What time is Paul Hollywood: A Baker’s Life on TV?

The four-part series starts 8pm Monday 27th November Channel 4.

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What is the show about?

The Great British Bake Off judge shares his favourite recipes from a lifetime of baking, from his early life in Merseyside to finding fame on TV.

In the first edition, former Bake Off contestants Val Stones and Selasi Gbormittah challenge him to bake a pistachio and rose petal roulade, while Paul demonstrates his ultimate pizza recipe and visits Silverstone to make a childhood burger recipe.

Back in the Bake Off tent, Paul and Prue Leith make a Madeira celebration cake, decorated by Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig.

Will it be any good?

This is a royal treat for Bake Off fans. It is a cheering confection of a show, sprinkled with sweet surprises and shot through with kicks of flavour.

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Within the first few minutes we get to see Paul Hollywood’s original screen test for Bake Off from 2010, in which he ad-libbed desperately about a basket of bread. Next, something many of us have wondered about: Hollywood has to complete a challenge in the tent of dreams. It is set for him by lovely former contestants Selasi and Val (who gets to say “Paul, would you like to bring forward your bake?”) And his pistachio and rose petal roulade looks, to be fair, a thing of beauty.

We see backstage as they filmed the last series. We see him joshing with his co-presenters. And Sandi Toksvig laughs about how, when she met him, she found herself, “possibly on the turn, because of his eyes,” adding, “I suddenly felt a little frisson that I’ve not felt for some years…”

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Review by David Butcher

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