Mary Berry Has Sounded Off About The New Series Of Bake Off

Cakes! What's better than eating cakes? Watching people making them in a pastoral-gazebo that's what! With the second episode of the new series of Bake Off showing tonight on Channel 4, and the first episode being largely considered a success, there has been one opinion on the new show we've all been waiting for. And that is the opinion of erstwhile Matriarch of Doughy Goodness, or 'Mary Berry' as she insists on being known by.

Many feared that the show would veer from its much-loved formula and lose a lot of its charm without the wizened, pastry and jam-smeered hand of Mary Berry on the tiller (metaphorically, I presume there is no tiller in the cake-yurt), yet her replacement Prue Leith has proved promising. Aside from possessing a similar, if slightly more 'headmistress', style of charm than Berry, she is called 'Prue', and I think we can all agree that that is simply wonderful stuff.

Speaking at the TV choice awards Mary Berry gave her seal of approval to the new show saying, "It's followed the same format, and it's going to be brilliant." Though she added that she had not actually had a chance to watch the first episode as she was "at a big dinner". The show lasted an hour and 15 minutes. While this was probably some tactful diplomacy by ol' Berry, it's hard to imagine any dinner going on for that long. There are videos of snakes eating antelope whole where they get the entire sorry business over with in less time. Unless Mary Berry was herself eating an entire antelope then her dodging of the show seems dubious. Still, she has given it her approval.

However it's good to see that she bears no animosity toward the show or her former co-presenter, Paul Hollywood, who is, in essence the living answer to the question "What would the love-child of Phillip Schofield and a husky look like?". Paul Hollywood. It would like Paul Hollywood, and he has stuck with the show through its move. The new presenters, Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding, seemed to be decent replacements for Mel & Sue, though they'll hopefully settle in a bit more as the series goes on, as this tweet from comedian Ed Gamble perfectly sums up the somewhat stilted feeling of the first show.