As Nigella Lawson makes her judging debut in the tent, she wasn’t the only person to be invited in for the first time
Paul said he already felt as though he’d worked with Nigella ‘for years’(Image: Getty Images for Channel 4)
As Channel 4 bosses hope for a ratings boost thanks to the Nigella effect, the new Bake Off judge admitted she’d found the weekly eliminations really hard. “I agonise quite a bit,” she confessed. “I just look at the floor, I’m so frightened of making eye contact.”
Speaking at the launch of the new Channel 4 series Nigella, 66, said she and fellow judge Paul Hollywood carried on talking about the cakes long after the cameras stopped rolling. “You get so involved, you can’t just switch it off.” The agonising came as she tried to fairly evaluate all the ups and downs: “This person’s done well on this front but maybe fallen down a bit here – and these things are crucial. It’s just cake – but it matters. So you really have to be sure you’ve looked at everything and really thought about it. You don’t want to make any mistakes.”
She said her aim had been to be both fair and upbeat. “I always try and look for the positive as well, because you don’t ever want criticism to be something that makes people feel inadequate. I think it’s very important to let someone know what they’re doing well and what needs to be a bit better.”
In the end she found that all she could actually do was tell the truth – and be herself. “Ultimately, you can’t do anything except be honest, because all you have to go on is your honest reactions. Does it help someone to say something worked if it didn’t? No. Because they’re there to get better.”
“You can only ever be the person you are. Television is very interesting in that way – in one sense it’s an artificial medium because you’re made to look nicer and all that sort of thing. And yet, it’s a great phoniness detector.”
Paul said he’d loved watching Nigella give her first ever critiques in the tent. “I was curious to see the reaction the first time Nigella gave judgment on a cake. For me, I found that the most magical time. Obviously, I did it with Mary for seven years, 10 years with Prue. So it was fascinating – it was fantastic.”
And while he doesn’t mind dishing out the “constructive criticism” himself, he confessed to feeling a bit choked himself, on occasion, by the departures. “It was quite emotional, this year in particular, even I felt it at times. They were a tight group.”
This year the show will have a first when it comes to the challenges – the introduction of a round in which friends and family are invited into the tent to help out. “It’s the first time we’ve ever done it. It really worked. The atmosphere changed in the tent,” Paul explained. The idea had come from the viewers at home. “It was chaos,” presenter Noel Fielding joked, saying the family members ended up having “proper full-on fights”.
The first episode is as much about Nigella Lawson’s arrival as it is about the 12 new bakers. A few days ago she claimed in an interview that she had dramatically changed her decades-long presenting style, insisting: “I’m not flirtatious.”
But viewers will soon see that this is not actually the case, as she sidles up to 22-year-old Moyin in the tent to tell him “You’re the only person I’ve ever seen look chic in shorts.” And tasting Tom’s chocolate and stout cake after the first Signature challenge, she informs him suggestively: “This is giving me a lot of pleasure.”
Overall, she was hugely impressed by the bakers. “I don’t think you can underestimate what it takes to be in that tent. You’re offering something up for judgment. It’s a bit like taking a driving test,” she explained. “I was just amazed at how quickly they took all that in their stride.”
Co-presenter Alison Hammond said she wanted to help out the new judge, but hadn’t needed to. “It is quite a daunting moment when you first walk into that tent so we wanted to look after Nigella and make sure she was OK. She didn’t need any advice whatsoever. She was magical with the bakers and in front of the camera.”
It was a different story for the emotional bakers. “You have to be there to remind them that, ultimately, we are dealing with cake.”
– The Great British Bake Off returns to Channel 4 at 8pm on 22 September
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