In this week’s finale of the Great British Baking Show — marking the end of series 14 according to British television and collection 11 on Netflix in the U.S. — co-host Alison Hammond asked finalist Josh what he would miss most about being in the tent.
“You, of course,†he responded. Immediately, I thought: Me too, Josh. Me too.
In a season of Baking Show that succumbed to some bland stretches and featured a less-than-diverse trio of white male finalists, Hammond’s debut as co-presenter added a vital zest to the proceedings. Paired with Noel Fielding, the series’ veteran provider of comic relief and wearer of punk-rock jumpers, Hammond made total sense as an addition to the coziest cooking show currently broadcast on planet Earth, so much so that when she was absent for one episode due to illness, it felt like the show was missing a main ingredient.
From her first moments in the tent, Hammond brought a sense of ease, likely informed by the fact that she has competed on reality shows herself, including Big Brother, Celebrity Masterchef, and Strictly Come Dancing, and served as a judge on a couple (I Can See Your Voice and RuPaul’s Drag Race U.K.). She also has plenty of on-camera experience as an actor and, more relevantly, a presenter and interviewer on iTV’s This Morning, the British equivalent of the Today show. She instinctively understood the vibe of GBBS and dialed into it immediately, keeping things comfortable for the viewers, for her co-host, and for the unfailingly polite contestants just trying to make a consistent set of Devonshire splits.
Her skills as an interviewer serve her particularly well in that regard. Some of Hammond’s previous conversations with high-profile celebrities have gone viral because she has such a gift for breaking through other people’s armors. Perhaps the best example is a sit-down where she managed to charm the hell out of Harrison Ford, a man famous for his impatience with the interview process. Other hard-working journalists have risked serious ego damage trying to ask this man a few innocuous questions, but Hammond was not only able to roll with Ford’s verbal punches, she actually managed to make him (and Ryan Gosling) laugh.
That ability to relax other people is evident in her partnership with Fielding, which after only the first couple of episodes already seemed more comfortable and chummy than Fielding’s relationship with former co-host Matt Lucas did after three entire seasons. (Lucas, best known for his comedic collaborations with David Walliams on the sketch series Little Britain, stepped down from the role in 2022 and has more or less admitted that his skill set wasn’t totally suited for the show, which he had never seen before appearing on it.) Both Fielding and Lucas tended to fall into a rhythm of trying to one-up the other’s silly puns and corny jokes, to the point where it could sometimes seem as if they were in some separate competition that had nothing to do with baking. (The Great British Half-Baked Joke-Off?) As a comedic unit, the two could feel too aggressive for a show that, despite its competitive underpinnings, is designed to function as comfort TV.
Hammond, by contrast, serves as a complement to Fielding rather than an amplifying force, and understands that Baking Show’s biggest asset has always been its gentleness. While judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith sometimes respond harshly to a bad bake, the vibe of the show overall is encouraging and uplifting. The energy between the co-hosts should reflect that spirit, and with Hammond in place, it does so as effectively as it did during the Mel and Sue years, when the former co-hosts and longtime comedy partners interacted with each other and the bakers in a manner that enhanced and never detracted from the main action. Like Mel and Sue, Hammond and Fielding seem to be having genuine fun together. During Bread Week, while the bakers were immersed in prep, the two broke out in a waltz. In the Pastry Week episode, they laughed and flirted about how they both keep odd hours and had texted each other very late the previous night. (“Just stop sending me those pictures,†Hammond joked good-naturedly.) They seem to have an actual friendship, or at least can conjure one effectively on-camera, and their camaraderie is very much in keeping with the support that the contestants regularly show for one another, a signature element of the Great British Baking Show.
In her interactions with the bakers, too, Hammond is a scene sharer, not a scene stealer. True, she’s never afraid to ham it up a bit, game to fling herself across a kitchen counter before having a chat with Dan, the season’s most relentlessly chipper baker, or play a (very brief and painful) game of cricket with Saku, the competitor who could easily win a contest for best Baking Show facial expressions of all time. But she would always do so with a generosity toward and curiosity about the bakers that, frankly, Lucas never possessed. Hammond’s feminine energy is a reminder of how valuable it is to have at least one woman among the Baking Show co-hosts: She has an almost sisterly way with the women bakers, at points playing with Saku’s hair and comforting Cristy when she was having a meltdown over her showstopper during Botanical Week, and her flirtatious chemistry with Matty has become the stuff of legend. Sexual innuendo is the sort of thing that can get creepy really quickly on this show — you know, like the joke Fielding made about Paul Hollywood and kinky handcuffs? — but Hammond was so clearly joking in her interactions with Matty, and he was so clearly enjoying it, that it never felt uncomfortable for him in the tent or us watching at home.
It’s clear that Hammond speaks the language of Baking Show because she is a real fan of the show. She genuinely got giddy the first time she watched Paul Hollywood offer a baker one of his famous handshakes and pleaded for the honor of announcing the winner in the finale, saying, “That’s all I want.â€
Fielding ceded that job to her, wryly noting, “You should do it. ’Cause it’s probably your last year.†But that seems unlikely. If the makers of Great British Baking Show have any sense, they will bring Hammond back every year until she decides she’s had her fill of revealing dastardly technical challenges and flirting with the bakers. I’m no Paul Hollywood, but I say she deserves a heartfelt handshake for a job well done.