Jamie’s Christmas With Bells On

Jamie instructs his child-slaves to manufacture chocolate

Hey everyone! Great news for these troubled times: Noel’s House Party is back, complete with traditional cartoon-like intro, people in ridiculous costumes, a gimmicky set, a gurning host wearing atrocious knitted jumpers and…

Ah, sorry. Got the wrong end of the stick. It’s actually the new three-part cookery show from self-styled food Jesus, Jamie Oliver.

The goal of Jamie’s Christmas Whatsit is to demonstrate some quick and easy recipes and show viewers how best to pre-prepare Christmas food in order to save time on the big day. And to be fair to him, all the recipes looked delicious: from the home made waffles dipped in hot chocolate (cooked, apparently, at a campsite in Narnia) to the creative turkey, mushroom and cranberry wellington.

Om nom nom, etc.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy to get at the cookery under all the layers of gaudy wrapping paper, i.e. the fake snow, madcap antics, millions of hand made paper snowflakes, bunting and the unnecessary celebrity ‘friends’- including professional scamp Dexter Fletcher and an Italian bloke dressed, inexplicably, as a turkey.

Talk about over egg-nogging the pudding: it was in your face, over-the-top and ridiculous. A bit like Jamie himself, in fact.

Another distracting aspect was the way Jamie hauled his ‘perfect’ family in front of the cameras whenever he got the chance, like a politician who’s just been convicted of carrying out some kind of misguided sex act in a public toilet, albeit slightly more forced and awkward.

A tired-looking Jools is made to dangle the latest baby in the background while Jamie throws whole onions and bacon bits into a casserole dish to make gravy; while his nervous ‘little mum’ is repeatedly patronised as she helps to create a firey, scotch bonnet chilli-laced jerk ham dish that she probably wouldn’t choose to make at home in a million years:

“Look at that. Whack it on a bit of bread. Whazz it up with a thingy. Luvverly. What’d you serve that with, mum?”

“Er, coleslaw?”

*Angry silence*

I’m sure that Jamie is a genuine family man, but in this cartoonish world of enforced jollity, santa suits and snow cannons he comes across as a terrifying, controlling Charles Manson-in-a-festive jumper style cult leader.

At one point he gets so het up and passionate about his ‘semi-freddo’ ice cream recipe that he looks like he’s either going to orgasm, hit someone or explode.

There’s no doubt his food both looks and tastes good (I personally swear by his fruit cobbler), but do yourself a favour and just check out the recipes online. That way, you won’t have to watch the world-famous chef doing a provocative dance and grabbing his crotch while dressed, slightly upsettingly, as Santa.

Let’s hope his three hundred or so kids (and his ‘little old mum’) didn’t see that bit.

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Jamie’s Christmas With Bells on is on Channel 4, Tuesday 20th December at 9pm. You can catch up on 4od here