Masterchef Goes Large

Synopsis

Reality remake of Masterchef. Each day six cooks battle it out over a series of culinary challenges whilst under the added pressure of zoo-style camerawork and thumping dance beats. The six are whittled down to three in a Ready Steady Cook use-these-ingredients-and-make-something-quickly style challenge ("The Invention Test"). Whichever three the two judges deem the worst go home; the winners stay overnight for two more challenges - working a shift in a professional kitchen ("The Pressure Test") and preparing their best two-course meal ("The (er) Final Test").

The winner of each heat goes through to the Friday quarter-final. In this, the four would-be chefs must face a name-the-ingredients quiz and must deliver a speech to the judges outlining why they deserve to win. One contestant is sent home without having cooked anything, and the remaining three must cook their very best three-course meal (yes, even better than that two-course meal in the heat that was their very best). The winners of this go through to the semi-finals and then hopefully the grand final, with the chance of being taken on as a proper chef. From the second series onwards, the last week of the heats is a "comeback" week in which knocked-out contestants from the previous year return for another shot at the title. The format is slightly different during this week, lacking the invention test but with the contestants facing a longer pressure test consisting of both a breakfast and dinner service on the same day. In the final stages, the contestants must cook under various (some would say novelty) conditions - in a ship's galley, at a Michelin-starred restaurant, backstage for The Corrs, and so on. The winner is crowned The Winner, and goes off to enjoy their new-found job.

For a cookery show in which nine dishes are made every day, there's surprisingly little emphasis placed on the cooking, the producers evidently preferring the judges' deliberations, cogitations and digestion, and shots of the winners calling their friends and family on their mobiles. Nevertheless, it's a pretty entertaining half-hour, and let's face it: what's the alternative? Hollyoaks?

Celebrity Masterchef

Inevitably, BBC1 gets the all-star variant. First broadcast in September 2006, the celeb version features 24 participants, most of whom we've heard of, at least vaguely, and one (yes, as many as one) of whom is actually famous enough to be listed in Who's Who. Take that, Love Island! The second celebrity series actually managed to attract an earth-shattering three Who's Who entrants (Gunnell, Rippon and Quirke), which we're guessing may be some sort of record.

Unusually for a celeb show, it's all pre-recorded, with no telephone voting, not even a Great British Menu-type poll at the end. The format is basically the same as the regular show, except that only three celebs begin each heat and there is no elimination after the first test.

Participants

2006 Celebrity Masterchef: Graeme Le Saux, Hardeep Singh Kohli, Richard Arnold, Sarah Cawood, Linda Barker, Charlie Dimmock, Fred MacAulay, Paul Young, Sheila Ferguson, David Grant, Marie Helvin, Lady Isabella Hervey, Tony Hadley, Toyah Willcox, Jilly Goolden, Matt Dawson, Roger Black, Helen Lederer, Sue Perkins, Rowland Rivron, Arabella Weir, Simon Grant, Kristian Digby.

2007 Celebrity Masterchef: Emma Forbes, Sally Gunnell, Martin Hancock, Sue Cook, Jeff Green, Nadia Sawalha, Jeremy Edwards, Lorne Spicer, Matthew Wright, Darren Bennett, Chris Bisson, Angela Rippon, Chris Hollins, Matt James, Pauline Quirke, Rani Price, Craig Revel Horwood, Phil Tufnell, Gemma Atkinson, Robbie Earle, Midge Ure, Mark Foster, Sherrie Hewson, Sunetra Sarker.

2008 Celebrity Masterchef: Kaye Adams, Ninia Benjamin, Michael Buerk, Julia Bradbury, Andrew Castle, Josie D'Arby, Louis Emerick, Denise Lewis, Clare Grogan, Liz McClarnon, Joe McGann, Vicki Michelle, Mark Moraghan, Christopher Parker, Andi Peters, Wendi Peters, Steven Pinder, Calire Richards, Linda Robson, Hywel Simons, DJ Spoony, Debra Stephenson, Noel Whelan, Sean Wilson.

Key moments

When someone puts a risotto with a piece of meat. Especially people on the second series who presumably saw it happen every week in the first run. Altogether now: "risotto is a dish in itself!"

Gregg Wallace's masterclass in contradicting your own hyperbole:
"Cooking does not get tougher than this!" - opening titles to Celebrity Masterchef, 2006
"This competition just gets tougher!" - opening titles to Masterchef Goes Large, 2007

For the 2008 series he's gone back to a differently-emphasised version, "Cooking doesn't get tougher than this!" with a heavy emphasis on the "doesn't". For The Professionals series India Fisher, whose scriptwriter must surely be goading us by this point, squeezed out one extra level of superlative with "Cooking doesn't get better than this!".

Trivia

They dropped the "Goes Large" from the title in 2008, possibly because they finally noticed how silly India Fisher sounded when trying to make it sound portentous in the opening titles. 2008 also saw the series promoted from its original 6:30pm slot to a mid-evening 8:30 berth.

Due to the need for lots of close-ups of the food, it's often cold by the time the judges get to taste it. John Torode says that this doesn't matter because if the flavours are right it will still work.

Series 1 winner Thomasina Miers went on to co-star in the (slightly bonkers) Channel 4 series The Wild Gourmets, and now runs Wahaca in Covent Garden which serves up Mexican street food. [1] 2007 champion Steven Wallis has been spotted working as a "home economist" (or "dogsbody") in the background of Great British Menu.

Champions

2005: Thomasina "Tommi" Miers
2006: Peter Bayless
2007: Steven Wallis
2008: James Nathan

Celebrity Masterchef
2006: Matt Dawson
2007: Nadia Sawalha
2008: Liz McClarnon

Inventor

Adapted by Karen Ross and John Silver from the original Masterchef format by Franc Roddam.

Merchandise

Masterchef Goes Large book (revised 2006 edition) (also the original 2005 edition)

Web links

BBC Food

Off The Telly review

See also

Masterchef

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