Great British Bake Off: āLast year we just tried to make sure we didnāt destroy our careersā
After a triumphant first series together, Prue, Paul, Sandi and Noel are back to tell us about the pressures of the show, the Hollywood handshake and why they might be naughtier this year
Sun 15 Jul 2018 11.00 BST
Ihave never been starstruck by a tent before, but then, this isnāt some damp old pop-up thatās been rotting at the back of the garage for a decade. This is the tent. The Great British Bake Off tent. The Great British Bake Off tent, during bread week, and I step inside its hallowed canvas just as a selection of ambitious showstopper challenges in unthinkable shapes have been taken out of the oven. I take a step, starting to salivate at the smell of baked dough and spices, and the floor creaks unnervingly. Someone with a clipboard shouts: āDonāt walk near the bakes!ā The middle of the tent, down which the contestants make the long procession to the judges with their offering, is wobbly and uneven. I tiptoe, suddenly petrified that Iāll be responsible for destroying four hoursā worth of intricate bread work with one dodgy footstep.
On TV, you get a sense of what it must be like to be in there ā the chocolate-melting heatwave days, the sweaty pressure of tight time constraints and unfamiliar ovens, the kind of gentle chaos that led to baked alaska-gate, when the nation stopped to pay witness to a woman accidentally removing someone elseās ice-cream from the freezer. But you canāt get any idea of how delicious it smells, all that bread, spiced and hot and buttery, desperately trying to stay upright in positions never attempted by baked goods before.
There have been eight series of Bake Off so far and, during that time, it has grown from adorable BBC2 curiosity to smash hit and tabloid-bolstering phenomenon, in which every crumb of potential controversy becomes instant front-page news. The showās production company, Love, moved the competition from its original BBC home to Channel 4 last year, putting its reputation at risk and losing three of its original four presenters in the process (only Paul Hollywood stayed, and the bright blue Lamborghini parked outside his trailer today suggests the move was not financially damaging). As an authoritative voice in the world of food, with decades of experience, Prue Leith seemed like a reasonable choice to replace Mary Berry, but when it was announced that QIās Sandi Toksvig and The Mighty Booshās Noel Fielding would be taking over from Mel and Sue, even dedicated fans were concerned that it just wouldnāt be the same. They were right. It isnāt. But to the surprise of many viewers, it worked. In a different way, as youād expect from different ingredients, but nevertheless, it was still Bake Off.
We have gone back to basics on a couple of challenges, because we were getting a bit over-complicated
The tent lives in the grounds of a country mansion in Berkshire. Itās unseasonably cold today so, in the grand library of the main house that doubles up as a green room for the presenters, an open fire is crackling. Toksvig sits by it in an armchair. The night before we meet, she missed a presentersā night out, instead picking up a lifetime achievement gong at the British LGBT Awards. The others, busily spread around the room, are thrilled about her new status as what Hollywood calls āthe best lesbian in the whole countryā; Fielding says heās still hopeful that he might get it next year, though āif they give it to Clare Balding, Iāll go fucking madā. Trying to talk to all four of them at once has the feel of a particularly tricky technical challenge. They riff off each other, and delight in each otherās silliness; Hollywood is funnier than he seems on screen, and they all seem to like each other. When I arrive, Leith is on her laptop. Fielding decides that sheās writing racy fiction, much to her mock disgust. Toksvig takes charge. āPut it away, Prudence!ā she insists. āIām very sorry,ā says Leith, chastened. āI thought all this banter was white noise.ā
Do you all feel more relaxed this year, now that itās more familiar?
Noel Yes. Last year we were under an enormous amount of pressure to not ruin this sacred show that everyone loved, so we werenāt as worried about the bakers, we were just trying to make sure we didnāt destroy our own careers. [Laughs]
I thought, will this be my swansong?
We were like, letās get in, and if it doesnāt work, weāll set fire to the tent and leg it.
We also all know each other much better.
Noel Nice bunch of bakers this year. Every year they seem to get a bit better.
You seem very close to the contestants already this year.
Sandi It was quick this time. Even Prue can remember all their names.
Prue Prue remembered them all, day one.
Noel Not mine, but theirs.
Prue Who are you?
Noel I donāt know. I think Iām one of the bakers but Iām in the wrong tent.
Some people have suggested the challenges might be getting too hardā¦
Paul This year we have gone back to basics on a couple, because we were getting a bit over-complicated. Sometimes itās not just about the bakers in the tent, itās about the people in the UK who watch the programme. We want to encourage the viewers to bake. And itās worked, thus far. Everyoneās got the baking bug, at some level.
Noel and Sandi, how do you work out the comedy bits? Do you just mess around and hope for the best?
Noel We make it look like that.
Prue They do work incredibly hard at it. I was very amused the other day because we were talking about this whole scandal about what weāre paid. I said, I have such an easy timeā¦
Noel Do you get paid, you guys?
Prue All I do is walk on, eat, say what I think, and walk off again. Sandi said: āSo if it were worked out minute-for-minute, how much work we actually do, youāre the most overpaid person here.ā
Sandi I just like to speak as I find.
Prue These two have to write the stuff, they then have to learn it and rehearse it, then get it through the production company, who might not think itās quite as funny as they think it is, or itās too risque.
Noel Most of the stuff in the tent, we just muck about.
Sandi My joke about muffin-diving should have made the edit.
Thatās one for the blooper reel.
Noel The only problem with improvising is that occasionally youāll get in a fridge. And then youāre in trouble. But Iām only working with the tools Iāve been given. Thereās a lot of fridges in that tent. At some point, someone was going to get in one.
Sandi We discovered that Paulās got the most natural comic timing.
Paul [Smiling] Iām not sure you have discovered that.
How were Noel and Sandi put together?
Noel I kept coming and meeting Sandi, and going: āThat was great fun, I have no idea what they want.ā Because they didnāt say. Iām a child. Iāll go anywhere. āDo you want to go and meet Sandi?ā āYeah. Love Sandi.ā We got on immediately. They were so scared at that point, having moved to Channel 4, and they were being quite cautious. So they made us meet again about five more times.
Sandi I just kept going, itās Noel, itās Noel. Itās got to be Noel.
Prue Did you meet other people?
Sandi I did, yeah.
Noel How to make someone feel special! There was a long queue.
You seemed to be a risky choice at firstā¦
Noel It was quite a big thing. If you read the Daily Mail, [hiring me] was just a ludicrous decision. The thing is, me and Sandi have great chemistry. Paul and Prue have great chemistry. The four of us have chemistry. Thatās kind of rare. Thereās something special here.
Paul and Prue, how often do you agree, when it comes to judging?
Paul 99.9%.
Prue You have to be careful about not letting your prejudices interfere. I suppose one of the reasons Iām quite confident is that I had these schools of food and wine, and every year there would be 96 students whose exams depended on mine and the principalsā tastebuds. Iām used to tasting a lot of things and still concentrating. When you taste wine, I canāt taste more than eight in a rowā¦
Paul Couldāve fooled me last night. [They all cackle]
Sandi I canāt believe you all went out and I missed it.
Noel Paul bought me a piƱa colada.
Paul I wanted it to have sparklers and everything.
Is the show reality TV?
Prue Of course it is, in the sense that these are real people and weāre watching them and seeing their journey and all that stuff. But what makes it different from most reality shows is that the results are not cooked by the producers. They genuinely just film what happens.
Noel Itās filmed like a documentary.
Prue No one wants to humiliate them, theyāre not chosen in order to be laughed at, there isnāt a desire to set people up for a fall.
Do you think thatās whatās given it such a long life? The niceness?
Prue I think so. I think the whole world needs a comfortable place which is not aggressive and scary and tiring and stressful.
Noel A happy place.
Do you have an idea early on about who might win?
Prue I donāt. Because, Iāve only had one season so far and I changed my mind three times about who I thought could win. This time I have no idea.
Sandi If you do know, donāt tweet it. Just saying. [Prue accidentally tweeted the name of last yearās winner a few hours early]
Noel We need to keep Prue in the dark until the last minute.
Prue [to Sandi, joking] You shut up.
Sandi I get no respect.
Noel The thing about Paul is, heās very fair. Heās never going to say itās great if it isnāt. Heāll go: āThis tastes like rubber.ā And you can see them dissolving.
Prue When you get the Hollywood stare, you never know what heās going to say, whether itās āitās terribleā or whether heās going to put his hand out and give them a handshake. Recently, one of the contestants was really crying, because everything had gone wrong and it was terrible. And Paul said the flavour was fantastic, it was a really imaginative thing, well done. Then he said: āBut it was shite.ā
Sandi The bake was shite.
Prue Instead of crying, they started to laugh.
Innuendo was such a big part of Bake Offā¦
Sandi Not any more.
Noel Apart from the muff-diving.
Sandi Diving for muffins was funny.
Noel It wonāt go in the show.
Sandi We donāt do very much innuendo.
Noel Itās not really our thing.
But itās still there.
Noel Itās not really your style or my style, is it? But we donāt reject it. If itās happening, we go with it. Sometimes we make Paul giggle. Often Prue naively says something which sounds sexual and we giggle like schoolchildren.
Prue I donāt know what theyāre talking about.
Noel When we first got here, there was a Bake Off way. It was tricky for us because we didnāt want to come in and try and change it too much. We wanted to slot in and still retain our own style.
Sandi Possibly weāre being a bit naughtier this year.
The show is so popular, and so big, that everything is scrutinised in a way that I imagine none of you had experienced before. How do you deal with that side of things?
Paul [smiling] I donāt know what youāre talking about. No idea.
Noel Do you know what I love? When you come here, itās a bubble. Itās flowers and trees, weāre in a tent, people are baking. Itās like a dream. Weāre in a library, with a fire.
Sandi Donāt touch my fire.
Noel Sandi is top lesbian. Prue writes porn.
Prue I do not write porn!
Noel I just want to say, for the record, Prue does not write porn. Prue writes novels.
Sandi Erotic novels.
Noel You donāt have to worry about anything in the real world. Itās a really nice place.
Quote: ā We have gone back to basics on a couple of challenges, because we were getting a bit over-complicated ā
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