23 February 2023

MasterChef judge John Torode among people receiving honours at Palace

23 February 2023

A MasterChef judge and a Nobel Prize winner are due to receive honours at Buckingham Palace on Thursday.

Celebrity chef John Torode will be made an MBE for his services to food and charity, while Professor Sir David MacMillan will receive his knighthood for services to chemistry and science.

Torode, 57, has written several cookbooks and appeared on ITV’s This Morning in the late 1990s before taking over as a MasterChef judge in 2005 alongside Gregg Wallace.

Prof MacMillan was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2021 for the development of “asymmetric organocatalysis”, a breakthrough that allowed chemists to come up with new ways to put molecules together.

The musician, actor and film-maker known as Rapman will also be made an MBE in honour of his services to music and drama.

The 33-year-old, whose real name is Andrew Onwubolu, was praised for his film Blue Story, a 2019 drama produced in conjunction with BBC Films which follows the lives of two boys on opposite sides of a violent London postcode war.

The film caused controversy after fights broke out at cinema screenings, with Vue and Showcase subsequently banning it, a decision which was criticised by Rapman as “prejudice”.

Three officers are also due to receive the Queen’s Police Medal, including West Midlands Pc Matthew Evans, who saved the life of an emergency services worker while he was off duty in London.

Other individuals expected to receive honours include John Stracey, a former world champion boxer who has supported a number of charities in his retirement, and opera singer Elizabeth Llewellyn.

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