Believe it or not, even a big outdoor tent in the British countryside isn’t safe from the spread of the coronavirus—regardless of how generally positive and uplifting the people in that tent tend to be. As reported by Deadline, production on the 11th season of The Great British Bake Off (that’s The Great British Baking Show if you’re a boorish American) has been delayed due to the ongoing pandemic. Filming was supposed to start in April, which is in a couple of days, but the producers at Love Productions have decided to hold off and “monitor the situation and follow the advice of Public Health England” for now.
Luckily, it sounds like some people involved are hopeful that the delay won’t be too long, with newcomer Matt Lucas (replacing Sandi Toksvig, who left earlier this year) referring to the new season as “a bit delayed.” Deadline takes that as an implication that this could be a matter of weeks and not months, which would theoretically save the show from having to delay the actual premiere of the new season. That would, of course, largely depend on how this whole coronavirus thing plays out over the next few weeks, but essentially saying “we’ll come back to this when we can” is a reasonably optimistic stance to take in these grim times and it’s oddly comforting. Not regular comforting like, say, The Great British Bake Off, but we’ll take it.