News
Someone made a Great British Bake Off musical and we’re losing our minds
By Joanna Sarah-Freedman
10 Aug 2022
3m
It’s been a while since Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood graced our tellies, and you might well be missing the naughty puns and Hollywood handshakes that come with Great British Bake Off.
But did you miss it enough to buy tickets to the all singing, all dancing GBBO musical, we wonder?!
If you aren’t in the know then maybe this truly bonkers clip will give you an idea of what you missed out on:
Believe it or not, the The Great British Bake Off: The Musical isn’t just some weird fever dream you might have had when you were craving a Victoria Sponge, it’s an actual production that premiered in the UK last month.
Airing at the Everyman theatre in Cheltenham, the play clearly models itself on the Channel 4 show, yet it doesn’t go as far as casting a Paul Hollywood or a Prue Leith by name.
Instead, there’s a remarkably familiar looking ‘Phil Hollyhurst’, played by actor, Owen-Jones, and a ‘Pam Leigh’, played by his co-star, Rosemary Ashe.
Uncanny (Credit: Great British Bake Off: The Musical / Love Productions)
Speaking to the BBC, Jones said of the musical: “It was very important to both Rosie and I, and the whole team, that we had to reflect what was on screen – but we didn’t want to copy it.
“So what we do is a very affectionate homage to the real people.”
The play might sound like a big of a joke, but it should actually be taken seriously. It’s the brainchild of co-writers Pippa Cleary and Jake Brunger, who met at Bristol university in 2018, and have since been dubbed “one of the most exciting musical theatre writing teams working in the U.K. today” by The Stage.
The musical features hosts, judges and bakers as you’d see in the show (Credit: YouTube/ BBC Points West)
To make the musical what it was, the duo sat down and watched over 100 old Bake Off episodes to get an essence on the types of characters they wanted to include.
“There always tends to be an older granny type person, there tends to be a handsome hipster with facial hair,” they told the Beeb.
“We then looked at, who are the iconic Bake Off characters in those categories? And then [it was] about finding how those characters weave together.”
So, what did critics think of the theatrical GBBO?
Who’s ready for an all singing, all dancing Bake Off musical? (Credit: Youtube/ BBC Points West)
After watching the debut, The Guardian gave the musical a very respectable three stars, meanwhile, What’s On Stage went one step further and handed out four stars.
“This gorgeous confection is an authentic crowd pleaser, and more oven-ready than several shows we’ve seen in the West End of late,” they wrote.
The theatre company is currently keeping quiet about the future of the musical, and whether we can expect to see it rolling out to other cities in the country.
We, for one, would absolutely love to see the actual Paul Hollywood stepping into the starring role. Reckon he’d be up for the gig?
