everyone should be rewarded for getting in the kitchen for the first time. Flowers for everyone!

Next week, Stacey Solomon, Diversity dance group member Perri Kiely, Kaiser Chiefs’ frontman Ricky Wilson and Countdown host Nick Hewer will be tackling the baking conundrums set by Paul and Prue. Hopefully, he’ll have longer than the 30 seconds he’s used to for solving them…

Tune in to Channel 4 at 8pm on Tuesday March 13th to see for yourself.