With MasterChef entering a new era, new judges Grace Dent and Anna Haugh are ‘excited’ to get stuck in – both seeming eager to move the conversation along with an air of positivity.
The show faced an uncertain future when their predecessors were axed by the BBC – Gregg Wallace under a cloud of misconduct accusations, followed by John Torode off the back of alleged racist language.
Dent and Haugh are, of course, aware of the weight the programme now carries, but appear reluctant to inherit any of the guilt that comes with it.
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“I’ve been doing very huge things since I left Carlisle in the 90s, and I’ve been pushing myself and trying to do incredible things, and this was one of them,” Dent told FOODbible ahead of the new series, which starts tonight.
“I’m really glad that I did it. Not a second of sadness about taking this job.”
In fact, Dent’s ‘USP’ - a high-end food critic with a northern, working class, background - is precisely what she wants to bring to the role.
“There was a small group of what at one point I would call the ‘Big Beasts’ - it was like this group of people and they were all from a very similar background, and a lot of them had known each other since school,” she recalled.
“Then I came along, and I was this little northern woman, and I got onto MasterChef, and I always think that that was my USP from the beginning.
“Suddenly I was this woman sitting at the table with this Carlisle accent. You know, I can talk about fancy food and fancy fine dining with the best of them and bore anybody on that, but I also… adore chips. Who doesn’t? They’re a design classic!
“I’ve always been able to talk about food in every single variety. I love to eat noodles out of a silver carton standing by the fridge, just as much as I love to put on a fancy dress and whisk into somewhere that is 17 courses.”
Haugh, meanwhile, is keen to point to the faceless, hardworking crew behind the franchise, whose roots run far deeper than the drama of Wallace and Torode.
“There’s a whole team of people who create that show, and they worked absolutely to the bone to make sure that Grace and I could be ourselves, that we were allowed to be our authentic selves - so the way our sense of humours are, the speed that we work at,” she said.
“They moved around us so that they would allow us to feel comfortable and safe in the space, so that they weren’t trying to squeeze us into a shape and make us be a certain way.
"We were allowed to speak the way we speak, put the sentences and the script together the way we felt was natural, which is amazing. I did not expect that.
"You know, you’re a bit more strict but actually they very much trusted us and our abilities."
There’s certainly an air of approachability in the duo, and not because they both happen to be women, but because they're invested in the lighter, more progressive iteration of the show - while also being passionate about the product and, crucially, the people behind it.
Dent admitted it’s this ‘really intense environment’ with back-to-back filming that makes days feel long, but that the thought of losing it feels harder than anything else.
"I find that within about 25 days of every series, I start to genuinely worry about coming to the end of the series,” she said.
“And I don’t feel like that on any other job. Because there’s a bit where halfway through, I go, ‘At some point, all of these people are gonna spin off into other jobs, and they’ve seen me every single day - in sometimes such an emotional and tired way.'
“I’ve never had a job like that, I love being there.”
MasterChef starts on BBC One at 9pm on 21 April, and is also available to watch via BBCiPlayer.
Topics: TV and Film, Celebrity, UK Food
Jess Hardiman