Fancy a nibble?
Light Lunch, a hip new show, promises to revolutionise the way we look at daytime TV. ANNA PASTERNAK meets the brains behind it.

Tomorrow, you can forget about lunch at the Ivy or Le Caprice. The ciabatta chewing classes, it seems, simply won't be there. If all goes according to plan, the truly trendy will be settling down not in front of swathes of fresh, white linen, sparkling cutlery and attentive waiters, but at home in front of, of all things, a brand-new daytime television show. Channel 4 is hoping that Light Lunch, its first daily lunchtime chat show, will reach the type of hip and happening viewers other such programmes leave cold.

The brain behind it is Sebastian Scott, the 34-year-old former executive producer of The Big Breakfast, whose ability to spot the zeitgeist has put him at the forefront of innovative television, past credits include Network 7 and The Word. Scott has teamed up with Henrietta Conrad, 33, an old friend and former editorial colleague on The Big Breakfast, who, it is rumoured, boasts a Filofax that would put International Who's Who to shame. She shared a room with Jodie Foster at Yale University and her best friends include Harry Enfield and Paula Yates. She and Scott certainly make a formidable duo.

Scot and Conrad are a dream Premier League team," enthuses Alex Connock, a former colleague from The Big Breakfast. "Their show will not have the bland V-necked-sweater mediocrity of Pebble Mill. It won't be cliched, it'll be sharp."

Scott, naturally, could not agree more. "This is an exciting opportunity to claim new territory," he says. "People won't admit to watching daytime television because it is taboo and considered frivolous. We want to make a show that is not patronising to women but that is a treat that you can watch without feeling guilty."

The form of Light Lunch is an actual-live lunch party. Every day a celebrity cook "Could be Albert Roux or Barry from EastEnders," says Scott will prepare lunch for guests, who could be "anyone from Tom Cruise to the school dirmer lady of the year", and for the two presenters, Mel Giedroyc, 28, and Sue Perkins, 27.

Before deciding on these two, Conrad and Scott auditioned hundreds of television hopefuls. "They didn't have opinions and were robotic and unbelievably bland," sighs Scott, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. "We wanted spontaneous performers." Giedroyc and Perkins are best known as Mel and Sue, a slick comedy duo from the Fringe comedy circuit, where their early wicked impressions of Emma Thompson and bouncy repartee fast gained them a following. Former Cambridge graduates who have written scripts for French and Saunders, their debut show, The Naked Bunch, was nominated for a Best Newcomers award in 1993.

Rescued from the endless low- profile, low-paid but none the less prestigious comedy trail, one wonders if they might worry that they are selling out to the seen voice of daytime television?

"No, we're just doing what we always wanted to do which is to entertain people," says Giedroyc. "But instead of standing up in a smoky club at night, it's on television at lunchtime."

"We're not going to give a high-octane David Letterman gagfest," warns Perkins. But beneath the bravado, both are cautious of being catapulted into the mainstream.

"It is too terrifying to think of this as our biggest break ever,'' laughs Giedroyc, "as then you immediately have to deal with the possibility of failure."

Unlike most television programmes, where guests are hustled into a dingy greenroom with paper plates of stale, curling sandwiches, Light Lunch offers the Virgin Upper Class of television treatment. An on-set manicurist and head and neck masseur will soothe guests waiting to appear, while their cars are cleaned and valet parked. The studio audience are each given £3 to bring their own packed lunch, as long as it isn't "noisy, messy or uncontrollable", says Scott.

As their target audience is "mainly under 35, students and young, upmarket mothers", there will also be an on-set crèche. "And if Fifi Trixiebelle or Heavenly Hiraani is crying, the cameras will show that," says Conrad. "If a chef doesn't turn up, we'll show pizza being delivered instead, We'll embrace problems, not try to produce some fake television world and cover them up." The going home present for each guest, mean while, is the apotheosis of 1990s chic, a scented candle.

Not everything has always gone quite so smoothly for television's new daytime darlings. Last year Scott got his fingers burnt when, while still employed by Planet 24, he was accused of trying to help rival company bid for a new afternoon series. Planet 24, makers of The Big Breakfast, sued him for breach of contract and the relationship soured.

"Due to the terms of the settlement, I am not allowed to talk about it," Scott says archly. "But let's say that I was keener to leave than stay." Could one of the reasons wants Light Lunch to succeed be order to rub his former employer nose right in it? "No," he says, but unconvincingly.