Weekdays, 4:30pm,
Channel 4
TV chef Simon Rimmer challenges two teams of two to answer general knowledge questions to win ingredients and then cook things with those ingredients. The best dish as determined by Rimmer and judge wins a prize. It’s Ready Steady Quiz!
Who will make a meal of it and who will make a meal of it?
Unbelievably that’s not the tagline. It’s no wonder I basically hate everyone in television.
Good natured, and it’s going to be quite different from virtually every other cookery show on TV – instead of the judges cooing over just how wonderful every meal is, most of the time the highest praise will be in terms of “good effort” or “creative” or “technically skillful” or “fun” or the like, making it clear that every pair will probably put forward at least one dish that has to be a clunker, though might well put forward at least one genuinely decent dish. I’m not objecting to the token quiz element at the start, but they might as well just have played it totally for laughs, called it “cookery roulette” or somesuch, dealing out a mixture of good and good-but-ill-fitting ingredients at random. It’s surprisingly… Chopped, but more fun. Good decision to keep it to half an hour, too. I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch a cookery show, but this and Draw It! are behind only 5 Minutes To a Fortune in terms of 4’s even vaguely recent new output.
Improvement via improper gameplay: 8 out of 10 Cats do Win It Cook It, teaming up the usual captains with “funny” TV celebrity chefs.
…because I’m choosing to define the very good Four Rooms as the borderline for “vaguely recent”, before this turns into the “What have the Romans ever done for us?” sketch.
Yeah, not much to add, basically a super cheapass feeling version of Ready Steady Cook. I don’t know if it’s something about the digital process that makes a cheap show feel cheaper, but there we are. Tension bed during quiz segment amusingly unnecessary – agreed, should be played more for laughs. Simon Rimmer was fine, but maybe could have done with an Ainsley.
I think it could feel a bit looser (contestant interviews like anyone cares) BUT I thought the show was fun enough and its heart is in the right place. No-one’s going to watch, but it only cost 2p.
No. It looks cheaper because the show was recorded in a very small studio in Islington, and all the kit to record the show was hired in – everything.
(I was mulling about attending one of the 30 odd recordings back in February, but abandoned because I couldn’t find the place on Street View.)
Watching a couple of them on catch-up it reminded me of a show that Optimum produced for BBC Two a few years back hosted by Matt Alright called Food Poker. That had a ‘no idea of ingredients until recording’ mechanic.
Reasonable lightweight fare. Simon is a good host – but the show lives and dies by the guesting chef and the banter throughout the show.
Would have liked a curveball lobbed in during the cooking phase of the game (like an extra ingredient which has to be put in half way though) but if it was commissioning this, or bringing back Iron Chef UK.
No contest…
Was Draw It filmed the same way do you know? That also had a certain cheap sheen to it, which is ironic given the large prizes it would sometimes give out.
Doubtful Brig. Draw It was done at the Maidstone studios, so all the kit would have been in place, roll up stick the set up, fire up the lights, point the cameras and off you go. The ‘soft’ look there would have come from a bit of playing about in post-prod, I would have thought.
Win It Cook It, from what I found out earlier this year, was recorded in a small studio, which looking at their website (see previous posting about trying to find the place) where the only bits in place are the four walls and a very basic lighting grid to hang your bulbs off. That’s why a company called one box tv (they provide the same kit for the recording of ‘Release The Hounds’) are credited.
They provide all the kit, cameras, sound, lighting, production gallery ect in a series of sliver flight boxes. Given its in HD, the soft look here may be due to the fact that they are a few lights under what they actually needed. Given the plasma screen behind Simon for the quiz segment has a LED lighting arrangement surrounding it, indicates a bit of creative thinking by the LD to get some extra light into the studio.
Memo to self.
Next time check you’ve got your user name right as well as the main comment, before submitting the comment….
The credits will have at least one commentator squeeing:
Edit Producer – Tania Fallon.