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''Chef!'' is a British
situation comedy A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...
starring
Lenny Henry Sir Lenworth George Henry (born 29 August 1958) is a British actor, comedian, singer, television presenter and writer. Henry gained success as a stand-up comedian and impressionist in the late 1970s and early 1980s, culminating in ''The Lenn ...
that aired as twenty episodes over three
series Series may refer to: People with the name * Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series * George Series (1920–1995), English physicist Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Series, the ordered sets used in ...
from 1993 to 1996 on the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. The show was created and primarily written by
Peter Tilbury Peter Tilbury (born 20 October 1945) is a British actor and writer, best known for the sitcom ''It Takes a Worried Man'' (1981-4), which he created and starred in. Tilbury was born in Redruth, Cornwall. As an actor Tilbury's television appearan ...
based on an idea from Lenny Henry and produced for the BBC by Henry's production company, Crucial Films.Henry, Lenny
at the
Museum of Broadcast Communications The Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC) is an American museum, the stated mission of which is "to collect, preserve, and present historic and contemporary radio and television content as well as educate, inform and entertain through our archi ...


Plot

Henry starred as Gareth Blackstock, a talented, arrogant, tyrannical and obsessed
chef A chef is a trained professional cook and tradesman who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation, often focusing on a particular cuisine. The word "chef" is derived from the term ''chef de cuisine'' (), the director or head of a kitche ...
who has endlessly inventive insults for his staff, unknowing customers, and almost anyone else he encounters. Chef Blackstock's traditional
French cuisine French cuisine () is the cooking traditions and practices from France. It has been influenced over the centuries by the many surrounding cultures of Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium, in addition to the food traditions of the re ...
with an eclectic flair is served at "Le Château Anglais," a gourmet
restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...
in the English countryside that is one of the few in the United Kingdom to receive a two-star rating from Michelin. The chef's quest for perfection and his lack of awareness about the costs of that perfection mean that the restaurant is on the brink of financial collapse when he and his wife Janice (played by
Caroline Lee-Johnson Caroline Lee-Johnson is a British actress. She is best known for her starring roles in ''Chef!'' as Janice Blackstock and ''The Knock'' as Diane Ralston. Her work has been primarily in television, but she has also had roles in films, including '' ...
) buy it early in the first series. The establishment mostly remains on that brink, despite Janice's best efforts as manager, eventually coming under the control of the boorish Cyril Bryson (
Dave Hill David John Hill (born 4 April 1946) is an English rock musician. He is the lead guitarist, a backing vocalist and the sole continuous member in the English band Slade. Hill is known for his flamboyant stage clothes and hairstyle. Early life B ...
) in the final series. Although focused on the restaurant's kitchen, the countryside (with its
black market A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...
suppliers) and the Blackstocks' home life are also backdrops for the show; the chef's long hours mean that Janice is routinely neglected in the bedroom, and their plans for a family remain delayed.


Cast

Besides Gareth and Janice Blackstock, a third character, Everton Stonehead (played by
Roger Griffiths Roger Griffiths (born 6 February 1965) is an English actor who has had several roles in television. He first rose to prominence opposite Lenny Henry as Gareth Blackstock's foil Everton Stonehead in BBC One 1990s sitcom ''Chef!''. Before starri ...
), appears throughout all three series. Stonehead went to school with the chef and dreams of becoming a top chef himself. He bumbles through his early days in the kitchen, but eventually even develops a
signature dish A signature dish is a recipe that identifies an individual chef or restaurant. Ideally it should be unique and allow an informed gastronome to name the chef in a blind tasting. It can be thought of as the culinary equivalent of an artist finding ...
of his own.


Production

According to Lenny Henry: :The first episode of ''Chef!'' was developed over two years, and so
Peter Tilbury Peter Tilbury (born 20 October 1945) is a British actor and writer, best known for the sitcom ''It Takes a Worried Man'' (1981-4), which he created and starred in. Tilbury was born in Redruth, Cornwall. As an actor Tilbury's television appearan ...
and I were really put through loads of hoops about character motivation. Why is this character such an arsehole? Is this the right kind of character for Lenny Henry to be playing? All that kind of stuff. Once we got through that and they
greenlit To green-light is to give permission to proceed with a project. The term is a reference to the green traffic signal, indicating "go ahead". Film industry In the context of the film and television industries, to green-light something is to ...
the series, Peter then had something like eight or nine weeks to write the rest of it. The remaining five episodes were much easier to write because we'd had every argument about who, what, where, and how. The world had been mapped out. Actually, the very first episode of ''Chef!'' was the hardest one to watch for me because we'd worked so hard on it and you could see all the things that had been rewritten in the first episode. Lenny Henry was coached in cooking techniques at the
L'Ortolan L'Ortolan is a gourmet restaurant in the village of Shinfield, south of the centre of Reading, Berkshire, England. It is located in the village's old vicarage building, which is a Grade-II listed building The restaurant has one star in the Mic ...
Restaurant, in
Shinfield Shinfield is a village and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire, just south of Reading. It contains and is administered by the unitary authority of Wokingham District. Shinfield Park is the northern part of the parish, becoming p ...
,
Reading, Berkshire Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, Southeast England, southeast England. Located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers River Thames, Thames and River Kennet, Kennet, the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 mot ...
. The restaurant was modelled on, and many scenes were filmed at,
Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons ("Four Seasons Manor", a.k.a. Le Manoir) is a luxury hotel-restaurant in the village of Great Milton near Oxford, in Oxfordshire, England. It is in a historic 15th-century manor house, near a church that was v ...
, a restaurant in
Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...
owned by chef
Raymond Blanc Raymond Blanc OBE (born 19 November 1949) is a French chef. Blanc is the chef patron at Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, a hotel-restaurant in Great Milton, Oxfordshire, England. The restaurant has two Michelin stars and scored 9/10 in the ''Good Fo ...
. Many other scenes were filmed at
Nether Winchendon House Nether Winchendon House is a manor house in Nether Winchendon, in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire, England. History It was built on the site of an Augustinian priory that was a daughter house of Notley Abbey in Long Crendon. Jasp ...
, in
Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...
. The third series was shot at
Teddington Studios Teddington Studios was a large British television studio in Teddington, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, providing studio facilities for programmes airing on the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky1 and others. The complex also provide ...
in Middlesex.
Celebrity chef A celebrity chef is a kitchen chef who has become a celebrity. Today, chefs often become celebrities by presenting cookery advice and demonstrations, usually through the media of television and radio, or in printed publications. While television ...
John Burton Race John William Burton-Race (born 1 May 1957) is a British Michelin starred chef, television personality and celebrity chef, made famous by the Channel 4 series ''French Leave'' and its sequel ''Return of the Chef'' and '' I'm a Celebrity...Get Me ...
acted as food consultant for the show. The first two series were shot on film and directed in the style of a drama series, with the finished episodes shown to screening audiences. Due to budgetary and time constraints, the third series was shot with a live audience on videotape and was directed more like a traditional sitcom. Lenny Henry stated on his website that he and Tilbury had worked on a storyline for another series, but that nothing came of it.


Episodes


Series 1 (1993)


Series 2 (1994)


Series 3 (1996)


Reception

According to the
Museum of Broadcast Communications The Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC) is an American museum, the stated mission of which is "to collect, preserve, and present historic and contemporary radio and television content as well as educate, inform and entertain through our archi ...
, the show was "highly critically acclaimed for its high production values, its comic-drama scripts, and its lead performances. Most of all, perhaps, the series asa landmark programme in the sense that Henry plays a character who just happens to be black; the fact of his blackness does not limit the narrative or the audience the series reaches." BFI's
screenonline Screenonline is a website about the history of British film, television and social history as documented by film and television. The project has been developed by the British Film Institute and funded by a £1.2 million grant from the National Lot ...
noted that "what really marked out ''Chef!'', however, was Henry's development as an actor. As the kitchen tyrant Gareth Blackstock, he proved himself capable of representing a multifaceted character far beyond the caricatures of his sketch shows." It also noted that ''Chef!'' "managed some acute observations on food and contemporary Britain: the celebritisation of cuisine, the pathological obsession with hygiene, the near impossibility of securing genuinely excellent produce in a culture dominated by industrial farming and supermarket giants." Some contemporary critics were less positive, however. Reviewing the second series in the ''
Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...
'', Victor Lewis-Smith described it as "...not funny enough to be classed as sit-com, nor believable enough to be classed as drama, forensic science has been unable to detect any trace of humour or subtlety in this dismal hybrid".Victor Lewis-Smith, "Inside the Magic Rectangle", Indigo 1995, p63


Home release

All three series were released on Region 1 DVD on 30 August 2005. The Region 2 DVDs have been available since 2 October 2006. Several minutes of the first series episode "The Big Cheese" were missing from the Region 2 DVD release. This was due to a mastering error; corrected replacement discs were later offered by the BBC. The Region 1 release is full and uncut.


References


External links

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''Chef!''
at British TV Comedy {{authority control 1990s British sitcoms 1990s British workplace comedy television series 1993 British television series debuts 1996 British television series endings BBC television sitcoms Black British sitcoms Food and drink television series Television series about marriage Television series set in restaurants Television shows shot at Teddington Studios Television shows set in England