It seemed that viewers couldn’t get enough of The Great British Bake Off, and in particular Paul and Mary’s on-screen chemistry. It was obvious the show would be recommissioned and make a triumphant return to the TV screens the following year. For the makers behind it, this was a total no-brainer. But it seemed that viewers wouldn’t have to wait as long as a year in order to see Paul and Mary back on their screens.
The demand was so high, BBC2 commissioned a one-off documentary called The Great British Wedding Cake. It aired on 20 April 2011 and saw Paul reunited with Mary as they explored the history of wedding cakes around the country. They charted the wedding cake’s history, from its earliest incarnation as the Tudor bride cake that weighed a ton and was baked wrapped in pastry. And they revealed the story that is said to have caused the creation of the classic tiered wedding cake – a baker who spied a London church from his window and fashioned his wedding cake in its image. On top of that they regaled audiences with tales of how Queen Victoria introduced the world to royal icing. And they also revealed how the rise in popularity of second marriages led to the huge range of wedding cakes available today. Keen to extend the success of their previous series, the charismatic duo reunited with the three finalists from Bake Off to set them a one-off challenge to bake a wedding cake. The ratings were moderate at 1.6 million but served to build the excitement for the second series of The Great British Bake Off, which was just around the corner. And while the first outing had been an unrivalled success, the show was about to get even bigger.
Keen to capitalise on the first series, the producers wanted to make the second show bigger and better than before. The first change they made was the number of contestants. It was decided that the number of people competing would be upped from 10 to 12. The long audition process kicked off and finally an eclectic group of would-be master bakers was selected after much deliberation. They included Janet Basu, Yasmin Limbert, Mary-Anne Boermans, Holly Bell, Joanne Wheatley, Keith Batsford, Simon Blackwell, Robert Billington, Jason White, Urvashi Roe, Ben Frazer and Ian Vallance.
For his part, while Paul was delighted with the success of the show, he was also baffled that such a simple format could become so big. Speaking to the Sun, he explained that it was a ‘unique thing that makes it a success – it’s a mixture of all the different elements. The music, the setting, the tent, the challenges, the contestants, the presenters [Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins] and the judges – it’s the whole thing together. If you took out one of the cogs, it wouldn’t work.’
But it obviously was working – so much so that for the second outing the producers decided it was time to increase the number of episodes too. This time the series would consist of 10 episodes, rather than six. The extra four episodes were in response to the public’s demand for the show. Of course the first series had been an unknown quantity – when the BBC had commissioned it, they had high hopes for the show although they didn’t know how it would fare with viewers. But after overwhelming support from fans and critics alike, it seemed like a natural thing to order in more episodes.
The final ingredient in the pre-production process that the producers had to work out was where they were going to film the second series. But having spent the first series visiting the country’s baking hot spots, the format needed freshening up. Constantly moving filming around the country was fine if there were only six episodes, but it might become tiring and expensive when there were an extra four to film.
So it was decided that rather than turn The Great British Bake Off into a roadshow, the whole series would be filmed in one location. After toying with various possible settings, the producers decided on Valentines Mansion, a seventeenth-century mansion house in Valentines Park, in Redbridge, Greater London. The Grade II listed building was built in 1696 for Lady Tillotson, widow of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but centuries later underwent extensive refurbishment financed by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the London Borough of Redbridge. Steeped in rich history, the beautiful house would provide a quintessentially British backdrop for the Bake Off, and it was here that the TV crews behind the show prepared for what would prove to be another hugely successful series before filming got under way in the early summer of 2011.
And as series two started to air in August that year, it seemed to be even more popular than the first series. Viewing figures soared. The first episode got more than 3.1 million, rising steadily to a peak of just over 5 million in episode eight. It was better than anyone could have hoped for.
Understandably, as other networks and channels started to see Paul’s popularity soar – and the effect his presence was having on The Great British Bake Off’s ratings – they began to make a play for him to see if they could persuade him to join their channel. The Daily Mirror reported that in particular Channel 4 were very keen to sign him up and poach him away from the Beeb. Specifically, the report in the red-top newspaper claimed that Jay Hunt, the boss at Channel 4, had offered Paul a lucrative contract that according to the paper was worth a reported £500,000. Apparently, according to the newspaper, Hunt – who had previously been Controller of the BBC – had a reputation for luring BBC talent away from the Corporation and to Channel 4. Specifically he had managed to win over the likes of the consumer champion Mary Portas and businesswoman Hilary Devey. The critics had apparently dubbed Channel 4 ‘BBC Lite’. Of course it was an eye-watering sum and one that no one – least of all Paul – could ever have imagined he would have been earning when he first started out jamming donuts for his dad in the Wirral.
But Paul being Paul, he remained loyal to The Great British Bake Off and the BBC. The report in the Daily Mirror said: ‘Great British Bake Off’s Paul Hollywood has landed extra dough to stay with the BBC after Channel 4 tried to poach him.’ It went on to say that, despite the big money offer from the rival channel, Paul had settled for a salary increase from his current employer, turning down the opportunity to move channels. Now, the report said, he had settled for a package worth £300,000 with the BBC. The newspaper quoted a BBC insider who said: ‘It’s fantastic Paul is staying with the BBC.’
So the deal was done and Paul would remain with the Beeb. And as his popularity continued to grow with the ratings, on screen the drama surrounding The Great British Bake Off reached its climax and the excitement was at fever pitch. As more and more people tuned in to witness what culinary delights would be whipped up week after week, the competition was getting intense. After Janet Basu unexpectedly crashed out of the competition, three women remained – Jo Wheatley, Mary-Anne Boermans and Holly Bell. They were all popular with viewers and critics alike.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Tom Parker Bowles noted this, as well as the way in which baking had brought out a drama that simply could not be scripted: ‘There’s Joanne, the pretty housewife who longs for a career. And Holly, precise and methodical, a perfectionist to the very marrow. And Mary-Anne, a culinary bibliophile who veers towards the experimental. All are modest and, in a thoroughly self-effacing way, desperate to win. TV chefs may shout, curse and hurl pans. TV bakers, on this evidence, are the epitome of good manners. Maternal is very much the new macho. But that is not to say that the contestants aren’t, at times, overwhelmed by their emotions. There may not be tantrums, but there were plenty of tears as the weeks wore on.’
Parker Bowles went on to explain that baking itself is temperamental and a matter of science rather than art. While exact measurements are unnecessary for a stew, if you put the wrong amount of yeast in bread, disaster follows. He added: ‘I have always been rather afraid of baking. I may be utterly confident about throwing together a pasta sauce, grilling a fish or roasting a joint, but ask me to make puff pastry and I will run for the hills. But, right now, baking is very much back in vogue.’
But while all three contestants were likeable, it was Essex-born Jo who would triumph when the final was screened on 13 October. Aged 41 at the time of filming, she was affectionately described as the ‘youngest grandmother in the competition’. ‘My nan has always been my inspiration for baking,’ said Jo in an interview with the Brentwood Gazette. ‘She would always make pastry and is a really good baker. I would go over to hers most weekends – she would make tarts and give me the off-cuts of the pastry to make jam tarts. I’ve always baked, ever since then.’
Jo had married her husband Richard at the age of 17 and settled down before having three boys: Billy, Jesse and Dylan. Rather than pursue a career, she had dedicated her life to being a full-time housewife. It was her typically down-to-earth manner that made her such a hit with viewers. One example of her likeable personality was in an interview with the Mail On Sunday, where Jo explained how her kids come home from school and give her marks out of ten for the meals she cooks for them. She said: ‘It makes me feel like putting their heads in the dinner.’ She had also experienced some tough times. Her husband had got involved in crime and was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for his part in a money-laundering racket – something the tabloid press would later seize on after Jo became popular on the Bake Off. In typically dignified style, she kept going and after 25 years of dedicating her life to her family, her sons and friends had encouraged her to apply for the show.
‘I just entered on a whim, I didn’t think too much about it. I Googled it and got the application form,’ she told the Brentwood Gazette. ‘I did wonder about entering or not, but I clicked the “yes” button in the end.’
The show’s producers had loved her backstory, and, despite her initial nervousness, she went down a storm with Paul and Mary at the final auditions. She was selected for the competition and now it was her time to shine.
Described in the press as ‘sweet-faced and preternaturally girly’, Jo’s bakes were almost always near perfect throughout the course of the series. That’s not to say she didn’t make mistakes and at times even seemed to come close to letting the pressure of the show get to her. This was particularly apparent on one occasion. During week six of the competition, and moments before Paul and Mary were due to start the judging process, Jo hit disaster. She had made an ambitious tower of cream-stuffed profiteroles as well as a limoncello and white chocolate croquembouche – a stunning cone-shaped tower of choux-pastry balls often served at weddings in Italy and France. But suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, her creation had collapsed and couldn’t be salvaged. After the slight disaster, she was still saved by Paul and Mary, and Jo decided it was time to relax a bit more.
‘It was funny, in the final I baked like I do at home,’ she told the Brentwood Gazette. ‘I think I felt by then I’d done the whole thing and experienced every bit of it. So on the final day, I didn’t put the pressure on myself, I just enjoyed it. I didn’t mind whether I came first, second or third, I really was just happy to have got that far. I didn’t think I’d won. I heard them call out my name but I thought maybe they were doing it in reverse order. I looked up and saw my kids jumping up and down and my friends all cheering, and then I realised. It was an amazing feeling.’
As far as Paul was concerned, Jo was the natural winner too. After she was crowned, he didn’t hold back in his praise for her. He said: ‘Her progression in the whole Bake Off has been superb. Technical ability, and the precision, and the flavour, all thrown in… superb.’ Mary added: ‘She has achieved great heights, I hope she’s chuffed to bits.’ Speaking at the end of the show, an emotional Jo said: ‘I feel really, really emotional, I just feel totally overwhelmed. Total delight. I feel really proud of myself.’ And with her newfound confidence came new opportunities for Jo. To begin with, she set up a blog called Jo’s Blue AGA, dedicated to giving advice, tips and recipes to other heat storage cooker lovers. Off the back of it, she secured the chance to hold a series of workshops in cupcake decorating, as well as Christmas hamper baking. Classes soon became fully booked as they were snapped up. But this was just the beginning of Jo’s blossoming career as a celebrity baker.
Seeing how popular she was becoming, a publishing house approached Jo to write her own book. She jumped at the chance and, in 2012, she released A Passion For Baking, initially exclusively through supermarket Sainsbury’s before becoming available in all good bookshops. During its first week of release the book flew up The Sunday Times Bestseller List to number two in the non-fiction charts. Suddenly she was giving Paul and Mary a run for their money. ‘I never dreamt I’d be able to write a book,’ she told the Brentwood Gazette. ‘It’s easy to follow, with not too many ingredients and some really good flavours. That’s how I wanted the book to be, very down-to-earth and practical. It covers all aspects of baking. I thought about what I would want to do if I did a cookery book and this is it.’
The aim of the book was to appeal to as broad a cross section of bakers as possible. Jo wanted it to cater for complete novices who had never been near an oven all the way up to experienced bakers. ‘The recipes are achievable for everyone. The response to the book and my blog has been amazing. On Twitter and Facebook, the reactions have been fantastic. I can’t describe how wonderful it’s been. I pinch myself every day that I’m getting to do this. But the more you get to write about something you like doing, the more you find out and the more doors and avenues open up for you. I pushed myself to come up with different ideas and recipes and really enjoyed doing it. It’s given me a whole new purpose; I can experiment and have a reason to now.’
Jo now teaches baking masterclasses from her home in Essex and they quickly became a huge hit with the public, often booked up weeks and months in advance.
The popularity of The Great British Bake Off had transformed Jo from a stay-at-home mum to a household name with a successful writing and teaching career. There was no better example of how a popular TV show could make such a big difference to an individual’s life. The actual prize might not have been anything substantial, but the rewards afterwards were huge. After the end of series two, TV critic Kevin O’Sullivan noted in his Sunday Mirror column: ‘More than 5 million cake fans tuned in to The Great British Bake Off to see Essex mum Jo win TV’s worst-ever trophy. Wooden spoons inside a see-through sphere with some sort of lemon squeezer shoved on the top. Eight weeks of hard kitchen graft and this is all she gets! But I guess that’s the charm of this innocent slice of Middle England. No big-money prizes, no claptrap about changing lives, no idiot minor celebs spewing meaningless clichés. Just a good old-fashioned village-hall cooking contest. Set your ovens to 2012. This is one programme cash-strapped BBC2 won’t be axing.’
It was an astute comment because the show would keep on growing. Another series was commissioned for 2012. But before then, like all popular reality shows, there would be a couple of spin offs in the form of the Junior Bake Off and The Great Sport Relief Bake Off. The first of these kicked off soon after the second series of Great British Bake Off had come to an end. Mary and Paul returned to judge a group of young bakers as they went through the same process as the adults had done on the actual show. For the youngsters the demands were less daunting, however. Rather than elaborate tower cakes and pastries with expensive ingredients, the kids were set challenges of baking far simpler dishes. But the idea behind the show remained the same and it was screened on the children’s TV channel CBBC.
Then, in January 2012, celebrities competed on The Great Sport Relief Bake Off, to tie in with Sport Relief, the BBC’s annual charity fundraising event. The celebrity would-be bakers included TV journalist Anita Rani, actresses Angela Griffin and Sarah Hadland, former Strictly Come Dancing judge and choreographer Arlene Phillips, botanist James Wong, garden designer Joe Swift, BBC journalist Fi Glover, Apprentice finalist Saira Khan, curator Gus Casely-Hayford, fashion designer and writer Pearl Lowe and weatherman Alex Deakin. Anita Rani eventually won the four-episode miniseries. Speaking about the celebrity special, Paul said that the rules were not so tough for the celebrities because, after all, it was a charity event. Nevertheless, he did maintain his usual meticulous standards. ‘We relaxed the rules a little as it’s a Comic Relief special, but Mary and I still judge all the bakes properly,’ Paul told the Sun newspaper. ‘I know people sometimes call me “Mr Nasty”, but I feel it’s important to be honest when judging – both the bakers and the viewers will learn from mistakes.’
Once the Comic Relief episode was behind the production team, all eyes were on the next proper series of the show. And by the summer of 2011, preparations were once again in full swing for the return of The Great British Bake Off. Like the second series, there were 12 contestants who competed across 10 episodes. This time the filming moved out into the countryside to Harptree Court in picturesque East Harptree, Somerset. Originally built in 1798, Harptree Court was an award-winning country house that, ordinarily, functioned as a luxury bed and breakfast retreat. This time the contestants coming under Mary and Paul’s watchful gaze were Natasha Stringer, Cathryn Dresser, Peter Maloney, Victoria Chester, Stuart Marston-Smith, Manisha Parmar, Sarah-Jane Willis, Ryan Chong, Danielle Bryden, Brendan Lynch, James Morton and John Whaite. The series hit screens in August – and by now it had become a staple of British TV.
But while the ratings were better than ever, and fans of the show delighted by its return, the series began to hit headlines outside of the TV review pages. Unsurprisingly for such a successful programme, it had suddenly become newsworthy. The coverage wasn’t always positive, however, and the third series soon found itself in hot water.
It was noticed that Smeg fridges featured heavily in the show. Each workstation in the competition kitchen has a fridge emblazoned with a prominent Smeg logo on the front. Often there would be close-up shots of the fridges as contestants gathered ingredients and prepared to pull together their recipes. To the casual eye, this might not have seemed anything out of the ordinary. However, one viewer complained. Andrew Smith, of Manchester, wrote to the Radio Times to voice his concerns, saying: ‘The Smeg logo was so visible that I counted it 37 times before giving up.’ He also complained that Smeg’s website seemed to indicate a collaboration with The Great British Bake Off as it openly stated that it had ‘once again teamed up with the show to supply six iconic fridge-freezers’.
This might not have seemed anything out of the ordinary, except that it meant the BBC’s own guidelines were in jeopardy of being breached: product placement in any shape or form is strictly forbidden by the Corporation. BBC rules say producers must not feature products for cash or services, and any brands shown must be editorially justified and given limited exposure. The accusation that they were, therefore, prioritising a brand of fridge-freezer and giving it ample coverage in one of their flagship shows was particularly damaging. The BBC was forced to admit that it had breached its own editorial standards in so doing. They admitted to the fact that a loan agreement between Love Productions and the fridge-freezer company ‘did not meet editorial guidelines’.
It transpired that the Italian firm behind Smeg fridge-freezers had loaned the £1,000 appliances at no charge for this latest series after being approached by staff from the production company. They had also supplied them for the two previous series. The result was that the comments on the Smeg website were requested to be removed by the BBC and a spokesperson for the Corporation issued a statement, saying: ‘It is inevitable that some equipment will be seen in shot but producers are always looking to minimise product prominence. The independent production company had a loan agreement that did not meet editorial guidelines, therefore it is being revised and hire payments will be made.’
Despite this setback, the final was a triumph with record ratings for the show. Bake Off recorded a peak audience of 6.7 million and an average of 6.1 million – above and beyond anyone’s expectations. It even beat shows on all the other main channels including Holby City on BBC1, which peaked at 5.1 million. And while Paul always knew there was something special about baking, he could never have predicted the success of The Great British Bake Off would be so enduring or wide-reaching: ‘Who would have said Mary Berry, me, Mel and Sue in a tent with a load of bakers would have been the hit that it was?’ he said in one interview with the Sunday Mail. ‘You can’t quantify that, it’s just impossible. We peaked at 3.6 million in the first series. Series two, we had 5.1 million. This series we are around 5 million and that’s before the final.’
Like all big reality shows, in the run-up to the big finale, fans wanted to know who had been crowned the winner. Nevertheless in the pre-final interview one journalist tried to get the information out of him. Paul remained resolute, however. ‘I would have to kill you,’ he laughed. ‘My mother doesn’t know or even my wife. I get asked about sponges, breads, cakes and pies and people will also have their own opinion about who should have been sent off Bake Off but “who wins Bake Off?” tends to be the most popular question I get asked.’
Nevertheless he knew that the overall reaction to the show was overwhelmingly positive. Not only were the ratings constantly heading skywards but he was frequently approached by would-be bakers who had been inspired by the show. He revealed that since he had been on The Great British Bake Off he had been sent hundreds of photos of baking attempts, as well as requests for advice over the social networking site Twitter. ‘I get 20 to 40 a day,’ he told one interviewer from the Daily Record. ‘I do answer as many as I can. I’ll say something like, “Looks good, concentrate on this next time”.’
On top of that he was regularly approached wherever he went. ‘It’s on the train, in the supermarket, buying a train ticket, walking down the street, anywhere. Everyone is very chatty. Photos on phones have taken over from autographs.’ And if anyone thought it was just women who were approaching Paul about their bakes – think again. ‘Three Welsh international rugby players tweet me pictures of their cakes,’ he revealed in one interview. While baking may once have been seen as the preserve and pastime of housewives, Paul was beginning to subvert that stereotype. Even so, he remained tight-lipped as to which famous rugby players had been contacting him. ‘I’m not telling you who they are,’ he continued. ‘There’s an English one as well. I get Scouse builders tugging my sleeve in pubs and asking me to critique them on their biscuits. You’d think The Great British Bake Off’s audience would be Middle England ladies and the WI, but in fact it’s much, much wider than that.’
It was clear that Bake Off was reaching a huge demographic audience – far wider than the producers could ever have imagined. And as a result of the ratings success, there was speculation that the series would move to BBC1 now that it was becoming such a big show. Of course this would send both Paul and Mary’s stardom soaring even higher.
It was a path well trodden by other shows that had debuted on BBC2 before finding success and moving to BBC1. The Apprentice, fronted by Amstrad tycoon Lord Alan Sugar, was one such example. And speaking at the Bake Off, a BBC source was quoted in the Daily Mirror in 2012 as saying: ‘Viewing figures of 6 and 7 million mean a move to the flagship channel has to be looked at. The figures for the final are higher than the recent series of Doctor Who – even Karen Gillan’s exit only pulled in 5.9 million.’
One thing that was certain was that if the series did move to the flagship position of being aired on BBC1, the producer would have the chemistry between Paul and his new best friend Mary to thank for the big move. Their relationship had cemented The Great British Bake Off’s reputation. While the show itself was a great concept, many were now realising that the success rested with the close friendship forming between the two.