The Heat is On (1)
Synopsis
Daytime cooking game shows were all the rage in the mid-90s with the BBC having two big hits on their hands with the afternoon delight of Ready Steady Cook on BBC2 and the morning chaos of Can't Cook, Won't Cook on the flagship channel. So, it didn't take long for a copycat to come along and... yeah, we can see why this one didn't last so long.
Basically, two teams of two contestants who are related go head to head and make the best recipe dish from the trolley of ingredients they are given by an adjudicator who would later taste test them to choose the winner.
Oh, did we say there were two teams competing? Whoops! There's actually a third who gets to compete, whether they go solo or as a team, they are a celebrity chef(s). So, basically it's like an early light hearted version of Iron Chef.
And who gets to host this knock-off? It had to be Mr. Cheese himself Keith Chegwin. It's Cheggers, what else can we say? He pulls off the cheese really well for a cookery format so thin.
Key moments
Outtake alert: after Keith introduced Antony Worrall Thompson as the celebrity chef, he invited Antony to put his leg on a chopping board on the worktop, and show everyone his "kecks" (that is, his fancy trousers). Unfortunately, Antony put his leg on the board with so much speed and force that he pulled a muscle and fell to the floor, taking the board with him.
Theme music
Toby Langton-Gilks
Trivia
In his Evening Standard column on 12 August 1997, Victor Lewis-Smith was less than complimentary about the show (and Cheggers in particular):
"The game ground to a start, with Mr Chegwin's mouth and arms working at a frantic pace, constantly moving things on although, paradoxically, nothing ever happened. Not content with reducing the subtle art of gastronomy to a sub-parlour game, he conducted interviews of breathtaking inanity, including this memorable exchange: "What will you do with the fish, girls?" "We'll poach it in something saucy." "What, like your socks?" That's not simply unamusing, that's a profound cortical malfunction. Still bewildered by the exotic presence of borlotti beans, he picked one out of the saucepan (the only time in the entire programme he ever had his finger on the pulse), tasted it and decided, "They're just like broad beans", thus confirming that this undiscriminating quiz had got the presenter it deserved."
The show got a repeat run on Challenge TV in the early 2000s with Ceefax links to the recipes removed.
Videos
A full episode.
