‘A comfort and a joy’ Bake Off is back ★★★★

The Great British Bake Off Channel 4

★★★★☆

The year may come when the return of The Great British Bake Off is not a tonic, a comfort, and a joy all the finer for being lowkey. This is not that year. Series 12 shows no early signs of staleness. It helps that Bake Off’s casting process, dedicated to showing that the kind, self-deprecating charm of the hobbyist cuts across every social boundary with the possible exception of class, feels more celebratory of diversity than ever.

This time we have Jürgen, the German IT guy, who brought in nuts, bolts and a spanner for his final task, and the Italian engineer Giuseppe, whose pronunciation of the phrase Jack and the Beanstalk was sweeter than sugar-cane cannoli. We have Jairzeno, the gay Trinidadian, and Freya, the 19-yearold Scarborough vegan. Amanda is a detective who likes wild swimming; Tom seems like the sort of man who would be at home in a model railway shop. Fortunately, his family runs one.

We also have ready-made larks in the form of GBBO’s best judge-contestant doppelganger since 2015, with Paul the prison governor bearing both the first name and stubbly manliness of Paul Hollywood. This year’s spooky double, the retired nurse Maggie, doesn’t share Prue Leith’s name, but she does have her toothy smile, ruddy WI forthrightness and aluminium-floss hair. This can only be to Maggie’s advantage.

Meanwhile, the presenters are purring. Matt Lucas has quietly but assertively become the main comic presence, and is likely to have masterminded the fairly extraordinary musical opening sequence. The old BBC days, when Mel and Sue made do with offkilter spoken intros, now seem quaint. The show’s confidence has spread to Noel Fielding, who in his fifth series no longer looks like he personifies an anxiety dream.

As for the baking itself, it began with a simple mini roll. Lizzie, a Liverpudlian keen to make up in banter what she lacked in baking skill, inexplicably surrounded hers with family photographs, which backfired when her tahini caramel escaped: “It’s dripping on everyone’s faces!” George, a Greek dad of three, couldn’t roll his rolls and resorted to smothering them in melted chocolate. Future winners tend not to do this.

Talking of which, week one is not too early to sort the bakers into three tiers. There are the potential champions, the solid performers who will probably get to about halfway, and the game but inept ones who will not survive long enough to see Bread Week.

But the climactic showstopper, a trompe-l’oeil “anti-gravity” cake, identified the big players via the elegant artisan creations of Crystelle (a bouquet of flowers that was actually a cake), Giuseppe (a hovering cloud that was, in fact, cake) and Jürgen (an anglepoise lamp that was really a cake, pointing at a book that was … cake).

Contenders for immediate elimination were many. The HR professional Rochica made do with an apple-styled ball of cake hanging from a branch – not much of an optical illusion. Tom’s stack of cakes ignored the brief altogether, while sales manager Chigs made a cake that was not so much antigravity as an advert for gravity: a key component fell during judging. Jairzeno’s attempt at a super-sized swiss roll descended into a sloppy wrestling match comfortably won by the sponge. Someone had to go, but Bake Off potters happily on.

The old BBC days, when Mel and Sue made do with offkilter spoken intros, now seem quaint