'This is not the show we want to make': Mel Giedroyc reveals Bake Off was a 'very different show' before she demanded change
Mel was part of the very first Bake Off presenting line-up, and if it wasn’t for her intervention, the show could’ve felt very different
It has become one of the nation’s most comforting shows, having run for 16 years and counting, and it introduced a whole new generation to the likes of Dame Mary Berry and Prue Leith.
However, Mel Giedroyc, who was there at the very beginning of The Great British Bake Off, revealed that she nearly quit on “day one, series one” because it was not the “kind of show” with which she wanted to be involved.
Mel told the How to Fail podcast that the original direction of the show felt “grim” - which led to her issuing an ultimatum. “There was a bit of a summit meeting where I spoke up and I just said, this is not the kind of show that we want to make… We won't get the best out of people.
“I don't like this vibe where everyone's crying and then suddenly they're on camera. People do cry on Bake Off, but they cry because it's kind of emotional and they've put stuff into it. We don't want to make them cry because they're so exhausted.”
Mel, who was one of the original presenters of the series, along with comedy and presenting partner Sue Perkins, explained how what she saw on that first day led her to tell her agent, “I want out of this”.
Describing what filming was like, she said, “Go, go, go. Get that person. They're crying. Right. They're having a breakdown. Get that person. Move the cameras. Quick, quick. There was that kind of vibe.
“I was really shocked, actually. It'd been like an 18 hour shoot and everyone was in tears.”
Mel said a collective effort - including her threatening to walk - helped reshape the focus of the show. “I hope we made it very clear the kind of show that we wanted to make. And I've never done that before. I've never threatened anything like that in my life.
“I'm just not that kind of person. But I felt in that instant, I had to say something because it would have been really grim and things changed. Things changed after that day.
“We were proud of ourselves that we'd sort of spoken up because I think it would have been a very different show.”
Mel and Sue were part of the show’s original line-up, presenting from 2010 until 2016, when the show aired on the BBC. After Bake Off moved to Channel 4, Mel, Sue and Dame Mary Berry departed, with Paul Hollywood being the only cast member to remain.
Since then, a few changes have taken place over the years, with Noel Fielding presenting alongside Sandi Toksvig, Matt Lucas and Alison Hammond. Prue Leith replaced Mary for eight seasons, before announcing her departure.
Nigella Lawson will join Paul as the expert judges in the upcoming 17th series, set to air a little later this summer. Channel 4 stated that viewers "can expect to see Nigella bringing her trademark warmth, wit and passion for flavour to the tent".
