If this season’s Bread Week on The Great British Baking Show taught us anything, it’s that just because you can put something in a cake doesn’t mean you should. Fish, for example, or deviled eggs. Similarly, just because you can adapt an untapped IP into a musical doesn’t mean you should. But on October 18, a concoction called The Great British Bake Off Musical announced that it will make its West End debut in February 2023. Apparently, the show had its world premiere this past summer in the town of Cheltenham, where it had “nightly standing ovations†and no one thought to stop it from going any further. In fact, if this video of audience-member reactions at the first preview tells us anything, it’s that the show is “brilliantly written,†“had all the drama of the TV show,†and will leave you “smiling forever.â€
But what’s the actual plot? Will it be a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for Sue and Mel? Or treat the baking competition like some kind of Jellicle Ball led by Old Prueteronomy (ironic because of Prue’s history with cats)? All the plot description says is that it’s about a batch of bakers “including a policeman, a carer, a sixth form student, a retired dinner lady, an environmentalist vegan, an Italian fashionista, and more, as they come together to share their journeys of friendship, love, and laughter.†If this is still hard to envision, the show released a “first listen†video of the cast recording in May, and oh my God, they’re singing about their hopes and dreams overtop the GBBO theme music.
The main takeaways here are the lyric “I didn’t come to make friends / I’m here for ten out of tens†and an 11 o’ clock number built around the double meaning of the word rise, as it applies to both dough and a woman’s, uh, hopes/dreams/career/perseverance. The Great British Bake Off Musical will make its West End debut on February 25, 2023, at the Noël Coward Theatre, to mock the ghost of its namesake.