Have I mentioned how much I love the BBC’s iPlayer? Well I do. And not just because it enables me to catch up on shows I’ve missed. It also allows me to discover freaky weird little shows that I’d never normally hear about. Case in point: Taste of My Life, with Nigel Slater.
The premise of the show sounds fairly harmless on paper. Nigel Slater, kinda-celebrity-chef and all-round foodie type, interviews B-list celebrities about their favourite foods and they cook things together. It all sounds fairly bland, doesn’t it? But from this uninspired recipe comes an explosion of bizarre and, frankly, slightly creepy television.
The episode I happened upon on the iPlayer was with Tamsin Greig, star of Green Wing and Love Soup. She comes across as a lovely, kind, funny woman, and I have loved her dearly since her days as the straight woman to Dylan Moran’s psychotic Bernard Black in Black Books. Nigel Slater was obviously charmed by her too, and he sat her down at the beginning of the show to talk about her childhood food memories.
And this is where it got weird. Slater got Greig talking about her Dad’s curry recipes, and then rudely began interrupting her reminiscences with random cooking tips. The conversation went a bit like this:
Greig: Oh my Dad loved making curry, he never had a recipe though; it was all in his head.
Slater: Add spices while browning your onions.
Greig: Um, yes. Anyway, so this one time Dad invited a friend round for curry, and…
Slater: It’s important not to let your yoghurt boil.
There then followed a really quite sinister segment in which Slater attempted, ham-fistedly, to delve into Greig’s inner psyche based on her favourite foods. As they tucked into dinner he leaned toward her and asked, in a conspiratorial voice, ‘Were you a good girl?’
To her credit, Greig didn’t run away shrieking at this, but answered the question seriously, and then continued to feign excitement and joy when Slater told her, ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’ Luckily the surprise was only home-made jam doughnuts, but I wouldn’t have stuck around to find out.
What a weird little show! If you’re anxious to find out how your favourite B-Lister stands up to Slater’s peculiar form of interrogation with food, it airs weeknights at 6.30 on BBC2.
I was working in a bookshop when The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith was first published, and I remember that there was some debate over whether we should shelve it in the crime fiction section or not. It did, after all, purport to be about a detective agency. But the jacket design (lots of bright colours and African prints) didn’t seem to fit in with the normal crime fiction jacket traditions (black cover, sinister picture involving blood and/or a disembodied eye). So, taking one for the team, I read the book and promptly reported back that it definitely didn’t belong in crime fiction. We shelved it in general fiction, and began recommending it to all women of a certain age who came in asking for ‘a nice book’. I sent a copy to my Mum - she loved it.
Minghella doesn’t entirely dispense with the light-heartedness with which McCall Smith imbued the books. The ‘characters’ are all there - Precious’s hopeless suitor Mr Matekoni is delightful in his steady devotion, and I was particularly fond of the secretary, Grace Makutsi, who valiantly struggles with two typewriters which both have several letters missing but combined can type the full alphabet. I was also delighted to see the wonderful Idris Elba (The Wire’s Stringer Bell) playing the villain, proving that he can be sinister, threatening, and yet still achingly cool, in any accent.
Before I say anything else about Lily Allen and Friends, the flagship show of BBC 3’s new lineup, in the interests of full disclosure I must declare: I am 27, and this show makes me feel old. It is just possible this may have coloured my opinion of the programme somewhat.
On the face of it, it sounds like a fairly cheesy premise - a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost live in a house together and try to lead ‘normal lives’. But the production is deftly handled and any potential cheesiness is completely off-set by some wonderful, sharp scripting and incredibly well-sculpted performances from the three main leads. They each reveal a deep sense of desperation and sadness underneath a thin veneer of sarcasm and witty banter.
