
Monica – who, in real life, manages to be as formidable as she seems on TV, yet really nice at the same time – shows us how to open the urchins by smacking them with the back of a spoon and then getting to work with the scissors (as if they haven’t already been through enough, having been yanked out of their shady rock pools and dumped on a tray under this harsh strip lighting). I needed the MasterChef: The Professionals skills test. I needed Monica Galetti and a sea urchin… No, I needed the toughest challenge there is.

Frankly, as an alumnus of MasterChef: The Journalists Who Could Be Arsed to Trek to Wandsworth Town First Thing in the Morning, Celebrity MasterChef would have been a bit of a step down.

As an online TV journalist with one of the least memorable names ever handed out, I’m well aware that however fast and loose they play it with the definition of the word “celebrity”, I’m unlikely ever to qualify for Celebrity MasterChef.
