Fans are loving Happy Mondays’ Bez on Celebrity Masterchef

Virgin Radio

11 Aug 2021, 11:40

Bez from Happy Mondays

As soon as it was announced that Bez was going to be in this year’s Celebrity MasterChef, it was fairly obvious that his appearance would make for some truly wonderful telly. And so it has proved to be, as his first two nights on the show have been magnificent for so many reasons.

The 16th series returned to BBC One earlier this week, on August 9th, with Bez pulling on his apron along with other celebs, such as Johannes Radebe, Duncan James, Rita Simons, and Katie Price.

On the first night of this series, Bez, whose real name is Mark Berry, had fans in stitches. As well as busting out familiar phrases such as “twisting my melons”, it was his pronunciation of anchovies as “handkerchiefs” caused a real stir online. Amongst many comments, one person said "BEZ THINKS ANCHOVIES ARE CALLED HANDKERCHIEFS. Give him the trophy NOW."

Then, when Bez did some actual stirring, he also made people laugh as well.

When the contestants were asked to create a pasta carbonara dish in 15 minutes, Bez stirred his pan of pasta, not with a spoon, but with a massive rolling pin.

Following these hilarious moments on his debut appearance on the show, in last night’s episode (August 10th) his Indian dessert cracked judges Gregg Wallace and John Torode up!

The contestants were visited by professional chef Nisha Katona, and each celebrity was required to make a different dish from her menu. Bez’s task was to make jalebi and gulab jamun, creating two different doughs and syrups to go with each dish. Not an easy challenge, and Bez’s jalebi was certainly not helped by the fact that the lid from his bottle of batter fell off, sending it all into the fryer at once and completely messing it up.

However, despite the incident being described as “an unqualified disaster,” by Gregg, Nisha was more forgiving, saying that she was impressed with the flavour and that “if I was eating those with a spoon, I'd be so happy.”

His other dessert, the gulab jamun, was also somewhat unconventional. Studying the fried dough balls, Gregg said, “Should they defy gravity, these? I mean, what is that? Some sort of magic trick?”