Tom Allen Has Learnt To Embrace His Inner Elitist

By his own hilarious admission, Tom Allen is a bitch. The British comic has made a name for himself in the UK as the snooty co-host of The Great British Bake Off’s companion show An Extra Slice, with his condescending critiques of viewers’ baked creations. 

“I’m amazed I don’t get punched in the face more,” he laughs. “But I think people quite enjoy it and they know it’s meant with the greatest love and respect and also an unrepentant mocking of their rubbish cakes. 

“Being in our very earnest age that we live, even when things don’t go to plan people are very encouraging about them – and I think there’s something to embracing a bit of harsh criticism. And anyone who has encountered my judging is very well aware that I don’t bring anything to the table, so it’s very much in the notion of people in glass houses throwing stones. That’s what I am.”

Though the well dressed Allen is often seen donning pocket squares and tailored suits, the stand-up admits he didn’t inherit his bitchy demeanour from posh parents. “The truth is I come from a very ordinary background: I don’t have any right to be such a snob or to look my nose down at people, but it comes from a long tradition of A) gay people and B) British people.

"As humans, we’re always judging and what I like to do is bring that into the light more to expose how ridiculous that is."

“Despite all my haughtiness, for the last five years I’ve been living at home with my very dear but totally ordinary, working-class parents. Since I was a small child they’ve always been bemused to the fact that I sound like I’ve come from a 1930s black and white movie. Even when I was four or five years old I sounded like I do now, and they’d say things like, ‘Oh, we don’ know where we got ‘im from!’ But as I got older I learnt to embrace that eccentricity more and more, and I’d take to wearing suits and hats to go to something like a family barbecue, and they’d go, ‘Aw, can’t ‘e wear summin' normal for once!’ I’ve always been an outsider, and my comedy tends to come from experiencing very ordinary things from a lens of someone who, for no good reason, feels like they’re better than everyone else.”

Since learning to embrace his inner elitism, Allen says he’s noticed more and more that he’s not the only one. “Everybody has an air of that ‘snobability,’” he says. “Everybody at some level loves a bit of a bitch, and I think it’s something that needs to be more acknowledged, is that men are bitches. I see this often when I go to the gym, and men just love to be mean to each other. Sometimes they’ll do it to each other, but often there’ll be a group of blokes, and then one of them will walk off, and the group will start bitching about what he’s wearing and what he’s doing. All sections of society are able to turn their noses up at the rest. I thought it was just me for a long time, but I’ve found that the more haughty you are, the more people seem to relate to it because everyone has a bit of that inside them.”

He also notes that while the 21st century has seen some of history’s greatest bitches, ‘snobability’ have been around for some time. “I think it’s always been the case, and even back in like the 19th century, there were probably people going, ‘Did you see what gruel they’re serving?! Not as good as ours!’” Allen quips. “I think it’s something that has always existed, and in the age of the internet with things like trolling and things like that, I suppose that’s just a version of pulling people apart and judging. As humans, we’re always judging and what I like to do is bring that into the light more to expose how ridiculous that is. There’s something about it that removes the cruelty when you do it in comedy, and that’s why I like to do it. Comedy for me is all about removing the cruelty from those situations and playing with those ideas and making them less painful and threatening.”