Nigella Lawson, Queen of the Innuendo, will save Bake Off

If anyone can restore ‘Bake Off’ as event television, it's Nigella, writes Rachel McGrath. What an ingenious bit of casting for a show that’s gone a bit stale

Just five days after Channel 4 announced Dame Prue Leith’s exit from The Great British Bake Off, the broadcaster has spared us months of speculation by naming her replacement (Strictly Come Dancing, take note). And what a booking they’ve pulled off with the endlessly watchable – and forever quotable – cook extraordinaire and Queen of the Innuendo, Nigella Lawson. I hope there’s a red carpet rolled out at the tent.

It’s a huge coup, and with this ingenious casting, bosses may have secured the future of a slightly stale franchise. Back in 2017, when tasked with replacing OG judge Dame Mary Berry as Bake Off moved from the BBC to Channel 4, producers plucked Leith from BBC Two’s Great British Menu and introduced the celebrated chef to a much wider audience, rocketing her to a new level of fame. This time around, though, things are different.

In Lawson, Bake Off has a judge who comes with her own hard-earned fandom and gay icon status. She’s called the programme a “national treasure” in a new statement, but it feels like more of an achievement for the show to have landed her than the other way around – which was also the case when the effervescent Alison Hammond joined as a presenter in 2023. And just like Hammond, Lawson will be a much-needed breath of fresh air in the famous Bake Off tent.

As a judging combo, Leith and Paul Hollywood balanced each other out, with the former’s often kindhearted and encouraging comments smoothing over the latter’s steely blue stare. How will Lawson work with the self-styled “King of Bread”, and will she roll her eyes as he doles out the famed Hollywood handshake?

When it comes to judging, Lawson has plenty of experience, thanks to guest appearances on MasterChef and a stint on MasterChef Australia. So I imagine she’ll make light work of keeping Hollywood’s ego in check and definitely won’t shy away from disagreements. And while her fellow judge is an out-and-out traditionalist, a stalwart for sticking to the “proper” way of doing things, Lawson is typically much more open to mixing things up, which will work in favour of some of the programme’s more experimental Heston Blumenthal-esque bakers.

Then there are the innuendos, which are as integral to Bake Off as the cakes themselves. The show is known for its double entendres, but Lawson pioneered them. She was making eyes at the camera and praising “artistic packages” long before the phrase “soggy bottom” had even been uttered on TV. And what about the time Lawson described a marmalade pudding as having “gorgeous golden globules”? Leith could never!

Queen of the Innuendo: Nigella Lawson on ‘The Graham Norton Show’ (PA)

It’s no secret that Bake Off has lost some of its crunch in recent years. Channel 4 has faced an uphill battle to retain viewers since it took charge of the programme in 2017 and audience figures are a long way off the heady heights of the BBC days, when 15.1 million of us tuned in to watch the 2016 final. Meanwhile, Lawson’s TV career has inexplicably stalled and she hasn’t fronted her own cooking series since 2020’s Nigella: Cook, Eat, Repeat. Lest we forget, this is the show that gifted us Lawson’s wonderful pronunciation of “microwave”, that most boring of words, which will now forever be known as “mee-cro-wah-vay”.

This new partnership then, will likely be mutually beneficial. I’m among the many viewers who haven’t fully locked in to Bake Off for quite some time now. But with Lawson in the tent, alongside Hammond and co-host Noel Fielding (I can imagine the three getting on like a gang of naughty schoolchildren), the programme could once again become too delicious to miss. If anyone can restore Bake Off as event television, it’s surely the woman who heralded mince pies as “guiltless, bulging pleasures”. Need I say more?