Gird the Tent: The Derry Girls Are Coming to ‘The Great British Bake Off’

November 08, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Plus, Coca-Cola’s first new brand in a decade is sparkling water, and more news to start your day

The most ambitious crossover event in history

Two of the most charming shows out there are coming together for a crossover episode that’s bound to have both beautiful bakes and bountiful slang from across the United Kingdom.

In a New Year’s special called the Great Festive Bake Off, the cast of Derry Girls — the wickedly funny Channel 4 sitcom about the everyday exploits of awkward Catholic schoolgirls (and one token boy) in Northern Ireland in the ‘90s — will head to the iconic Great British Bake Off tent, Channel 4 and Derry Girls cast member Nicola Coughlan announced on Twitter. Helped (or hindered) by Noel and Sandi, as usual, the actors who play Erin (Saoirse-Monica Jackson), Clare (Coughlan), Michelle (Jamie-Lee O’Donnell), James (Dylan Llewellyn), and Sister Michael (Siobhan McSweeney) will compete against each other to impress Paul and Prue with the best bakes in the hopes of winning Star Baker.

The special will air on Channel 4 in the U.K. on New Year’s Day, and according to Coughlan, also in the U.S. at some point TBA. Until that date is announced, American fans of GBBO and Derry Girls — the Venn diagram of which is basically a circle — will just have to dream about all the baking challenges that may be issued in this episode: a festive Irish soda bread, or perhaps more nun-shaped choux religieuses?

And in other news…

• Coca-Cola’s first new brand in a decade is, naturally, sparkling water. Seltzer’s reign continues. [MarketWatch]
• Heineken is replacing plastic six-pack rings with cardboard toppers in the U.K. [Fast Company]
• An employee at Buffalo Wild Wings has died, and eight others have been hospitalized, after a “chemical incident” at the restaurant that may have stemmed from a cleaning agent. [NY Post]
• A white restaurant owner has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for abusing, threatening, and coercing a black employee into working more than 100 hours per week without pay. [Washington Post]
• Travis Kalanick, formerly of Uber, has a new ghost-kitchen startup called CloudKitchens. Its biggest backer is a Saudi sovereign-wealth fund; this is reportedly the fund’s first known deal in Silicon Valley since the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. [WSJ]

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