Review of “My love letter to Bake Off” by Emma Freud
Emma Freud’s “My love letter to Bake Off” is an article of appraisal to the show Great British Bake Off which aims to persuade the reader to watch the Bake Off on TV. By using a friendly tone and many hyperbolic adjectives she tries to make the reader interested enough in the show to actually watch it. Even before you have started to read it the title influences the way you as a reader receive the text as “My love letter to Bake Off” implies that you’re going to be reading a positive review of the Bake Off.
The first paragraph starts with the phrase “Back in the 60’s” and Emma Freud uses fronting here to add a nostalgic effect to her article as she goes on to speak about the show which her father used to present. She uses the description of her father’s old show as a comparison against the Bake Off which she believes to be a better version of the show that her father presented. She describes the food he made as “drunkards soup” and talks about the “deadpan jokes” that he used to tell and by doing this the voice of the text becomes very friendly and personal, it’s almost as if she is talking to you through the text. She goes on to say that her Dad’s programme was “clearly actually rubbish” in comparison to the Bake Off and says that the Bake Off “is a total triumph of the imagination.” This description has added emphasis as it’s used in a short sentence and the alliteration adds impact to the word triumph. The pragmatic function of this paragraph is to show that the Bake Off is a unique show and to say that the nostalgic feeling you can get from seeing original baking can be extremely satisfying.
The second paragraph is about the amateur cooks that are on the show and she uses this to build a rapport with the reader. She uses a clause to dismiss the assumption that people have about talent shows saying, “There not to audition for a spin off series, but to intensify their cooking skills”. By doing this it is almost as if she is answering a question from the reader and so the friendly voice of the text begins to become more powerful and as a reader you begin to become more involved in the text. She then makes a joke that adds more to the view that she is trying to give of Bake Off. The pragmatic function of this paragraph was to tell the reader that the Bake Off is a gentle show and by using the word “soul” she softens the whole air of competition.
In the next three paragraphs she begins to describe the celebrity presenters and judges on the show and straight away we can see that her opinion of them is extremely biased. When describing Mel and Sue she uses lots of pre-modifiers before her adjectives such as, “constantly funny, brilliantly laid-back and beautifully honest.” These words intensify the meaning of what she is saying and show that she is clearly a big fan of the style that the Bake Off’s presenters use. She also uses para-phrasing to stop the text from becoming to obviously persuasive and come back to the friendly tone that she had before. From her paragraph on Mary Berry we can see that she genuinely thinks Mary Berry is an influential person as she calls her a “role model” and “an actual Godess” which are strong compliments. She says that “She bakes like she invented it, which I think she probably did,” this is slightly satirical but yet as the discourse of the text is so friendly as a reader we feel as if we know that this is light hearted and that it’s clear she has a genuine respect and appreciation of Mary Berry’s baking ability. Hyperbole is used when she says, “I literally worship her,” and this shows that she is using strong description to try and be persuasive as she is very personal in the way she writes and the reader could be convinced to be interested in the show if such a friendly voice is so full of praise for Mary Berry. To describe Paul Hollywood she uses “behemoth” as an epithet which not only implies strength and power but also metaphorically