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. Also, in the quarter finals, the four celebs do not have to do the ingredients test or make a case for staying in the contest to John and Gregg. Instead, they all have to cook the same classic dish (Chicken Kiev or steak and chips, to give but two examples) and the celeb who produces the least successful version is eliminated. (The 'Classic Recipe' test is also frequently used during the final stages of the regular series and during the early stages of the Professionals version).

Masterchef: The Professionals

Back on BBC Two, a further spin-off saw young professionals take on the Masterchef challenge. No John Torode in this one, for he has no Michelin stars so what does he know? Instead Michel Roux Jr (what, just the two stars?) joined Gregg Wallace in the studio. Three contestants featured in each heat, facing two rounds: the Versatility Test (create two different dishes using the same principal ingredient) and the Classic Recipe Test (make two courses based on recipes provided, but do it in your own style). The weekly finals were cook-for-the-critics rounds, with two from four advancing to the final phase.

Notably, and in stark contrast to the amateur and celebrity series, the realities of the industry are reflected in the gender balance of the contestants, with very few female chefs taking part. Without the ability to characterise the contestants with lazy monickers such as "experimental cook Judy" or "classic cook Kevin", the programme spends a lot of time profiling each contestant, since they all have the same wet-look haircut, northern accent, trendy roll-up set of fierce looking knives and determination to burn exactly three sides of a crouton. As such, there's only the two rounds, the breath of fresh air that was the Pro Kitchen round being sadly missing.

Otherwise, the show is as entertaining as ever, and Roux Jr certainly has his moments. As well as picking up on minor details such as the wrong choice of plate and removing tiny sprigs of mint leaf atop a dish, his reactions vary from "That's good enough to be served in my restaurant" and "I could eat a whole plateful of this - no, I could eat two platefuls!" to "Have you considered doing something other than cooking food?" He also likened the sauce on one dish to something he might see on the pavement outside a pub - and he gave another contestant short shrift for 'chatting back'! Bottom lips have trembled on more than one occasion.

We note that Gregg and Michel only ever refer to the programme as "Professional Masterchef", suggesting that the title (an obvious crib from the successful University Challenge spin-off) may have been changed at a late stage, i.e. after the show was in the can. Probably the change was to make it "EPG friendly", so that Sky viewers would see "Masterchef: Th...", not "Professional M..."

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, Claire 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 went back to a differently-emphasised version, "Cooking doesn't get tougher than this!" with a heavy emphasis on the "doesn't". The same clip was used for the 2009 series. 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, where it performed so well that it is now set to transfer to BBC One in 2010.

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.

Asked "Have you ever picked the wrong winner?" in a Guardian interview in March 2008, Gregg Wallace replied "Yeah. Celebrity Masterchef. The case of Hardeep Singh Kohli and Matt Dawson. Hardeep is the greatest Masterchef winner that never was." Gregg's repeated this in other interviews since, though John Torode stands by the original decision.

One contestant in the 2008 regular series presented John and Gregg with pork accompanied by something very unusual - chocolate sauce. Although the combination was not a good one - surprise, surprise! - John and Gregg so admired his offbeat approach that they put him through to the next stage of the contest. (However, he did not progress any further than that.)

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.

Liz McClarnon won the 2008 Celebrity Masterchef series, despite having apparently hardly ever cooked before - she was even unfamiliar with the use of an oven! John and Gregg recognised that she had a natural talent for it - which of course got better and better! Indeed, she was not the only celebrity lacking cooking-experience in that series - Spoony revealed to John and Gregg that his mother had not allowed him to cook when he was a kid, since he was very left-handed. In spite of this, he managed to cook some decent dishes, although unlike Liz, he did not progress beyond the first round. Michael Buerk also had little experience of cooking: he wrote a very damning article on the programme, saying how much he had hated the experience and how he was - unlike most other Masterchef contestants - determined not to win his heat! (He needn't have worried, though - he was up against a certain Ms McClarnon!)

Champions

2005: Thomasina "Tommi" Miers
2006: Peter Bayless
2007: Steven Wallis
2008: James Nathan
2009: Mat Follas

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

Masterchef: The Professionals
2008: Derek Johnstone

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

Feedback

To correct something on this page or post an addition, please complete this form and press "Send":
If you are asking us a question, please read our contact us page and FAQ first.

Name: E-mail: