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10th September 2019
04:31pm BST
The best part of MasterChef, celebrity or otherwise, is seeing the contestants reduced to schoolchildren status as they are filmed storing their coats in the specially numbered lockers behind the MasterChef kitchen. This presumably prevents the production crew from giving into the undeniable temptation of stealing outerwear. Did you ever think you would see the day where Alex from Love Island would be storing his sherpa jacket in a locker on live television? Or Dom off Gogglebox struggling with a hanger so as to prevent creasing on his blazer? What a thrill.
2. Celebrities crave praise with a chilling intensity, just like the rest of us
"Have you ever Gogglebox-ed us?", Gregg Wallace asks the posh guy from the show, eyes staring dead into his, craving fame and adoration. "Yes, I'm sure we did", Dom replies, "Gave you a damn good review, I'm sure", to which Gregg bursts his bottom laughing. The ego stroking is complete. Gregg was subtle but definite in his approach, giving off the right amount of nonchalance as he blatantly asks a stranger if he likes him. Although Gregg can never admit it, Dom's response counted heavily towards his progression throughout the competition.
3. Celebrities also don't know how to eat properly when someone is watching them
Eating alone is fine. It's easy. You put the food into your mouth, chew it sufficiently and then swallow. But eating in front of another person is a minefield. You've got to carry a conversation, make the appropriate amount of eye contact and concentrate on not choking all at the same time. It's comforting to learn that celebrities such as Dom from Googlebox aren't immune to looking sociopathic as they eat in front of the nation.
4. Some celebrities don't know how to cook AND THAT IS OKAY because we are all just winging it anyway
Josie Long is a very funny comedian, but does she know that you need to put a big heap of flour underneath a pizza base to allow it to seamlessly transfer into the oven? No, evidently she does not. Josie made the best pizza on last night's show, but then she fucked it during the oven-transferring process. Celebrities are just like you and I - they can cook but absolutely shit the bed when it matters. Have you ever tried to make a roast dinner for your family? Chaos. Have you ever made a roast dinner for just yourself? A faultless joy. It makes no sense.
5. Celebrities are also completely petrified of undercooking chicken
Mim from the BBC was in charge of cooking chicken for actual human people paying real money for it in a restaurant situation. He was visibly terrified the entire time, because cooking chicken is basically a game of Russian Roulette where the gun is loaded with salmonella in every second chamber and the other ones are filled with bullets. The restaurant's head chef was on hand to check every piece of chicken for sufficient cooking before it was sent out to the customer, but there is no way Mim didn't go to bed that night wondering if he had killed anyone by accident.
6. Much like the rest of us, celebrities aren't immune to the paralysing power of extreme heat
Dom from Gogglebox might seem invincible as you think about him sitting on an expensive couch with his wife, sipping an unidentifiable brown liquor. He can withstand anything, you think, especially the heat of a professional kitchen's oven. But last night during Celebrity MasterChef, we were schooled. Dom had to back away from the searing hot steam because he is intolerable of extreme heat, just like you and I. Then just when you thought he had escaped injury, Dom burns his hand on a hot pan. He is human after all. He couldn't complete the rest of his shift and got off three days of work with a sick cert. Success.
7. Even when you are celebrity, it's very hard to read the vibe of a room correctly at all times
Doctor Alex, we learned from his time in the Love Island villa, is a strange man. If he was a yoghurt, he would be a tarmacadam-flavoured yoghurt, in the sense that nobody really knows what to do with it and we are all very perplexed by its mere existence. During the group reaction scenes during last night's Celebrity MasterChef, Alex stood out like a sore thumb every damn time. His emotions and physical displays of excitement were, at all times, completely at odds with his counterparts. If they cheered, he frowned. If they hugged, he engaged in a formal handshake. This proves the theory that statistically, one in five people are a robot, celebrity or not.
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