Celebrity MasterChef
Bears About The House
Rating: 
Too many cookery shows can be bad for the waistline. Bake Off is responsible for nationwide biscuit cravings, and UK consumption of sausage and mash can triple following broadcasts of Britain’s Best Home Cook.
Thank goodness, then, for Celebrity MasterChef (BBC1). An hour of that will ruin anyone’s appetite. If you’re periodically starving yourself on the 5-2 diet, treat yourself to an episode on a low-calorie day — you might feel like you never want to eat again.
Half the dishes look like roadkill — except actress Crissy Rock’s skeletal rack of lamb, which actually appeared to be exhumed.
Thank goodness, then, for Celebrity MasterChef (BBC1). An hour of that will ruin anyone’s appetite, writes Christopher Stevens
By the time Olympic rower Sir Matthew Pinsent had gutted a pair of pigeons, they resembled something the foxes dragged from a dustbin.
Even judge John Torode felt queasy: ‘If that pigeon starts to leach blood onto the plate,’ he muttered, ‘it’ll be like a crime scene.’
But most horrible of all was Crissy’s baked sea bream. She served it with the head on and its teeth protruding. I’ll swear she hadn’t cooked the thing — it looked mummified.
Judy Murray, mother of Wimbledon champions Andy and Jamie, had a plateful of amputated octopus legs that might have started wriggling at any moment.
Her sons obviously knew what to expect from her cooking: when she announced she was going on the show, they told her: ‘Oh my God, you’ll be rubbish.’
If you’re periodically starving yourself on the 5-2 diet, treat yourself to an episode on a low-calorie day — you might feel like you never want to eat again
Conservationist Giles Clark rescued her from a cage in a village in Laos, south-east Asia, and in the second part of Bears About The House (BBC2) he was teaching her to forage for food. Mary proved rather too good at it
Judy makes a habit of disastrous forays into telly competitions. Remember her Viennese waltz to a tune from Mary Poppins, on Strictly? One wit described her as a dancing broomstick.
Her partner Anton du Beke was more succinct: during an after-dinner speech, he reportedly complained: ‘She was s***!’
Harsh words, but sometimes criticism is the kindest thing. Torode and his fellow judge Gregg Wallace need to be told that, however much they croon and coo over the ‘nutty flavours’ and ‘smoky textures’ of a dish, viewers don’t want to see haute cuisine that’s been hit by a Land Rover on a muddy lane.
A former regular on the reality show TOWIE called Pete Wicks was the only amateur chef who knew how to make mouth-watering dishes for TV. He produced two desserts, including a plateful of pancakes topped with strawberries and melted chocolate that looked like an advert for the benefits of high cholesterol.
Appearances clearly matter to him. When he was cooking, he wore his long hair in a man-bun, but — talking to the camera afterwards — he made sure we clocked him with his locks flowing.
Imagine the Mona Lisa tattooed from chin to knuckles, and that is Pete Wicks. Pete was pretty, but not as pretty as Mary the sun bear. With her lolloping run, like a badger chasing a ball, she was simply adorable.
Conservationist Giles Clark rescued her from a cage in a village in Laos, south-east Asia, and in the second part of Bears About The House (BBC2) he was teaching her to forage for food. Mary proved rather too good at it.
First she shinned up a girder to grab an open tin of tuna that Giles had hidden in the roof of her enclosure and then, when he snatched it away, she climbed up his leg. ‘Oo ah ah!’ he yelped, ‘I’m not a tree.’
With so much to squeeze in to just two episodes, the narrative became bitty. This film really needed a third hour to do it justice.
In particular, the aftermath of a break-in at the sanctuary, where poachers stole two rescued bears that Giles had nurtured as cubs, was rushed.
Viewers needed more time to come to terms with a genuinely upsetting crime.