Why is The Great British Baking Show so Popular?

How is it an example of freedom in restraint?

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

I just noticed that a new season of The Great British Baking Show will air this fall. My husband and I faithfully watch it every year, though our kids are over it. I never fail to marvel at the show's enduring appeal, not just for us but for so many others. With consistently high ratings and a record 14.8 million viewers at its peak, the show has also gained a strong following on Netflix. 

At first glance, no one would expect this modest baking show to achieve such remarkable success. The characters are almost universally polite and unpretentious (they are British). The humor often consists of cheesy puns and elementary school bathroom jokes, and it lacks the celebrity impact of its American counterparts.

(Are you a Great British Baking Show Fan? Leave a comment if so!)

However, perhaps most interestingly, they clearly lack the American emphasis on art as individual expression. What sets the show apart is its commitment to tradition over the American emphasis on progress and innovation. They understand (at least within the rules of the show) that true freedom and creativity in art are found within a framework of restraint.

Bakers are tasked with baking traditional recipes that, in some cases, have been around for centuries. They are judged not on how they reinterpret or elevate those bakes but rather on how well they adhere to the original rules. I mean, WHAT is a Victoria Sponge Cake?

It's not that there is no individual expression; rather, it flourishes within the boundaries of tradition and conformity—there it is on full display, impossible to ignore. I think we are strangely fascinated by how different that is from all our cherished assumptions.

Freedom and Bondage?

We are obsessed with personal voice and individual expression that is not only bizarre but ultimately fails to achieve the individuality it claims to uphold. In other words, those who seek absolute individuality usually only obtain clear social conformity.

The Great British Baking Show offers a beautiful example of submission to tradition. Americans don’t lack similar examples—crew rowers, ballerinas, and even our bakers all find freedom within discipline. We see it everywhere and—admit it or not—are forced to recognize its truth.

Real artistic freedom comes from working within limits. Humans are not designed for unrestricted freedom, which often leads to misery and insecurity. We thrive within boundaries.

There is an audacious freedom found only in bondage. Biblical authority and freedom blended rightly is like a breathless dance in which all take their assigned place.

As Thomas Howard said in his book, Chance or the Dance, “…this old idea that men—we and the stars and acorns and angels—are all, in our different modes, under the sovereignty of the whole pattern. It was sometimes called the dance, as though we were all moving sovereignly and joyously in measure, finding our true freedom in the discovery of the steps appointed to us. Emancipation from this idea resulted eventually in a radical change in our whole idea of what it means to be free. Now the idea of freedom is something like autonomy” (emphases mine).

Lewis described it as “a celebrant approaching the altar, a princess led out by a king to dance a minuet, a general officer on a ceremonial parade, a major-domo preceding a boar’s head a Christmas feast—all these wear unusual clothes and move with calculated dignity. This does not mean that they are vain, but that they are obedient.”

Key Takeaway: Don’t resent the limitations God may have placed in your life. Understand that true freedom is found within restraint—be it God-placed authority figures, scrubbing toilets, filing papers, loading the dishwasher, long meetings, a stressful schedule, or any type of hard work.

And…

Foster your kids’ creativity by making them color WITHIN the lines.