‘The Great British Baking Show: Holidays’: Where’s Noel Fielding? And Who is Tom Allen?

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! It’s the day new episodes of The Great British Baking Show: Holidays premiere on Netflix. Today two new installments of the The Great British Baking Show‘s traditional holiday specials dropped, one Christmas-themed and one ringing in the new year. While it was a welcome delight to see Paul Hollywood, Prue Leith, and Matt Lucas join the likes of Rosie, Ruby, and more in the tent, one familiar face was missing from the excitement: Noel Fielding.

Noel Fielding is missing from the first Christmas-themed episode of The Great British Baking Show: Holidays that premiered today on Netflix. So where is Noel? And who is his besuited replacement, Tom Allen? As it happens, Noel Fielding wasn’t fired from The Great British Baking Show. No, he appears in The Great British Baking Show: Holidays‘s second, New Years’ Day-themed installment. So what gives? Why isn’t Noel in “The Great Christmas Bake Off?”

Here’s everything you need to know about Noel Fielding’s (brief) absence from The Great British Baking Show tent in The Great British Baking Show: Holidays on Netflix…

WHY ISN’T NOEL FIELDING IN THE GREAT BRITISH BAKING SHOW: HOLIDAYS EPISODE ON NETFLIX? WHERE IS NOEL FIELDING?

Noel Fielding isn’t in the new Christmas episode of The Great British Baking Show: Holidays on Netflix because he was on paternity leave! Yup, Noel and his wife Liana Bird welcomed their second daughter when the Bake Off team was shooting this episode of The Great British Baking Show: Holidays.

These two new episodes of The Great British Baking Show: Holidays on Netflix originally aired in 2020 in the UK. The episodes were shot, not in May as Tom Allen quips, but in August 2020. That is, they were filmed after 2020 season of The Great British Baking Show was wrapped. Noel welcomed his second child at this time and had to tuck out of the bubble to be there for his family.

(I’m still not sure why Americans have to wait a full year for new installments of The Great British Baking Show: Holidays, but we do.)

WHAT ARE NOEL FIELDING’S CHILDREN’S NAMES?

Noel Fielding and his wife Liana “Birdy” Bird are the proud parents of two kids, Dali Fielding-Bird and Iggy Fielding-Bird. We learn in the second new episode of The Great British Baking Show: Holidays that former winner Rahul actually baked Dali’s first birthday cake.

WHO IS TOM ALLEN, NOEL FIELDING’S REPLACEMENT, ON THE GREAT BRITISH BAKING SHOW: HOLIDAYS?

While Noel was out on paternity leave, British comic Tom Allen subbed in for him. While Americans might not be super familiar with Tom Allen, he is a familiar face for UK-based Bake Off fans. Tom appears on two Great British Baking Show spin-offs across the pond. Since 2018, he has appeared opposite Jo Brand in the after show The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice and co-hosts Bake Off: The Professionals with former Great British Baking Show competitor Liam Charles.

Tom Allen first shot to fame in the UK by winning the prestigious competition, So You Think You’re Funny, and the BBC New Comedy Award in 2005. Since then, Allen has appeared in films like Starter for 10, lent his voice to Doctor Who audio stories, and appeared all over British TV.

You can follow Tom Allen on Twitter @tomallencomedy or on Instagram @tomindeed.

Watch The Great British Baking Show: Holidays on Netflix