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Widdersham high street in bloom, dressed with bunting for the festival

An Original Television Series

Just Desserts

presents

The Widdersham Baking Festival
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Welcome

A village where nothing bad ever happens.

Widdersham sits in a fold of the Cotswolds, one hundred and forty souls, honey-coloured stone, and a baking festival that has run without interruption since 2013.

The bunting goes up in May. The marquee goes up in June. The whole village turns out. It is, by any measure, one of the loveliest weeks in the English calendar.

Seven people have died here during festival week. Nobody has ever thought to mention it.

Widdersham seen from the hill above
The festival marquee on the village green

The Fourteenth Annual

Everyone in Widdersham makes excellent scones.

Someone is also murdering the competition. Literally.

The Series

Eight hours in a very pretty place.

8
Episodes
A complete, self-contained season with clear series potential beyond.
60’
Runtime
Full hour drama. The competition, the investigation and the characters all need room.
12
Bakers
Twelve bakers. One absentee. And a journalist desperate to get back in the game.
7+
Bodies
Six memorial plaques. One dead journalist. And whoever runs the scone stall is not to be trusted.
Dorothy's bed and breakfast

Widdersham-upon-Wensleydale

The Village

The Widdersham bed and breakfast

Accommodation

Dorothy & Harold’s

Floral wallpaper. A grandfather clock. A laminated information card, double-sided, in size eight font, that includes the instruction no eye contact.

Dorothy does not serve coffee. Dorothy has never served coffee. If you ask for coffee you will receive Earl Grey and Dorothy will look at you as though you have asked for something obscene.

The Ghost Suite is available. There is no ghost. There is a man called Tony who comes in to talk to the barn owl.

The Crown & Whisk

The public house.

Low beams. Horse brasses. A jukebox stuck somewhere around 1987. Terry behind the bar, who does not permit outside drinks and does exceptional crisps.

This is where the village decides things. Not officially. There is a committee for that, and the committee meets in the community hall, and the committee does what it is told.

Inside the Crown and Whisk

Continue

Some of Widdersham’s residents are no longer with us.

Fresh bread and pastries at the Widdersham bakery

A Brief History

Fourteen Years. Or Possibly Longer.

Origins

Nobody entirely agrees on how it started.

The Widdersham Baking Festival began, depending on who you ask, in either 2013 or 1923. The parish newsletter favours 2013. The commemorative ironwork above the village green favours 1923. The matter has never been resolved, and Widdersham, on the whole, would rather not resolve it.

What is generally agreed upon is this: it started as a modest church fete with a jam stall, a tombola, and a disappointing turnout. It is now, by any reasonable measure, the single most significant event in the Cotswolds calendar — a claim the neighbouring village of Fenwick-on-the-Water disputes loudly and, so far, unsuccessfully.

The festival has run every year without interruption, a fact the committee mentions often and with a pride that has never once been questioned aloud.

Pastries at the festival
“We don’t like to call it a competition. We prefer ‘a celebration with outcomes.’”Councillor Brian, Opening Address, Every Year
14
Years Running
Or one hundred and three, depending which plaque you believe.
7
Golden Whisks
Awarded to the same recipient. The rules technically permit this.
0
Formal Complaints
Lodged with the committee, in fourteen years, about anything at all.
7
Unconnected Incidents
The committee wishes to stress that word: unconnected.
The village bakery counter

Amenities

Everything a visitor could want. Almost.

The high street runs the length of the village and contains, in order: a butcher who does not appreciate being asked questions, a post office, a tea room that closes without warning, and Pam’s stall, which does a lovely Victoria sponge and a slightly menacing line of eye contact.

Market stalls open every morning during festival week. Dorothy does jam. Harold does tomatoes — big, red, impossible to miss from the road, as he will tell you unprompted. The bakery on the corner has been run by the same family for three generations, none of whom have ever been asked to give an interview, and all of whom have politely declined anyway.

The Whisk

A trophy with rather more history than paperwork.

Fresh baked bread
Cupcakes
Cake display
The garden at Dorothy's B&B
Wildflowers around the village

From the Archive

Lavender & Honey Biscuits.

One of several recipes recovered from the committee archive, attributed only to “J.A.” and dated, unhelpfully, “every year, as usual.”

The biscuits are, by all accounts, extremely good. The committee has never explained why this particular card was kept separately from the others, in a drawer, under a photograph of the memorial garden.

A handwritten recipe card for lavender and honey biscuits

Continue

The village remembers everything.

The memorial garden

Widdersham Remembers

In Memoriam

The Memorial Garden

Remembering the murdered dead.

Six plaques on a low stone wall. Fresh flowers every week — there is a rota, and everyone takes a turn. Dorothy does October. She does chrysanthemums.

Jean Alcott
1941 – 2018
“She Always Gave Her Best”
Cause of Death
Locked in the walk-in freezer during competition week. Ruled accidental.
Wensleydale Constabulary
Gerald Humphries
1939 – 2020
“He Rose Every Morning”
Cause of Death
Choked on apple pie. Described by the coroner as “always a mouthful.”
Wensleydale Constabulary
Roger Twelvetrees
1956 – 2022
“A Man Who Knew His Dough”
Cause of Death
Cardiac event. Leading the competition by four points at time of death.
Wensleydale Constabulary
Martin Hammond
1947 – 2023
“A Proven Family Man”
Cause of Death
Found in the downstairs lavatory. PC Danny concluded he “probably pushed too hard.”
Wensleydale Constabulary
Keith Wrexham
1962 – 2023
“An Enthusiastic Amateur”
Cause of Death
Self-inflicted. Eight times. Through the neck. With a paring knife. Ruled misadventure.
Wensleydale Constabulary
Patricia Doone
1938 – 2024
“A Good Egg”
Cause of Death
Fell from a roof. PC Danny recorded it as “a very loud cry for help.”
Wensleydale Constabulary

Select a plaque for further details

One further death was noted without explanation. The committee has never accounted for it. The committee would prefer not to discuss this incident.

Continue

Widdersham welcomes you all the same.

Enquiries

Get in touch.

The pilot script and full season bible are available on request. If you are a producer, development executive, agent, or anyone else with an interest in Just Desserts, please get in touch directly.

All enquiries are welcome.

Email
alexander.peel@outlook.com

For script requests, please include a brief introduction and your role in the industry. The pilot script is shared at the writer’s discretion.

Available on request.

  • —The pilot script — a complete, production-ready episode one.
  • —The season bible — full eight-episode breakdown, character arcs and series potential.
  • —The pitch deck — the full visual presentation.
  • —The series synopsis — a complete overview of season one, ending included.
  • —A meeting — calls, pitches and conversations very welcome.

The Writer

Lex Peel is a writer based on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. Just Desserts is his debut television project — a dark comedy mystery thriller that came directly from two lifelong obsessions: baking and murder mysteries. He wrote it because he wanted to watch it, and nobody else had made it.

The pilot script ranked in the top 19% of all material evaluated on The Black List.