Gordon Ramsay Cooks Up Thunderdome-esque Culinary Competition Show for ITV

British celebrity hothead Gordon Ramsay is busy signing deals that will keep him on television until the end of time, or until we collectively lose interest in watching chefs yell at other chefs — whichever comes first. Ramsay is producing a new hour-long weekday culinary competition show for UK network ITV that will pit amateur cooks against each other for cash and prizes. Dubbed Culinary Genius, the 20-episode series will feature nine competitors working alongside a rotating roster of famous chefs. When the show premieres, Ramsay will take that first week-long shift as the celebrity guest.

Culinary Genius is one of the first projects that Ramsay is working on as part of Studio Ramsay, a company that he formed with the production group All3Media last year. The chef/entrepreneur tells Deadline: “It’s a high-octane show held at a Thunderdome-style arena, with the audience sitting in anticipation as nine people with knives enter the octagon.” Although ITV has not announced an air date for the program yet, apparently there is already interest in adapting the show for American audiences, and Ramsay is considering a spinoff with children, along the lines of MasterChef Junior.

In other Ramsay TV news, the chef will do a week-long co-hosting stint on UK talk/entertainment program The Nightly Show at some point in the not-too-distant future, and he’s working on a new primetime documentary series for ITV, which he describes as “hard-hitting.” Ramsay previously dabbled in the documentary format with Shark Bait, a made-for-TV film about the illegal shark trade, which premiered in 2011.

Meanwhile, back in America, the Season 16 finale of Ramsay’s Fox program Hell’s Kitchen airs on Thursday, and his much more popular series MasterChef will return this summer. El Gordo is also developing a version of his UK competition series The F Word for Fox, but the network has not announced an air date for that show yet.

• Gordon Ramsay To Produce Daytime Cooking Show & Docu Series [Deadline]
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