THE HEAT is on!

LESLEY JOSEPH and PAUL CHUCKLE on entering TV’s scariest kitchen…

Pots and pans at the ready, as ever-popular culinary competition Celebrity MasterChef returns to BBC1 for a 17th series this week.

Among the fresh batch of 20 famous faces trying to impress judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace are Paul Chuckle, best known for being one half of comedy duo the Chuckle Brothers, and Birds of a Feather favourite Lesley Joseph.

Here, in an exclusive interview, Paul, 74, and Lesley, 76, who are competing in heats one and three respectively, tell TV Times why they couldn’t wait to pull on their aprons…

What appealed to you about taking part in this show?

PAUL I’ve always wanted to do MasterChef ! I find cooking so relaxing. It’s a bit like doing a painting – you start with a blank canvas and end up with something really nice. I like to experiment with ingredients and enjoy making curries and roast dinners.

LESLEY I’m not the best cook, but I’ve always enjoyed cooking and I was hoping MasterChef would help me fine-tune it. I love doing fancy things like big Sunday lunches – it’s the dayto-day cooking that bores me!

Do you both have signature dishes you like to serve?

LESLEY I make a mean pavlova. I leave it in the oven overnight, which gives it a really crispy outside and really chewy inside. It’s just gorgeous!