OK, I've thought about it - Noel Fielding on 'Bake Off' might actually be genius

Noel Fielding is hosting Bake Off, and it’s going to be a disaster. People don’t wear capes on the Bake Off. You can’t put MDMA in a grandpa’s icing sugar or whack a spatula up your bum on the Bake Off. But then the Bake Off died months ago, really, didn’t it? It stopped existing when Love Productions pied off the BBC in favour of more cash and carried it into the weird, gangly arms of Channel 4.

The Bake Off as we know it is the most BBC show imaginable – it’s set in a lovely big tent in the grounds of an English country house and your actual nan is on it every year. That show is gone, though. If it wasn’t before then it definitely is now. Noel Fielding. I love the Bake Off, it’s the only show I’ll make sure I’m at home to watch when it’s actually on, and last night – I have to be honest – I was pretty livid. As a Bake Off fan it felt like Channel 4 were taking the piss. “You know what’ll really fuck those wetties up? If we get Fielding to do it. Let’s get Fielding in to just piss all over their sad little cakes” – that’s what they were all saying in my head – the Love Productions and Channel 4 people. Fuck them. Noel Fielding. Bastards.

Noel Fielding, I think, is the weirdest person you could feasibly get to host a mainstream baking show. He’s a man who was made in, and seems to still exist in the ‘00s. He’s the epitome of the ‘OMG so random’ humour that defined a big part of that decade. When you think of Noel Fielding, you imagine him doing strange things with his tongue. You imagine bags of pills and a man who sometimes strolls around the house naked from the waist down. Maybe he’s wearing a tunic made of crow feathers.

Maybe, though, maybe that’s OK? Is hiring Noel Fielding actually the smartest thing Channel 4 could have done with Bake Off? If they’d decided to play it safe – to find a pair of presenters a bit like Mel and Sue and try to make the same, brilliant show – there was no way could’ve won. Whatever they did and whoever they picked, they could never have been as good as Mel and Sue in our eyes. There is no replacement for Mary Berry. Think about Chris Evans’ Top Gear – it was shit before it even got to be shit. By picking Fielding, Channel 4 are unquestionably taking Bake Off for their own. A cooking show with Noel Fielding on it could only be on Channel 4, really, couldn’t it? It’s smart. Still fucking ridiculous, but smart.

Paul Hollywood’s not going to have a scooby what to make of him, which’ll make good telly in itself. I want to see Fielding suck crumbs out of Hollywood’s goatee, and you know what, with this new Bake Off, I feel like I might get to. I want to see a showstopper round where the contestants battle it out to make the biggest dick baguette. I want them to fuck it, basically. I hope they totally trash everything Bake Off once was and rebuild it into something utterly stupid. If BBC Bake Off is First Blood, I want Channel 4 Bake Off to be Rambo IV. That’s the only way it won’t fail – if it’s so outrageous it’s literally impossible to compare it to the original. 

So go on Noel, lob your balls into my cake mixture. I promise to at least see how it tastes.