Ill Informed TV Reviews: I...

Right, here's a sort of accidental idea I've had whilst shambling around today- review TV shows, having missed the first 3/4 or so. Basically, I caught the tail end of Cookery School, Channel 4's answer to the BBC's cook-off monopoly, if the question was "can you make a sort of low-rent Masterchef in what appears to be a brick high-rise in Acton?"

Now Cookery School is much like an ordinary school: There's an overwhelming pressure placed upon the students and at the end of tomorrow's episode someone gets evicted... Oh hang on, that's not schools, is it? That's reality television... always get those two mixed up. Not schools at all really. (Well, maybe after Gove's finished tinkering: "Once you've bought and funded your own free school, you can kick the weakest students out at the end of every week...")

I watched the last quarter as the 'students' were tasked with cooking risotto with mussels and then chastised in front of one another by chef Richard Corrigan (out of off of Great British Menu) and 'cookery mentor' (or 'chef') Gizzi Erskine. Graduate (it's what we call them now that none of them can get actual jobs) Bram (who knew people weren't only called that in the 19th century?!) was complimented on the texture of his risotto. Clearly there was a bit of history with Bram, as Corrigan was forced to reconsider his opinion of his cookery abillities. Bram, clearly a bit of a 'character', did an impression of Corrigan, explaining that he expected the Irishman to deride his humble rice dish when in fact he had let out a gutteral "mmmmm", in the post-cookery interview segments that take place on the balcony, complete with black, spiralling fire escape stairs as if the students had all popped out for a cheeky fag break.

It's the classic format. Plucky amateur cooks try and make it big and learn a few things along the way. Like Masterchef. Except not really Masterchef, shh, what did you go and mention Masterchef for?! Well, I guess it's because Masterchef have a flash new studio complete with Time Commanders-esque surveillance balcony for Gregg and John to eye the incompetence of the contestants like dodgy food emperors at an amphitheatre. "Tougher challenges" claims the voiceover... and yet I thought that Imperator Greggus Wallacius had decreed that "cooking doesn't get tougher than this" every episode for about 4 whole previous series.

Anyway, the thing about Cookery School is that it's almost a throwback to the late nineties, early noughties heyday of Channel 4, where BBC formats were slightly altered and then shoved in brick studio space in Hounslow. Who can forget the seminal RI:SE or... you know... the educational things they used to do... sort of edgy stuff... about sex and drugs? Even the camera work is reminiscent of that Golden Age of television where top media luminaries like Kate Lawler and Mark Durden-Smith could run the rule over the day's news in an edgy early morning formats... no, not like Daybreak, even edgier (if you can imagine such a thing...).

But, I only saw the last 15 minutes, so the first bit could have been shot as a Bergmanesque character study of some tragic but loveable amateur cooks set in Malmo. I don't know. Next: Outcasts, the last 15 minutes of Episode 2... possibly.