The BBC, that once-venerable public institution now seemingly staffed by moral arsonists in sharp suits and lanyards, has once again taken to the stage in its favourite pantomime: Pretending Everything’s Fine. This week’s performance? A stirring declaration that MasterChef, the long-suffering cooking competition-turned-apology dispenser, will “absolutely” continue beyond 2028—despite the show now being less about soufflés and more about sexual harassment investigations.
Enter stage right: Tim Davie, the BBC’s Director-General and part-time crisis juggler, who assured the press—with the confidence of a man trying to convince a burning building it’s just “a bit warm”—that the franchise has a future. This comes just a day after Gregg Wallace, former human food processor and full-time wide-eyed liability, was found to have racked up an impressive tally of substantiated misconduct claims, including inappropriate jokes, unsettling banter, and the sort of physical contact typically reserved for budget horror films.
Wallace, last seen grinning maniacally into a dessert trolley, is no longer on the show, having wisely stepped aside when someone remembered HR departments exist. Yet, according to Davie, the brand is “bigger than any individual,” a sentiment commonly expressed just before Titanic metaphors become appropriate.
Not to be outdone, John Torode, the other half of the culinary odd couple, has found himself caught in the side winds of scandal. An allegation of racist language, upheld no less, hangs over his chef whites like the smell of three-day-old fish. Torode insists he has “no recollection” of the incident—an increasingly popular defence among the mildly infamous—and was “shocked and saddened,” though not, one presumes, enough to consider a sabbatical.
Davie, doing his best impression of a man sitting on a rapidly deflating bouncy castle, stressed that Banijay—the show’s production company and apparently the BBC’s official complaint sponge—would be handling the “next steps.” This, one assumes, includes finding a way to make a show about food that doesn’t read like a tribunal transcript.
Meanwhile, Downing Street has leapt in with its trademark combination of belated outrage and absolute impotence, “utterly condemning” racism at the BBC, while presumably doing nothing of any practical use.
But don’t worry! The BBC Annual Report is here, all £3.84 billion of licence-fee-backed optimism. It even mentions that 300,000 fewer households are paying for a licence. One might assume they read the headlines.
In other festive fare, Davie pivoted to Gaza, because why not compound kitchen-based chaos with international conflict? The BBC recently yanked a documentary after discovering the child narrator was the offspring of a Hamas official—a casting oversight roughly equivalent to hiring a crocodile as your pool lifeguard. Davie insists it was an “accuracy issue” rather than an impartiality breach, which is rather like saying your parachute didn’t fail—your body just “interacted with gravity faster than expected.”
And yet, despite all this, the BBC’s board has given Davie its full-throated support, citing his “strong and decisive leadership”—presumably referring to his talent for eloquently describing fires as “warmth events.”
So, MasterChef lives on. The BBC marches proudly forward. The public weep into their tea, wondering why their licence fee funds an ongoing series of public apologies, HR reports, and investigative reviews conducted with all the urgency of a Sunday roast in a power cut.
Still, one can’t help but admire their consistency. If nothing else, the BBC continues to serve up piping-hot scandal, seasoned liberally with denial and garnished with spin. Bon appétit.
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