Competitive cooking show MasterChef will be back on our screens next Tuesday with a brand new series.

Before Christmas, we had The Professionals. Next week we’ve got The People Who Do Something They Hate For A Living (but are actually quite handy in the kitchen!)

24 contestants will be reduced on a high heat to 12, then a dozen aspiring chefs will continue their gruelling pursuit of culinary glory with the notorious Invention Test, where they’ll be presented with a pile of ingredients – oysters, custard and chives, or something, then asked to “put themselves on a plate” and barked at intermittently for days on end.

2 more contestants will then be set to one side, and the remaining 10 will be sent to a professional kitchen where their relative incompetence will be exposed for our amusement or, alternatively, they will triumph against the odds to a suitably uplifting soundtrack.

And then? Then they’ll head back to the MasterChef kitchen, where they’ll show off their new skills backed by some pumping electro beats and inspired by the thought of a bald Cockney man giggling with pleasure when he samples their traumatically-assembled creations.

Asked for a worn-out cliché that would be soothingly familiar to fans of the show, John Torode said: “As we know, cooking does not get tougher than this!”

To get you in the mood for the new series, here are our top 3 MasterChef-related nuggets of funniness:


Vic and Bob’s spoof of 90s Grossman-era MasterChef is an inspired blend of Jesus fry-ups, arse platters and shoe cakes.


This edited version of the 2010 MasterChef final borders on genius.


It’s hard to see how anyone could improve on this effort from Swede Mason. An instant classic.

Will you be watching MasterChef next week? Let us know!