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MasterChef

Gregg Wallace on MasterChef
  • Posted at 10:52am
  • 21 January 2009
  • by DavidButcher-RT
  • 9 comments

Life isn't fair. I look at Gregg Wallace, the bald judge on cookery talent show MasterChef, and that's what I think: life isn't fair. How come his job is to eat for a living and mine isn't?

His whole raison d'être is to be stocky and hard to please four times a week. I could do stocky and hard to please, yet thanks to the perverse cruelty of life, I don't get paid to sample half-a-dozen dishes of freshly cooked haute cuisine a day and critique them, and I don't think it's because I didn't work hard enough at school.

What makes this worse is that I reckon I could pass for Gregg in a darkened room if I wore his specs. I'd even drop a few aitches if it helped ("Ooze staying and ooze goin' 'ome?" I'd growl, like him). So if he breaks a leg, I'd be happy, Mr MasterChef producer sir, to step in at any point.

And not just because I fancy the food: no, also because MasterChef is, in its way, the perfect TV show. I defy anybody to watch more than two minutes of it - any two minutes, of any episode - and not want to watch to the end. You could analyse its appeal to death but it comes down, I admit, to the chemistry of Gregg and his co-presenter John Torode. Yes, they're hateful in so many ways - ragingly smug, vastly condescending, and so on - but something in their double act works.

Torode's trademark is his sad look where he half-closes his strange, hooded eyelids and says something like, "And you think beetroot and mascarpone go together?" with the air of a disappointed deity.

In real life I don't care what Torode thinks about anything, yet I want to see which of the sweaty-palmed amateur chefs hoping to hit the big time he votes through. And that's the real selling point: for once in a talent show, we the audience decide nothing. There are no phone lines - and no tears, journeys or sob stories, either. It's all down to the whims of Gregg and John. The lucky swines.

**

Enjoy photos of MasterChef host Gregg Wallace and other stars at the recent Radio Times covers party.

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Comments

  • Posted on 17 June 2009
  • at 1:38pm
  • by Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond

Me thinks there is too much analysing going on. And Jaxs, what on earth? Listen, I love Masterchef because it crams in so much into just 30 minutes and because both John Terrode and Gregg Wallace know what they are talking about and tell it like it is.

There are precious few areas in our benighted society where this happens any more, if it ever did. For me it is a top prog, as is Great British Menu. Yes, we understand the production techniques and values by now but who cares? I would watch an episode a dozen times over rather than suffer 30 seconds of half the doltish and repetitive garbage on all the main channels these days.

I love how Greg is a sucker for anything sweet, like a baked pear and I am a big fan of John Terrode's up-front, straight-talking manner. Those who find him "up himself" might do well to take a look in the mirror. He is antipodean, OK, so get used to it. They say what they think down under. Ever sat and listened to Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons? Or Big Brother, where the idiots in the human zoo, those watching the events in the "arena", the so-called psychological experts, programme makers and Channel 4 executives who commissioned such poison would struggle to express their views on a piece of cheese? God help this country.

So stop carping and enjoy what you watch...as you clearly do. I think both the boys are great and that's that!

Sid

PS: I'm a pommie too, so there!

  • Posted on 26 February 2009
  • at 11:23pm
  • by DianneS

How does one find out who "Christopher" and "Andy" are so we can go to their restaurants too? They were all three brilliant and it's just a pity that there could only be one winner.

  • Posted on 24 February 2009
  • at 8:00pm
  • by Alex

I love Gregg and John - they are hot

  • Posted on 03 February 2009
  • at 11:30am
  • by MazY

The format of the programme is getting a little tired of late, but I do admire Greg's total disregard for fat-free eating while he pursues his quest for a delicious sticky pudding!

  • Posted on 03 February 2009
  • at 9:06am
  • by Ian

I would love this programme if it wasn't for the utterly up himself John Torode !

  • Posted on 29 January 2009
  • at 8:07pm
  • by Jaxs

Tee Hee.... what I cannot come to terms with, the successions of dishes, the onslaught on the taste buds, yet... even,, both the comperes have a palate and taste buds that utterly refuse to be imbued with the rancid or the over flavoured garlic, curry, etc etc but sample the simple and the most complex of dishes within seconds.. please, tell me I am wrong...any lesser mortal will have rushed for glasses of water, delved into the bread bin for rolls, slices or cubs of bread to refresh the much abused palette.... but no, the green grocer maintains a grip on the polished fork that would be a compliment to hercules holding the .. well you know what I mean.... and the other fella, Ok enough... has it become to much of a tried and tested formula, the selection of the chefs, the pause.. you almost know which competitor will be picked.. and the selection and balance of males and females, etc seems to overcome the best of the bunch.. PC and all that..

  • Posted on 28 January 2009
  • at 6:40pm
  • by Jo

I do agree, Jane. Instead of throwing them away, why not have a guest 'tramp of the week' to eat the rejects? Then the camera could do a close-up of his/her face instead for an added element of suspense. And if the food is genuinely too bad for the tramp (or his dog) to eat, then no-one could possibly object to it being thrown away.

  • Posted on 26 January 2009
  • at 10:29pm
  • by GK

Jane - I am sure the producers brief the head chef to do that because when their creations get chucked it "makes good telly" to close up on the contestant's distraught face. Cynical, me?

  • Posted on 23 January 2009
  • at 8:13am
  • by Jane

I am enjoying MasterChef apart from one thing...the way food is wasted in those top class retaurants - straight in the bin when the radish is just left of centre! Why can't this excellent food still be put to good use? It's actually obscene.

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