Great British Bake Off bosses were in a jam when beloved judge Prue Leith wanted to leave. Prue departing would not be the show-stopper any of the series’ millions of fans wanted to see. But makers Love Production got out of a pickle by finding the right recipe to convince Prue, 84, to stay – alongside fellow judge Paul Hollywood, 58, and hosts Alison Hammond , 49, and Noel Fielding , 51.
They changed filming so Prue, and the crew, can have some weekends off . But she will be missing from the next Celebrity version of Bake Off, which raises money for Channel 4 ’s Stand Up To Cancer charity. Asked if stepping back would have been difficult, Dame Prue, who replaced Mary Berry in 2017, said: “It wasn’t really hard as I was getting really tired.
” She said they were shooting from April to the end of August with no weekends off. “I was in a new house and I hardly saw the garden, I hardly saw my family and I never had a summer holiday.” But the producers talked her out of quitting and she has just spent nearly a month away with husband John on the Silk Road in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.
She said: “So, I got what I wanted, which is to do less. I’m so grateful to Love Production because they’ve been very accommodating.” Prue and Paul will be seen judging Bake Off signature, technical and show-stopper challenges from next week.
She said: “I’ve got to stop some time, definitely before some producer says to me: ‘You know what, Prue? I think you’re gettin.