Noel Fielding Almost Chokes Up Sending Two Bakers Home on ‘The Great British Baking Show’ “Pastry Week”

I’ve always felt like the worst part of being a host on The Great British Baking Show must be having to tell a sweet, angelic baker they have to pack up their bench scraper and go home. How do you live with yourself knowing that it is your voice who crushes someone’s dreams? It seems that this odious part of the gig might have gotten to Noel Fielding this week. Noel seemed visibly upset when he had to eliminate two bakers from The Great British Baking Show “Pastry Week” on Netflix.

**Spoilers for The Great British Baking Show “Pastry Week,” now streaming on Netflix.**

Noel Fielding’s voice actually seemed to catch a bit when he told cheerful Scottish-born baker Nicky Laceby and hilarious 21-year-old Rowan Claughton that they were eliminated from The Great British Baking Show. Not only that, but throughout the episode, he along with co-host Alison Hammond expressed just how upset they were over the fact that two bakers would be leaving the tent. It’s just another sign that this particular group of bakers and this specific season of The Great British Baking Show is succeeding in stealing our hearts.

In the weeks leading up to the premiere of the 2023 season of The Great British Baking Show on Netflix, we learned that the show’s producers had taken many of the criticisms lobbed at the series last year to heart. There would be no more “Mexican Week” debacles, they said. Effervescent new co-host Alison Hammond jollied up the tent, they promised. The brief was to go back to basics, we were told.

Now that we’re halfway through the latest season of The Great British Baking Show — known as Collection 11 on Netflix — it seems as if the show has indeed recaptured what made it great in the first place: an emphasis on kindness. The only downside of The Great British Baking Show‘s incredibly warm and enchanting energy this season is that I think we’re all getting even more attached to the bakers than we usually are. (At least, I am.) And that’s clearly carried over to the hosts themselves, who really, really didn’t want to see anyone go home this week.

Midway through The Great British Baking Show “Pastry Week,” Alison and Noel asked judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith to assess how the bakers were doing. While Paul noted that overall the bakers were doing better than last week, there were still folks in trouble. Noel usually listens in on these conversations with a polite frown, but when Paul and Prue said Saku Chandrasekara was in trouble, Noel grimaced and literally hit the table in frustration. “Saku can’t go!”

Alison commiserated with Noel and noted she wanted all the bakers to do well. Noel added on to this, “They’re becoming quite a tight little gang as well,” before Alison gossiped about their WhatsApp group.

Noel’s concern for the bakers cropped up again later in the episode, while Paul and Prue were deliberating on who to send home. “We know them all so well now,” Noel said.

We know that Paul, Prue, Noel, and former co-host Matt Lucas bonded greatly with the bakers when they were in the Bake Off bubble at Down Hall in 2020 and 2021. However, Noel’s tenderness this week made me wonder if a similar level of bonding has happened on this season

It’s never fun to eliminate someone from The Great British Baking Show, but Noel Fielding looked actually gutted to announce which two bakers would be going home on “Pastry Week.” I was upset, too! Nicky lit up the tent with her adorable style and Scottish brogue and Rowan was always serving up hilarious self deprecating appraisals of his work. While I totally understand why it was time for both to depart — Nicky struggled throughout the week and came in last on the Technical, while Rowan’s Absolutely Fabulous-inspired showstoppers were unmitigated disasters — it still sucked to see them go. Which is to say, I totally commiserated with Noel this week. I also felt awful just hearing Nicky and Rowan’s names uttered aloud.

If The Great British Baking Show “Pastry Week” proved one thing, it’s that we’ve all fallen hard for this year’s crop of bakers and it’s just going to get more difficult to see them go. No one is feeling that pain worse than the guy who has to deliver the bad news, Noel Fielding.