Chef!

[spqr]

While searching for things culinary on Amazon.com one day I stumbled upon Chef!. There are two videos, each containing three episodes.

Can any of our British friends tell me whether there were more episodes of this series than just these six? Was this really a "smash hit".

I thought there were some funny moments, but I also thought that Lenny Henry needs a lot of getting used to.

Comments?

[Simon Majumdar]

Er, no it bombed!!

From my recollection of the series, it was shown at an increasingly late hour on BBC2 ( the equivalent of PBS ) and disappeared after two or three series

Now if you wanted a great "food related" comedy series from Britain there was a series called COLIN'S SANDWICH which starred Mel Smith ( One of the stars of Not The Nice O' Clock News in the '70's and the director of the films Mr Bean and The Tall Guy )

In it he played a foodie who worked for the British Rail complaints deptartment and spent his days dreaming of restaurants in France and writing bad Sci Fi short stories

I wonder how close to some egulleters that is? Still, a little remembered but excellent series

S

[Gavin Jones]

Simon is completely correct. It was atrocious - the principal failure the casting, impressively against type, of Lenny Henry as a tyrannical chef.

Followed by the script.

Fair to say that most UK sit-coms in the last 20 years have been dreadful without the astonishingly poor taste that at least made 70's survivors like 'are you being served' watchable (like a car crash).

[Scottf]

I beg to differ. A cracking sitcom that even puts OF&H in the shade

[bigbear]

Any show, where the chef refers to donning the toque as putting on his "culinary condom," is OK by me.

[Steve Klc]

And now for something completely different--it may have bombed in Britain but I loved this show, found it quite funny and diverting in small doses. Lenny Henry miscast? I found him perfectly cartoonish, larger than life and pompously expressive. The half hour form suited all this as well. However many episodes there are, maybe three season's worth, they continue to enjoy a long life on American PBS stations. I think I liked the first 6 episodes, the 1993 season, the best overall and the unpasteurized cheese/Albert Roux/cheese police episode as single best. The second season was very strong, the third uneven.

Other faves--Gareth and Everton go to cook in Lyon with English ingredients and wine; Everton creates his own signature dish and pisses Gareth off; Everton has to help Gareth cook Caribbean for Gareth's visiting Dad.

I haven't watched it in a while, so I've forgotten some of the names, but the ensemble was also interesting--again, on a sitcom-scale: I adored Janice, his wife, and Everton, who tried out cooking Caribbean and calling him 'Stock, the talented old chef reduced to an assistant because he's a drunk--played by Ian McNeice (aka Baron Karkonnen in the Dune mini-series on the Sci-Fi channel and prone to drink as well in the "Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain" movie), the young but talented and tough female suprisingly promoted to sous chef when Gareth had trouble sacking someone on the staff--Lucinda maybe? Alphonse the French sommelier was classic stereotype.

Maybe it's a chef thing why I appreciate this show so much.

[bigbear]

Chef! has been showing on PBS (WLIW-21) in the NYC area at 10:30 PM on Fridays.

[g.johnson]

Fair to say that most UK sit-coms in the last 20 years have been dreadful.

Men Behaving Badly, Absolutely Fabulous, Alan Partridge.

OK, you said most, but when UK sitcoms are good they blow away the US competition.

[Wilfrid]

The casting was the main problem for me. Maybe it's because I'm too familiar with Lenny Henry's usual persona, but his tirades, which were intended to be the comic climaxes of each episode, seemed entirely forced and artificial. Compare with John Cleese losing it in "Fawlty Towers" - you could feel the rage.

[Liza]

Blackadder, The New Statesman...

[Priscilla]

G. Johnson are you saying "Absolutely Fabulous" was good or bad?

I thought there were parts of that show as good as anything I've ever ever seen anywhere.

Related to eGullet, there was an almost-throwaway couple of moments with the adorable Adrian Edmundson going right OTT as a food writer waxing insufferable about "forgotten Andalusia" and so on. Just a tiny thing, but so just right.

[g.johnson]

G. Johnson are you saying "Absolutely Fabulous" was good or bad?

Good. (Though getting tired in the last season.)

[Jason Perlow]

'Stock, the talented old chef reduced to an assistant because he's a drunk--played by Ian McNeice (aka Baron Karkonnen in the Dune mini-series on the Sci-Fi channel

I really thouight McNeice did a phenomenal job at playing Harkonnen -- in my opinion he made watching that Dune adaptation worth it, and played it very close to the book. I didnt much care for the one in the David Lynch/De Laurentis production.

[Bux]

I suspect Chef is better received here on this side of the pond. Perhaps it's for reasons similar to those that enable the French to view Jerry Lewis as an intellectual comedian. On the whole I don't go out of my way to watch Chef, but when it's on, it's often not the worst thing on TV. I think I've seem more episodes while flying across the Atlantic than at home. My conclusion is that it's better than the meal I'm served.

[Wilfrid]

Snap, Bux. I was trying to think where I would have seen the show. Yes, on an airplane somewhere. Amazing what air travel will drive you to. I got hooked on a meaningless computer game on a recent long-haul flight.

[ivan]

On my last few long-haul flights, I saw episodes of The Royle Family, The Office, and something called "Human Remains" which may or many not be a series. Also, I saw episodes of Yank fare like Friends and Third Rock and Frazier on the same flights, so I was in a position to compare the best (sic) of the two worlds. If I had to watch TV comedies for a living (or as a punishment), I'd move to England.

As a side note that catapults this post back on topic, it is my strong impression that food-related themes crop up in English sitcoms far more frequently than in Yank sitcoms. Starting with the grotesque mealtimes in The Young Ones, all the way to The Royle Family -- the episode I saw revolved, in part, around bacon butties. (I've heard Brits lambast The Royle Family, partly out of embarrassment, it seems, but I found it sweet and uplifting.)

[spqr]

From some of the responses, it appears that there are many more episodes of Chef! than the measily 6 that are for sale on video. I'll have to double check the PBS listings for my area, but I can't remember ever seeing it run on either of the two PBS stations I can get. I've seen 6 and I'm hungry for more, alas.

[Steve Klc]

Only the first six have made it to video, and none to DVD yet. I Googled and found a "Chef!" fan site:

http://siegler.net/chef/

[ngatti]

Simon is completely correct. It was atrocious - the principal failure the casting, impressively against type, of Lenny Henry as a tyrannical chef.

Followed by the script.

Fair to say that most UK sit-coms in the last 20 years have been dreadful without the astonishingly poor taste that at least made 70's survivors like 'are you being served' watchable (like a car crash).

Jeez, i always thought "The Young Ones" were a pretty good 'Bizzaro World' take on the 'Three Stooges/Ritz bros./Marx Bros'.

Nick

[Jon Tseng]

I thought Chef! was splendid - but only the first series, which was all about Lenny Henry launching marvellous tirades left right and centre at a world which couldn't understand his obsession with being the best.

unfortunately for the second (was there a third?) series they decided to make it more "character-driven" (ie dull), and they are best avoided.

cheerio

J

[Bux]

As a side note that catapults this post back on topic, it is my strong impression that food-related themes crop up in English sitcoms far more frequently than in Yank sitcoms.

Traditionally, "British Cuisine" has been a phrase most often used by those with a good sense of humor.

[Lesley C]

I also loved Chef! -- but only the first season. Gareth reminded me of a few chefs I worked with. Miscast? No way!

A colleague of mine used to show the episode with Everton losing his bandaid in the ravioli to first-year cooking students. They loved it!

[Priscilla]

Good. (Though getting tired in the last season.)

Agreed, majorly. But funny, so funny, sometimes astonishingly so--up 'till then.

[macrosan]

I loved the series. I thought that the casting of Lenny Henry was a bold move on both sides (the producer's and Lenny's), and while I have no idea whether Lenny made a convincing "chef type" I think he made the part his own, and there was an air of (caricatured) authenticity about the atmosphere in the kitchen.

The script was very good in the first series, excellent in the second, but then rather ran out of inventive ideas for the third. I got the impression that the original writers stayed with all three series, rather than doing what other comedy series have traditionally done, which is to bring in new writers to add variety and inventiveness.

I think the opportunity they missed was to get the show out of the kitchen and into the front of house. That only happened once as far as I remember (the episode where Gareth was fired) and then only briefly.

[John Whiting]

"Chef"? I laughed. That's good enough for me.

As for food-based comedies, there was a single episode of "Rumpole of the Bailey", by John Mortimer, in which the great P.J. Cavanaugh played a pretentious, egotistical Irish/French chef with delusions of grandeur. It was magnificent and accurate in detail -- not surprising when Anton Mosimann's name appeared at the end as Technical Adviser.