Marco Pierre White is set to judge the cooking skills of celebrities including Alex James and Keith Duffy in competitive new travelling cookery show set at sea. P&O Cruises newest ship Britannia is to be the star of Battlechefs, from award-winning television network UKTV.

P&O Cruises is teaming up with Spark Media to bring the show to its flagship entertainment channel Watch. The show will see ten amateur celebrity chefs including Alex James (Blur), Keith Duffy (Boyzone) and John Partridge (EastEnders) board Britannia and take it in turns to command the kitchen. Their talents will be judged by British celebrity chef and P&O Cruises Food Hero Marco Pierre White.

Filmed over two Mediterranean cruises on Britannia, each itinerary will be host to its own self-contained competition featuring five celebrities, who will each assume the role of head chef and prepare a meal for the Captain and his VIP guests. In each episode, we follow the untrained chefs as the ship sails from port to port they discover charming and captivating stories about each location and the food that is grown and produced locally.

Using the new cooking techniques they’ve learnt, they will each try to impress the Captain with their skills. Their competitors will help prepare the meal, but as they also get a chance to score each other, will they play tactically as they fight it out to become Battlechefs Champion?

The new series was ordered by Dave General Manager, Steve North. In partnership with P&O Cruises, the show was brokered by UKTV’s Director of Commercial Partnerships, Sally Quick, Spark Media Partner founders Mark Baker and Steve Havers and P&O Cruises Marketing Director, Christopher Edgington.

Spark Media’s Mark Baker said, “Battlechefs is part travelogue and part game show. It’s a TV hybrid that features celebs who are passionate about food. They’ll be on Britain’s biggest cruise liner as it tours the Med in the world’s first floating cookery competition.”

Battlechefs will air on Watch in 2016. It joins a raft of new content coming to the channel including Singing in the Rainforest, starring well-known celebrities including Myleene Klass and the Happy Mondays, Nigel Marvin’s Cruise Ship Adventures, which travels to some of the world’s most exotic locations discovering incredible wildlife and top rating US acquisition Secrets and Lies.