Greggs: More than Meats the Pie

Series one, episode two
‘I’d rather just go upstairs and work.’ Well that’s too bad, Dan from the Southampton branch of Greggs. Because it’s Red Nose Day. And that means that you have no choice but to don a wig and costume and serve the public while both looking and feeling like a prize tit. It’s the worst case of enforced workplace jollity we’ve seen since ‘The Office’. And at least that had the excuse of being fictional.

It’s a scene that rather encapsulates the problem with this documentary series. ‘Greggs: More than Meats the Pie’ is desperate to have its Belgian bun and eat it. It’s keen to stress the reach and financial heft of the business. But it trades on bathos too: the idea that there’s something intrinsically amusing about the brand and its products.

Still, it’s jolly enough; tonight, the ladies of Gateshead Greggs make a naked calender while their engaging London sister-in-barms Claudette dismisses the idea of doing something similar (‘You’re trying to raise money, right?’). Whether it can sustain eight episodes remains to be seen, however…