The Great British Bake Off will return to Channel 4 at 8pm on 22 September, and this season brings a real shake-up under the tent: Nigella Lawson joins the judging panel for the first time, and the season 17 cast includes drag king contestant Gabe, who performs as Blü Romantic.
A New Judge, A New Cast
Prue Leith announced back in January that she was stepping down, joking, "I'm 86 for goodness sake!" Lawson was confirmed as her replacement not long after, giving the show its first new judge alongside Paul Hollywood in years. The 12 amateur bakers span decades in age and background, from a paediatric doctor to a law student to a retired garment technologist. One baker, Danni, described watching Lawson arrive in the tent: it had, she said, "such a sense of wonder about her."
Meet Gabe
Gabe, 32, works as an artist and drag king who performs under the name Blü Romantic, self-styled as the "daddy of Birmingham drag." Drag kings remain far rarer on mainstream British television than drag queens, and Gabe's arrival follows Jessika, who became Bake Off's first-ever drag king contestant in the 2025 series. That makes Gabe the second, not the first, though the visibility still matters in a genre that has been slow to embrace the art form.
I have met Alison before, she famously smacked my bum, live on Channel 4 while I was in drag on Late Night Lycett, so I was excited to take our relationship to the next level.
Gabe
MQ's Take
Bake Off has quietly built a queer legacy for years, from hosts Sue Perkins and Sandi Toksvig to Matt Lucas, all fluent in the show's particular brand of camp double entendre. Lawson, whose own reputation for gleeful innuendo precedes her, slots into that lineage rather than breaking new ground on her own. What's genuinely new is the growing normalcy of a drag king baking alongside a paediatric doctor and a retired garment technologist, no special pleading required. That's the quiet win here: representation that doesn't need a headline to justify itself, just a place in the tent.
Source: PinkNews
Cover photo: British Library, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
