If you can’t stand the heat

KITCHEN! Celebrity Masterchef, BBC Two, 8.00pm

It’s been a few weeks since Great British Menu vacated our screens, so it’s definitely time for another daily cookery challenge, no? Be warned, though, the new series of Celebrity Masterchef isn’t on at 6.30pm on BBC Two, it’s on at 8pm on BBC One. And because of the tennis, expect it to jump about a bit, with some episodes an hour, and some half an hour. Oh, and because of the tennis, it’s not on every day at present, so get your highlighter pen accquainted with your favourite TV listings mag.

For those that haven’t seen it before, it’s a very simple format. Three celebrities cook three sets of food: one from a bag of ‘mystery ingredients’, one in a restaurant, and one two-course meal of their choosing. The inner goes through into the semi finals, and so on, until someone wins. Previous winners include Matt Dawson (grr) and Nadia Sawalha (hurrah!).

This series there is a mixed bag of celebrities taking part, from the reality stalwarts (Denise Lewis, Andi Peters, Christopher Parker), to the rather rubbish (Mick from Brookside, some bloke from The Bill), to the ruddy brilliant (Claire Richards, Michael Buerk, Kaye Adams).

Who will be the first to make a chocolate fondant though…?

I Would Fix You

DRESSY!Gok’s Fashion Fix, Channel 4, 8.00pm
In the 80s and 90s, telly was able to guide us through the dizzying world of fashion through The Clothes Show. But without Caryn, Selina, Geoff and, err, the other ones, the noughties has thus far been bereft of such style advice. Well, sure, there have been programmes like What Not to Wear and How to Look Good Naked but no fashion magazine type shows. We could all have been wearing the wrong sort of thing for the last eight and a half years, and we wouldn’t even know about it! Tragedy!

Channel 4 have decided that this needs to be remedied and have commissioned a new fashion show, which promises to include interviews with fashion designers, clothing and beauty tips, clebrity interviews, and members of the public taking to the catwalk. Gok Wan presents: they are clearly making the most of their current poster boy (gay, mixed-race, glasses-wearing - he’s like every C4 demographic rolled into one), and it’s even called Gok’s Fashion Fix.

However, although Gok is the star here, I do feel I have a public duty to warn you that he will not be the only one presenting. The nemesis of many on the forums, Alexa Chung, is also present. To be fair, she is allegedly a fashion icon or something (according to certain magazines) so she is more qualified to be here than on Pop World or serious documentaries about sweat shops, but unfortunately, I don’t think she’s here just to look pretty and say nothing. So if you choose to watch tonight, tread carefully, or else record it, so you can fastforward any bits that might offend you.

Modern! British! Banquet!

GLORY! Great British Menu: The Banquet, BBC Two, 6.00pm

All those weeks of shouting at the screen as Pru, Oliver and Matthew put the wrong people through to the final round and the vindication when the public didn’t allow egotistical healthy chef Chris to get any further were all for this moment. Yes, folks, it’s glory at the gherkin time.

This series of Great British Menu hasn’t been as exciting or fun as the previous two but the choices of dishes that went through to ‘tonight’s’ (it blatantly isn’t live so was probably filmed a couple of days ago) banquet were pretty good choices all in all: Jason’s BLT in a glass, Steven’s trio of salmon, Jason’s chunks of MEAT! ROARGH! and Glynn’s strawberries and creme brulee in an eggshell.

We will finally get to find out tonight whether the Modern! British! Twists! such as foam, savoury ice creams, old classics reinvented and suchlike are a hit with the professional chefs at ‘Heston’s Banquet’ (and bearing in mind Mr Blumenthal’s recent defection to Channel 4, the Beeb are probably slightly regretting giving him so much publicity). Except we probably won’t, because they generally only feature the positive comments from guests and Monarchy taught us that despite her flunkies saying she loved the meal when the banquest was shown initially, she later revealed that cockles and foam were not for her. Cockles and foam feature again tonight (how much we’ve come on in two years) but her Majesty, sadly, does not. Unless you count Jennie Bond, who might perhaps turn up in frontt of the camera for the first time all series.

Hail Mary

FASHIONABLE! Mary, Queen of Shops, BBC Two, 9.00pm

Mary, Queen of Shops is one of the most eagerly awaited programmes of the summer for many people who frequent these parts. It is only a year since series one finished, but when Channel 4 have put out three “new” series of each of their lifestyle shows within that time, it feels an eternity.

For the uninitiated, the series follows ‘fashion guru’ Mary Portas as she tries to help owners of independent boutiques turn around their failing businesses. She goes in, diagnoses the legion of problems they need to solve, battles with the owners and helps them achieve a spectacular turnaround (mostly). Yes, its format is so similar to a certain other show that it could easily be called Mary’s Shopping Nightmares, but so what? The formula works, and this show is not really about the formula anyway, it’s about Mary, the clothes, the customers and the owners. It’s about learning about fashion, about Britain and about business. And most of all, it’s about total viewer satisfaction.

Tonight’s opener takes us to Ascot, to (ahem) Blinkz boutique, a shop for the ‘larger’ ladies. The owner of the shop is not a larger lady. And she doesn’t like larger ladies very much. So she dresses them in sacks and plasters the shop with pictures of herself. Righty-ho.

Cue our heroine Mary and an hour you won’t regret spending in front of the box.

Property developments

BACK! Location Location Location, Channel 4, 8.00pm
SPINOFF! Kirstie and Phil’s Property Guide, More 4, 9.00pm

Location Location Location has been suffering the same sort of fatigue as Property Ladder of late, in that it seems hard to get excited about a new series when there doesn’t seem to ever be a time when it’s not on. And of course, we’ve learnt from experience that most new series only contain about 50% new material before padding out the run with re-edited repeats, so there’s not much to write home about there either.

However, Channel 4 are apparently getting wise with this now, and have decided to give us something entirely new to enthuse about: a spin-off! After the usual bout of househunting with Phil and Kirstie on Channel 4 - and this week they’re househunting for a couple in Luton who drive Phil to the end of his tether, and a young artist who only has £125,000 to spend - we can all switch over to More 4 for Kirstie and Phil’s Property Guide. Or at least we could if we weren’t all watching The Apprentice.

That does mean, however, there’s a full 90 minutes of Phil and Kirstie available this week for those who want it, which is quite an exciting prospect, especially since the spin-off show gives them a chance to elaborate on some of the problems that were raised in the parent show and give their thoughts on the current housing crisis. Perhaps most importantly of all, it gives Kirstie an opportunity to wear yet another fabulous outfit. Job’s a good’un, as far as I’m concerned.

Naked in the rain

NU-DI-TY! Great British Body, ITV1, 9.00pm

Not to be outdone by Gok Wan and his oh-too-subtle naked photoshoots, the original mistresses of the makeover are back with a three part mini-series, running Monday-Wednesday this week in which they, and a bunch of British people of all ages (well, all ages over 18, obviously), shapes and sizes, get naked. Together. OUTSIDE. IN THE BRITISH COLD.

The huge naked stunt for Great British Body* has already been heavily publicised in the press, although rumour has it we don’t get to see it in its full, erm, glory until Wednesday. Apparently all the naked people are going to make one big naked body that represents the proportions of the average Brit. Whether it’s a man, woman or hybrid, I don’t know, however.

The mini-series is apparently all about celebrating the British body: looking at our average stats in terms of height, weight, body shape and so on. Apparently that needs three hour-long programmes to explain.

I don’t *think* there’ll be a heavy makeover element, as that will surely be saved for the upcoming series of Trinny and Susannah Undress, and it hasn’t been talked about in the press covergae, but you never know, the odd quick fix frock improvement may appear.

Unfortunately, all this nakedness can’t really detract from the huge enormous elephant in the room, which is the fact that Trinny and Susannah were so much better suited on the Beeb, presenting What Not to Wear proper. I’m pretty sure that, they know it, we know it, ITV know it, and the BBC know it. Gok knows it too, which is why he is currently the most-talked-about and seemingly most loved of the makeover queens.

Still, I love Trinny and Susannah, and if naked Triny and Susannah surrounded by naked Brits in a field is the best we’re going to get, then it will have to do.

*Must resist making puns about gherkins and glory, despite the name’s resemblance to that of a certain cookery competition show.

A matter of life and death

YUMMY! A Taste of My Life, BBC Two, 6.30pm

GORY! Kiss of Death, BBC One, 9.00pm

CGI-Y! Life After People, Channel 4, 9.00pm

TV is spoiling you this Bank Holiday, with lots of new and one-off goodies. It also means we have lots to preview, which is nice because sometimes (most Fridays it seems) there is just nothing to talk about. Today we have not one, not two, but THREE treats for you (and it was nearly four, but the name Springwatch, BBC Two, 8.00pm doesn’t fit the theme of life and death).

First up, and filling the foodie seat that Great British Menu has left warm, we have a new series of A Taste of My Life. If you haven’t seen previous series, Nigel spends time in the company of a celebrity, and they eat foods that remind the star of some ignificant times in their life. Kind of a Desert Island Discs for foodies. Previous guests have included Tracy Ann Oberman, John Barrowman (not Myleene Klass though! She’s probably dialling Slater as we speak), Vanessa Redgrave, Alex Kingston, Richard Briers (all of whom have been in Doctor Who or its spinoffs - maybe Nigel just pitches a trailer in Cardiff and grabs whoever’s there) and the Sawhala sisters (whom we’d like to see in Doctor Who or its spinoffs). One previous episode also featured the revelation that Cilla Black likes oranges with Bovril. TOGETHER.

This new series runs every day this week and next, and guests include Nigella Lawson (though surely having a cook on is cheating), Sue Johnstone, Sophie Dahl, Meera Syal and Sanjeev Bhaskar (though not in the same episode, which must have been easy for filming: two episodes in one go) and the lovely Tamsin Greig. Tonight’s guest is Jane Horrocks.

Later this evening, there are two one-off ‘big hitters’ in the 9.00pm slot. Firstly, we have Kiss of Death an extended length crime thriller that apparently messes with the genre’s narrative conventions and gets in a fair amount of gore. Its particularly notable as it stars Danny Dyer, Leonora Critchlow and Louise Lombard, who is looking uber-fierce with long, blonde hair. If you can stomach gore (and if you can stomach yet another crime drama) it may well be worth giving a go.

If that doesn’t float your boat, Channel 4’s big event is Life After People, a CGI-fest about what might happen to the earth after people have gone. It’s an American production, which means the emphasis is on, well, a certain part of the world, and it was first shown on the History Channel. Anyway, it will no doubt be intriguing enough, if you can stomach the dramatic voiceover.

Glory at the Gherkin

MODERN! BRITISH! Great British Menu, BBC Two, 6.00pm

Tonight, after what feels like years of heats, Great British Menu reaches its climax (although it doesn’t feel as long as tonight’s other finale, American Idol) - and be warned, it’s only half an hour long, so don’t think you can switch on at 6.45 just to see the results, as you’ll be halfway through Eggheads. It hasn’t been quite as exciting a series as the previous two, and more frustrating, as nearly all the chefs I wanted to win got knocked out in the early rounds, but this week’s finals week has been great fun.

This series has been somewhat formulaic, and I hope none of you are tempted to celebrate this finale by taking part in any form of drinking game, because if you try and drink everytime one of the series cliches appears (glory! gherkin! banquet! modern! British! Heston! witty! innovative! seasonal! regional! new twist on a classic dish! foam! offal! meat with fish! savoury ice cream! great flavours! technical skill! clever! joke! Matthew Fort doesn’t like goat’s cheese!) then your liver will expire with the fist five minutes.

Voting has closed, but if you’ve missed a few episodes and want to know who’s in contention, here’s your guide to the runners and riders competing for GLORY at the GHERKIN.

Glynn is from the central region, and is a nice bloke, although he has a tendency to get too upset too easily (all the men getting teary this week have rivalled the Josephs from Any Dream Will Do). He came mid-table with most of his dishes (which I can’t remember, so that was probably a fair result) but got a perfect mark on the dessert with his strawberries and burnt cream dish, which is surely the favourite for that course and for the GLORY.

Danny is from Northern Ireland, can’t take criticism, refused to alter his dishes when the judges suggest he does and has been firmly mid-table all the way through. Bye, Danny, you almost certainly won’t be tasting GLORY.

Nigel is a proper Northern bloke, and a nice one to boot. His modern surf and turf style fish dish is his best chance of winning, as his re-imagined rhubarb crumble, ‘hotpot salad’ and beef dish all failed to impress the judges. Of all of them, Nigel is the one I would most like to go on to GLORY.

Jason from the South East is the most MODERN of all the chefs, and runs a restaurant in the Gordon Ramsay chain, which we know, because Ramsay kept popping up to wax lyrical about him during the regional heats (beating poor, sweet, Atol, who would totally have gone through at long last if he’d got to the final stages) - something Ramsay didn’t do for another of his chefs, Angela Hartnett. Bah. Anyway, Jason was a bit of an arsehole in the heats, but has proved more likeable this week. He stupidly changed his inspired new take on arctic roll for a really rubbish tea-themed dessert that won’t go anwhere. His other three courses all impressed the judges, and his main of, well, lots of meat and a big knife, will probably go on to GLORY.

Steven somehow beat Angela Hartnett (how???) for Wales and has produced something terrible or other for the starter that the judghes didn’t like, a win of a salmoln dish for his fish course, a funky duck dish for his main and a nettle, tomato and pannacotta (sorry, milk jelly) pudding that I think looks vile but the judges seem to like. Has a reasonable chance in all but the first course to achieve GLORY.

Tom is the Scottish chef and seems quite lovely, but is probably going to be overshadowed by the other chefs. His starter and fish course went down well, but others went down better, and his main course and pudding bombed. Poor Tom, he is very unlikely to taste GLORY.

Chris is from the South West and is the ‘healthy chef’. He doesn’t use sugar, cream dairy, fat or anything vaguely naughty, much to the dismay of Matthew Fort. He also puts flowers on EVERYTHING. How MODERN. His starter of pigeon won, but his fish dish and main course fell a little flat. His pudding (an admittedly delicious looking blackcurrant themed platter, which included popping candy of all foodstuffs) came second. However, he is a complete twat, and bitches whenever someone does better than him, claiming he is practically the second coming, in a manner not unlike Michael Sophocles of The Apprentice. All the other judges are not as healthy as him and therefore they ARE BAD AND THEIR COOKING IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. I do hope the public reward his twattishness by forgetting to vote and denying him GLORY.

However, one question has been vexing me all series: seeing as the judges are going on about how ‘witty’ all the dishes are, why has no-one included a gherkin in their menu? That would surely be a route to GLORY.

War! What is it food for?

GLUTTONY! The Supersizers Go… Wartime, BBC Two, 9.00pm

The Supersizers Go… follows on from last year’s Edwardian Supersize Me in which Giles Coren and Sue Perkins tried on the Edwardian lifestyle for size. So successful was that show that the BBC commissioned this series on the back of it.

The premise is very simple. Each week, Giles and Sue wear the costumes and adapt the lifestyle, particularly the diet, of a particular era. Over the next six weeks they will also be visiting the Restoration, Regency, Elizabethan and Victorian ages, and, er, the 1970s (which is the one I’m most looking forward to - week three if you want to know). Tonight’s opener sees them taking on the second world war lifestyle. Rationing, powdered egg and that clip where Sue says rocking backwards and forwards to eat your food is not a good sign are all on the menu.

The success of Edwardian Supersize Me lay not only in the novelty value of the costumes and the grub, but in the chemistry between Perkins and Coren. They are both likeable characters and have a level of clever banter that makes their, ahem, ‘journey’ all the more watchable.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Giles Coren is seen as a bit of a sex symbol for many - so for the next six weeks, feel free to gorge yourselves….

The latest in home entertainment

INNOVATION! House Guest, ITV1, 3.00pm

Proving once more that anything anyone else can do, they can do a lot more rubbishly, ITV’s new daytime series House Guest takes on the Come Dine With Me format, and, presumably, loses.

Although the two series are both made by Granada, there is little chance they will be comparable in terms of quality. Even before it airs, House Guest has the whiff of unsuccessful knock-off about it, much like the Calvyn Kline perfumes you see at the Sunday Market.

ITV are at pains to stress that this show is a completely new, completely different concept to its Channel 4 counterpart, of course. Each day of the week, one person hosts a dinner party for four guests in their home, the guests rate them, and at the end of the week, the person with the highest score gets a cash prize. See, they are COMPLETELY different.

But wait! There is a SHOCK! TWIST! with this series: one of the four guests also has to stay overnight and have breakfast in the morning. How on earth the scoring system will work after that is anyone’s guess. The overnight stay and breakfast part, whilst intriguing, means the loss of the interaction of all five guests (and presumably the introduction of the host’s family), which is a little odd. It also seems somewhat prohibitive - people with no spare bedrooms need not apply, presumably, which would alienate most of the characters we see over on Come Dine With Me. But that’s OK, because THE SHOWS ARE NOT THE SAME. Indeed. Come Dine With Me (in its proper, five-day incarnation) is amazing. House Guest sounds rubbish.

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