Well, the last challenge has been met, the last meal cooked, tasted, judged and the winner has been announced. We enjoyed every episode and loved seeing the celebrities struggle from week to week and so bravely take on all the difficult things they were presented with – I’m not using the word struggle sarcastically or critically, the tasks they had to undertake were really challenging and difficult – working in professional kitchens, cooking gruesome looking and unusual foods which they first had to prepare… Any non-professional home cook would have found it difficult.
I wrote about the competition last year and someone reading my blog criticised me when I mentioned I didn’t know who many of the contestants were… I was very sorry if my comments had been misunderstood; I don’t know many of this years contestants either but that is because I watch very little television and am not really interested in soaps, music shows, or other competitions where people make their names. That doesn’t mean I have a negative opinion of them, they are just not my thing!
So this year’s competition had the usual selection of actors, soap stars, dancers, ex-singers, sports people… and I have to confess, without being negative about any of the contestants who I got to know and like as the programme progressed, I only knew of Chesney Hawkes, singers from Girls Aloud and Pussycat Dolls, Syd Little the comedian, Mica Paris the singer with the amazing voice, Arlene Phillips and Keith Chegwin. There were twenty contestants altogether, and what I love about the programme isn’t so much the food, recipes, techniques, restaurants, challenges etc. it is seeing how the personalities of the contestants emerge and the viewer begins to see them in a different way as they accept the difficult tasks they are set.
As usual, as the programme progressed, the contestants who made it through each of the heats became more passionate, more keen, more expert as the weeks passed by. Some of them were amazing at how skilled they became, how interesting they were as cooks, how original they were in what they tried to do and what they presented. It was plain as the competition moved towards the semi-finals, and then the finals, that they were all desperate to succeed.
The finals arrived, with three finalists… the singer from Pussycat Dolls, Kimberley Wyatt (I knew of the group but I hadn’t known her) an exuberant and perhaps eccentric contestant from X-Factor and Big Brother who I am sure everyone watching Masterchef came to adore, Rylan Clark, and Sam Nixon, an very jolly actor and TV presenter. They were such contrasting personalities, all obviously liked and respected each other, and yet were each desperate to win.
We were on the edge of our seats as the winner was revealed… we had grown to like them all and it was a close run thing as they presented three courses to judges John Torrode and Gregg Wallace. It was apparent that in this last episode it was down to two of them, the other had a bit of an unfortunate incident with a chocolate representation of the Shard (a big building in London)… The winner was announced, and a worthy winner,a great cook who came across as a lovely personality, Kimberley Wyatt!
Lois Elsden 