There’s an EastEnders versus Coronation Street element to this summer’s Celebrity MasterChef, which will see a star-studded line up from the worlds of music and show business slicing and dicing, chopping and candy-popping and creaming and preening (the food, not themselves) as they battle it out to be crowned Celebrity MasterChef 2014 champion.
Ex-Eastenders Todd Carty (Mark Fowler), Emma Barton (Honey Mitchell), Alex Ferns (Trevor Morgan) and Sophie Thompson (Stella Crawford) are in the mix, along with former Coronation Street favourite Ken Morley (Reg Holdsworth).
There’s also a dash of Holby City in the shape of Tina Hobley (who was also in Coronation Street) and Leslie Ash.
The other celebrities making up the 20 contestants are: I’m A Celebrity… winner Christopher Biggins, former Waterloo Road star Amanda Burton, singers Kiki Dee and ex-JLS star JB Gill, actor/director Jason Connery (son of Sean), presenters Alison Hammond and Tania Bryer, astrologer Russell Grant, adventurer Charley Boorman, dancer/choreographer Wayne Sleep, former super model Jodie Kidd, author/presenter Susannah Constantine (one half of Trinny and Susannah) and Made in Chelsea’s Millie Mackintosh.
”Each year we approach Celebrity with a mixture of fear and hope - will any of them actually be able to cook? It is often a terrifyingly rocky road to get from the early disasters to the real hard core-cooking talent. This year will not disappoint!” said Karen Ross, creative director of programme-maker Shine:Soho.
Executive Producer for the BBC, Carla-Maria Lawson said: "This year's series promises some real surprises as our celebrity hopefuls swap stage, screen and catwalk for the kitchen. Be prepared to see a very different side to some well known faces as the competition heats up!"
The series will air over six weeks in 13 episodes. The first four heat weeks will see task masters and judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace concentrate on whittling down the celebrities, testing their abilities until only the best eight go through to the fifth and semi-final week.
Semi-final challenges will include cooking for Shakespeare’s 450th Birthday, the Great British Recipe Test with expert Rosemary Shrager as guest judge, and the first-ever Relay Invention Test, as two teams have just one hour to collectively cook a single dish.
The sixth and final week will see the remaining cooks draw on all their skills as they face the notorious restaurant critics, and a daunting outside challenge at London’s Olympic Park.
This year’s 90-minute final is a double-whammy as the three best celebrity cooks first have to face the most terrifying of Chef’s Table’s hosted by Francesco Mazzei and feeding none other than the Italian cooking-mafia - Antonio Carluccio, Aldo Zilli, Theo Randall and Giorgio Locatelli.
Then they will return to MC HQ to cook their best three-course meal for John and Gregg, before they decide who the true cooking star is and worthy of becoming Celebrity MasterChef 2014.
The winner will follow in the footsteps of previous winners Ade Edmondson, Emma Kennedy, Phil Vickery, Lisa Faulkner, Jayne Middlemiss, Liz McClarnon, Nadia Sawalha and Matt Dawson.
Celebrity MasterChef will air on BBC1 this summer.
