The producers of Masterchef have revealed that the programme almost fell at the first hurdle after the famous trophy featuring the letter ‘w’ was constructed upside down.
‘The intention was to have a series featuring one wanker after another who thought the greatest thing in life was to do a bit of cooking while being shouted at and, ultimately, work 18 hours a day in a restaurant and get slagged off by critics,’ said Karen Ross, executive producer of production company Shine.
‘Wankerchef had hired two complete wankers as front men and was already to roll on day one, when the trophy and the logo arrived at the studio the wrong way up. There was no time to do anything about it. One of the crew suggested ‘Masturbatechef’, which became shortened to Masterchef, and the rest is history. In a way the concept almost works better because the po-faced presentation makes the laughs even bigger.’
The spinoff series Celebrity Wankerchef came to a head at the weekend in a three way final. Presenter John Torode bigged up hairy faced Dick and his explosions of flavour, while fellow wanker Gregg Wallace needed to do little to advance the cause of plucky Christine Hamilton, who has spent much of her life married to one of the biggest wankers of all time.
But in the end the lovely Lisa Faulkner won it, not by being a wanker herself but by prompting thousands of male viewers to disappear to the bathroom for an unexplained five minute break as the final reached its climax.
But Ross says the format that they came upon by chance has been so successful that there are no plans to change it. ‘It seems that there are enough wankers around the world who want to pay good money for the concept as it is, despite its funny inverted trophy.’