Maybe The New ‘Great British Bake-Off’ Won’t Be Rubbish After All?

For those who aren’t in the know, The Great British Bake-Off is exactly what it sounds like: a show about amateur British bakers, which also happens to be great. In North America we only have (legal) access to a few seasons of the heartwarming reality show competition thanks to PBS (you can find it on Netflix under Great British Baking Show), but across the pond the show’s been a staple of the BBC since 2010.

In September 216, however, everything changed. Love Productions sold the show to Channel 4 in a three-year deal; hosts Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins, as well as celebrity judge Mary Berry, announced that they would not be returning to the program. At the time, it seemed like GBBO as we knew it was over — after all, what is a baking competition without blazers and copious sexual innuendo?

Except, perhaps not all is lost! Today Channel 4 has revealed its new line-up, and it’s… actually not so bad-sounding? Sole returning judge Paul Hollywood will be joined by food writer Prue Leith; Noel Fielding (The Mighty Boosh, The IT Crowd, other various funny things) and Sandi Toksvig (who recently took over QI from Stephen Fry and co-founded the Women’s Equality Party) will star as co-hosts.

So, the gleefully immature jokes about “soggy bottoms” are definitely not going away, is what this means. We can all relax a little. Unless you hate goths and political activists, in which case you’re perfectly entitled to do the opposite of relaxing.

And thankfully, Mel and Sue will still be together on television — they’re moving to ITV for a daily entertainment series called The Nightly Show. In the meantime, I suppose we’ll see if the new GBBO lives up to their wonderfully cheeky legacy.

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