BAFTA Award-nominated Gordon Ramsay’s F Word is television’s most entertaining food magazine show. Last year the second season consolidated its reputation for a fresh, edgy and innovative approach to all things foodie. Now it’s back for a third series, and it’s bigger and better than ever.

Once again the series is set in a glamorous, bustling restaurant so all the action takes place against the backdrop of a working kitchen staffed by Gordon and his amateur brigade: four passionate home cooks who have never cooked for paying diners before but think they’ve got what it takes. New this series: in Gordon Ramsay’s Fast Food , Gordon tackles the “I haven’t got time to cook” brigade. He’s determined to get the country cooking and prove that fast food doesn’t have to be bad food; Janet Street Porter starts slapping F Word Food ASBOs on purveyors of “anti-social food behaviour”; Gordon hunts down and kills some of Britain’s best ingredients; and he faces his toughest smallholding challenge to date: raising two lambs in his back garden. Even Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall thinks he’s bitten off more than he can chew.

In tonight’s first show the first lady of British comedy, Dawn French, joins Gordon for dinner at his new restaurant. Dawn spills the beans on her husband Lenny Henry, grabs a snog from Gordon and helps him launch Find Me a Fanny , his search for a new female television cook (applicants should go to www.findmeafanny.com). This week’s brigade, The Eton Boys, are responsible for preparing crab spring rolls with chilli dipping sauce, loin of venison with sweet and sour peppers, and profiteroles with hot chocolate sauce. In a new departure, the best-performing brigade of the series will return at the end of the run to cook at Gordon’s restaurant at Claridges, so the stakes have never been higher.

Channel 4, 8th May, 9PM