With all the world’s best athletes in Paris for the 2024 Olympics, eight of the UK’s mid-table slebs are in the ITV studios for the fourth series of Cooking with the Stars (ITV1, 30 July, 8pm).

And as the sporting greats dream of gold medals, our C-listers have their eye on what Sharry Cramond, marketing director of the show’s co-funder M&S, has called “the most sought-after prize on British TV”: a golden frying pan.

For those unfamiliar with the format, celebrity contestants are each paired with an expert chef mentor and compete to cook a pre-practiced meal, judged by the other professionals. The losers each week compete in a cook-off, where the lowest-scoring two battle it out, preparing the same dish before one heads home after a blind judging.

There was some Olympic flavour to the new series – with Linford Christie and Ellie Simmonds among the new batch of hopefuls. The rest? Also-rans like Christopher Biggins, Abbey Clancy and YouTuber Harry Pinero.

The opening head-to-head of the new series saw Clancy and Carol Vorderman in a battle most notable for the constant threat of hair extensions falling into the food. “My nails are my superpower, like a built-in knife,” Clancy said, adding to the unappetising peril.

Without M&S’s backing, it’s quite clear the show would not have survived this long. But, according to Cramond, it’s “the most successful advertising funded programme in UK history” with the latest series “genuinely the best one yet”.

In the supermarket’s eyes, then, – if not viewers’ – it retains its podium place.

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