The Fabulous Baker Brothers – C4, Ep1

Tom (left, possibly right) and Henry

Channel 4 launched its new cookery hour last week with Heston being Heston (seriously, is anyone going to inject gravy into a suet pudding or cook a chilli for four days?), followed by new kids on the chopping block, siblings Tom and Henry Herbert in The Fabulous Baker Brothers. Except one’s a butcher. And it’s really not that fabulous.

For a start, there’s that title. Wow, it stinks more than the manky farm used to film the show’s pie-off finale. It smacks of a late Friday afternoon post-liquid pub lunch brainstorm with one eye on the clock and the other on saucy Susan’s increasingly rising hemline. I would have called it A Right Couple of Herberts. Actually, that’s not true, because there’s no way this offal would get made if I were in charge.

Look, Tom and Henry seem like nice blokey blokes and are obviously talented at what they do – but not in front of a camera. They have as much charisma and natural screen presence as the piece of dough that Tom or Henry (they’re pretty interchangeable) lovingly kneads.

And who is the target audience? Well the food has a distinctly manly quality – chip butties, steak sarnies, pies – but the presentation is clearly playing to the female viewer – simpering looks, flirty smiles (and that’s just between the two brothers).

Classic cooking double acts have relied on strong personalities playing off each other – Two Fat Ladies, Hairy Bikers – but the Herberts’ joviality comes across as too scripted, too practised, too I don’t give a shit if you have a weekly pie-off… wait a minute, they have a pie-off? Have I ever mentioned that I love pies? Maybe this has got some merit after all. Rabbit pie? I’m in, Tom. Or Henry. Hold on, what’s he doing? That’s not a pie, that’s a pastry sack. Ooh, Henry (or Tom) is doing a Ploughman’s Pie. Interesting idea, but I’ll run with it. Oh, for fuck’s sake, that’s a Cornish pasty. Look, it's all good-looking stuff, but a pie is a pie and a pasty is a pasty – it's not hard, people.

This is a pie:

This is a pasty:

This is Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys:

Here endeth the lesson.