Gregg Wallace, eh? What a plonker. Talk about working-class men of a certain age (to coin a phrase). Still. Is he really Britain’s answer to Harvey Weinstein?
I’m not here to defend him. I never quite saw the appeal, and, if I’m honest, he used to put me off watching MasterChef – but then again, so did the reliably obnoxious John Torode and the ubiquitous Jay Rayner as a judge, squatting on the contestants’ culinary ambitions like a giant toad.
That said, MasterChef is a competition, and so I guess getting a roasting comes with the territory. If you can’t stand the heat etc. And, besides, in all the years (almost 20) that Wallace has been a part of the show, at no stage has he ever given anyone the slightest impression that he’s anything other what he appears to be: a bit of a Jack-the-lad with all the culture and subtlety of a scaffolder (no offence to scaffolders, but you know what I mean). That is precisely why he ended up on telly in the first place.
In the early 2000s, when Wallace began his career presenting Saturday Kitchen, it was all about the rough diamond, the working-class lad who’d pulled himself up by the bootstraps and knew how to roll his own fags. Nobody wanted received pronunciation chaps any more, it was all about ‘keeping it real’.
Trouble is, ‘real’ isn’t always very pretty or polite. Nor does it tend to have too many boundaries. ‘Real’ doesn’t have a lot of options; it doesn’t ask nicely, it tries it on, it takes what it can get. How else do you survive an abusive childhood in Peckham, leave school at 15 and go on to run a successful business with an annual turnover of £7.5 million, as Wallace did?
Those were heady days, when toxic masculinity was cool and lad culture was king. Damien Hirst and Keith Allen brawled outside the Groucho Club; Ray Winstone and Vinnie Jones vied for the title of Nation’s Most Loveable Rogue; Guy Ritchie was setting posh girls’ hearts aflutter with Jason Statham (another former barrow-boy, like Wallace) in Snatch; Pulp were taking the mickey out of nice girls who fancied rough boys in Common People; Jonathan Ross, Chris Evans, Russell Brand – you were nobody unless you dropped your aitches.
Wallace slotted right into this new groove. Especially at the BBC, where things were still a bit fusty and where no one had been allowed in for decades unless they’d been to Oxbridge and knew how to tie a Windsor knot. The schedules were crammed with geezers, Cockney and Mockney, sliding down staircases, bish-boshing this and walloping that.
Gosh, how thrilling it must have been to get a real working-class person on set. You can just imagine it, can’t you: ‘Quicksticks, Araminta, run out and get some Typhoo, will you, and a large bag of sugar – white, of course, no brown. Here’s your builder’s, Mr Wallace, four sugars, is it? Ooh, he called me ‘darlin’ – how very authentic.’ Fast forward 20 years, and all that’s worn rather thin. The lads mags are long gone, we’ve had #MeToo. A hand on the thigh or a risque double-entendre are no longer a cheeky try-on or just ‘a bit of harmless fun’. That kind of behaviour is no longer tolerated, and amen to that.
Gregg Wallace is a bewildered, blundering dinosaur of a man who just can’t understand why his world has come crashing down around him, writes Sarah Vine
The world has changed, but men like Wallace have not. That’s not an excuse, of course, but it’s an explanation. One minute everyone thinks you’re hilarious, with your salt-of-the-earth banter and saucy market-trader humour. The next you’re beyond the pale and everyone’s piling in.
I have no doubt that Wallace’s behaviour has crossed the line on more than one occasion. But I’m not sure what else people expected of him. It’s like getting a Jack Russell and then being miffed when it tries to hump your leg. It’s just in the nature of the beast.
None of which makes what he’s done at all acceptable. But does he deserve to be cancelled? After all, he has not – as far as we know – done anything criminal, unless you count his terrible jokes. And yes, he may well be a ‘tubby, bald-headed, ill-mannered bully’, in the words of Sir Rod Stewart – but it seems to me that he is also a bewildered, blundering dinosaur of a man who just can’t understand why his world has come crashing down around him.
Kirsty Wark and Co are right to call him out – there’s no place for that sort of behaviour today and it’s important that these things are taken seriously and dealt with. But is he really a dangerous predator? Or just a sad, rather pathetic has-been who’s dug his own grave?
I can see no reason to dance on it.
Kirsty Wark with Gregg Wallace on Celebrity MasterChef in 2011
Penny Lancaster with her husband Sir Rod Stewart, who called Gregg a ‘tubby, bald-headed, ill-mannered bully’ while defending his wife
Charlotte is so grown-up
While most eyes were on the Princess of Wales as she hosted a Westminster Abbey carol concert, I was transfixed by Princess Charlotte. Though only nine, she carries herself more like a grown-up than a child. She reminds me of the late Queen, who always seemed wise beyond her years.
Princess Charlotte at the Together At Christmas carol service at Westminster Abbey
As the supposed party of ‘working people’, Labour don’t half love a posh title. Tipped to join Sir Keir as a knight of the realm is London Mayor Sadiq Khan. Why? For turning the capital into a giant traffic jam rife with knife crime, drugs and gang violence?
I don’t recall all this action, Keira
My new guilty pleasure is Black Doves, starring Keira Knightley in the unlikely role of a Tory defence secretary’s wife who is actually a spy. One moment she’s handing round canapes and making small talk, the next she’s stabbing people in the leg and back-flipping out of windows. If I’d known being married to a Cabinet minister could be this thrilling, I might have stuck with it.
Keira Knightley at the London premiere of her new Netflix series Black Doves earlier this month
On Friday, my daughter was hit from behind on her bicycle by an Uber driver. She was sent flying – laptop, notes and all – into a giant puddle. Did the man stop? Of course not. Worse, other motorists simply drove past. So much for the season of goodwill, eh?
My editor says I’m limited to only one mention of my cat Cersei each month. So here’s December’s.
Every time I make a phone call, she stirs from her slumber to embark on a campaign of terror – purring very loudly and digging her claws into me.
It’s so bad that I have to lock myself in the loo to get away from her.
Does anyone else’s cat react similarly to the phone? And how can I make it stop?
That’s a lot of dough
Dolce & Gabbana is selling a panettone for £58.80 (though it does come in a pretty tin); Fortnum & Mason has one at £495; Gail’s is offering a sourdough version for £35. How ridiculous for just a fruitcake made of flour, milk, eggs and a few sultanas.
Coleen Rooney lathered up for the now obligatory I’m A Celeb shower scene in a pair of Vix bottoms. Costing £116 (not including top), that’s a quite a price for such a small triangle of Lycra. I guess that’s what they mean by ‘less is more’.
