The Heat is On (1)

Daytime cooking game shows were all the rage in the mid-90s, with the BBC having the afternoon delight of Ready Steady Cook on BBC2 and the morning chaos of Can't Cook, Won't Cook on the flagship channel. So, it didn't take long for a copycat to come along and... yeah, we can see why this one didn't last so long.

Basically, two teams of two related contestants go head-to-head to make the best dish from a trolley of ingredients served by an adjudicator. A third team comprising a celebrity chef or chefs also competes. Feels like an early lighthearted version of Iron Chef.

And who gets to host this knock-off? It had to be Mr. Cheese himself Keith Chegwin. It's Cheggers, what else can we say? He pulls off the cheese really well for a cookery format so thin.

Outtake alert: after Keith introduced Antony Worrall Thompson as the celebrity chef, he invited Antony to put his leg on a chopping board on the worktop, and show everyone his "kecks" (that is, his fancy trousers). Unfortunately, Antony put his leg on the board with so much speed and force that he pulled a muscle and fell to the floor, taking the board with him.

Toby Langton-Gilks

In his Evening Standard column on 12 August 1997, Victor Lewis-Smith was less than complimentary about the show (and Cheggers in particular):

"The game ground to a start, with Mr Chegwin's mouth and arms working at a frantic pace, constantly moving things on although, paradoxically, nothing ever happened. Not content with reducing the subtle art of gastronomy to a sub-parlour game, he conducted interviews of breathtaking inanity, including this memorable exchange: "What will you do with the fish, girls?" "We'll poach it in something saucy." "What, like your socks?" That's not simply unamusing, that's a profound cortical malfunction. Still bewildered by the exotic presence of borlotti beans, he picked one out of the saucepan (the only time in the entire programme he ever had his finger on the pulse), tasted it and decided, "They're just like broad beans", thus confirming that this undiscriminating quiz had got the presenter it deserved."

The show got a repeat run on Challenge TV in the early 2000s with Ceefax links to the recipes removed.