Toast, BBC One | reviews, news & interviews
Toast, BBC One
Toast, BBC One
Chef's TV autobiog is warm and buttery, but without crunch
Thursday, 30 December 2010
Nigel Slater (Freddie Highmore) displays that Sixties delight, shepherd's pieBBC/Ruby Films/Susie Allnutt
All the time I was watching Toast last night, based on Nigel Slater’s memoir of his early years, I was wondering whether it was filmed for the benefit of the audience or of Slater himself. The final scene (no spoiler – we know how this story ends) where the young Slater ran away to join the kitchen at the Savoy was revealing: the head chef who gave him a job was played by Nigel Slater, reassuring his younger self that “you’ll be all right”. This felt more like therapy than drama.
All the time I was watching Toast last night, based on Nigel Slater’s memoir of his early years, I was wondering whether it was filmed for the benefit of the audience or of Slater himself. The final scene (no spoiler – we know how this story ends) where the young Slater ran away to join the kitchen at the Savoy was revealing: the head chef who gave him a job was played by Nigel Slater, reassuring his younger self that “you’ll be all right”. This felt more like therapy than drama.
Stott’s girth expanded ceaselessly, yet he kept his emotional expressions tight, hardly moving beyond yelling at Nigel
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