Our local PBS station at one time offered a marvelous selection of Britcoms on Saturday night. Many of these gloriously funny comedies lit up the small screen like brilliant fireflies that lived only 3 or 4 of the short British seasons and (alas) vanished Thin Blue Line, Murder Most Horrid, and others and of course Chef!.
Alas, now the station seems dedicated to the more heavy hitters: Waiting For God, Keeping Up Appearances, As Time Go By, what have you. These are worthy entries all, that lasted several seasons. They're long enough to bear repetition, although I'm not sure endless repetition works all that well. One really wishes for some variation . . . like Chef!.
Britcoms, unlike a majority of Americoms, have interesting settings. The American standard seems to be somebody's house. Interesting comedies can be done in somebody's house; George and Gracie did it but a house is a house is a house and it gets boring. Some Americoms have been done in interesting settings, such as a radio station, and that helps. But Britcoms are often more creative in the area of setting. Chef! is set in the kitchen of a gourmet restaurant. OK, there are some scenes in somebody's house, but it's still a great Britcom.
Lenny Henry stars in Chef! as a very talented chef. Like many stars of sitcoms, he began his career as a standup comedian. His success is predicated on not stooping to the low-class sort of audience that believes swearing is funny and more swearing is more funny. Indeed, he has developed a style of invective that would send the swearing-is-funny types scuttling to the dictionary if they knew what one was.
The basic plot of Chef! is simple enough. Henry is Gareth Blackstock, a chef whose inflated opinion of himself is probably justified. The 2-star restaurant where he works, despite its success, goes into receivership. You know the sort of restaurant I mean the kind that serves you a couple of tablespoons of really great ours d'oeuvres, and charges you a small fortune for the privilege of having to rush home and make a couple of sandwiches to fill up on.
With great difficulty he and his wife Janice buy the restaurant. Most of the action takes place in the kitchen and other locations in the restaurant. Each episode is complete in itself, but there is an ongoing plot involving the fate of the restaurant and the relationship of Gareth and Janice (played with wit and charm by Caroline Lee Johnson). Also in the cast is Roger Griffiths, who plays Everton, a fine contrast to the urbane Blackstocks. These are the only members of the cast you will see for any longer than 1 season although another character (Gustave LaRoche) appears in seasons 2 and 3, he is played by the estimable Ian Niece in Season 2 and by Jeff Nuttall in Season 3.
On the whole, Chef! is a very funny series. In the last season, 3, things take a more serious turn. Seasons 1 and 2 appeared in 1993 and 1994, while season 3 appeared in 1996. The 1995 hiatus might seem to indicate a problem, and in fact no more episodes appeared after 1996. It's fair to state, however, that the ongoing plot of Season 3 is at least resolved at the end.
I believe it's fair to observe that there is a very serious problem with this program. Save for the 3 main characters, the entire cast changes each season. One barely gets used to characters, and develops empathy for them, than they vanish and are replaced by strange faces. It doesn't seem reasonable to expect audience loyalty to a show when this sort of thing is going on.
The DVD set is a set of the 3 seasons as they were originally put out, in normal-sized cases. The thinner cases now so often used in sets would have been much better.
Alas, there are no subtitles. The English seem to feel that they don't owe the viewer any help in understanding what's being said even down to the most outrageous Yorkshire or Welsh accents. This is the same country that, for years, didn't feel it necessary to label their stamps as to the country of origin. (Then, of course, there was the pre-WWI Times headline I kid you not "Storm in Channel, Continent cut off!".) Such hubris has only been partially punished by their having to endure a separate Scottish Parliament.
There are some special features on the 3rd DVD in the set. They're OK, but a little on the thin side: primarily interviews with the 2 main principals and a segment of a British food show profiling Chef!. These range (timewise) from brief to extremely brief the interview of Henry last little more than 3 minutes! The whiffy title music wears out its welcome by the 2nd episode, becomes even more obnoxious by the 3rd and by the 4th you will be clicking the fast-forward button before the "ooooo" begins, with trembling hands and a hymn of thanks to the god of remotes.
Nevertheless, it's pleasant to have a DVD collection of all the existing episodes to this fundamentally fine comedy.
Alas, now the station seems dedicated to the more heavy hitters: Waiting For God, Keeping Up Appearances, As Time Go By, what have you. These are worthy entries all, that lasted several seasons. They're long enough to bear repetition, although I'm not sure endless repetition works all that well. One really wishes for some variation . . . like Chef!.
Britcoms, unlike a majority of Americoms, have interesting settings. The American standard seems to be somebody's house. Interesting comedies can be done in somebody's house; George and Gracie did it but a house is a house is a house and it gets boring. Some Americoms have been done in interesting settings, such as a radio station, and that helps. But Britcoms are often more creative in the area of setting. Chef! is set in the kitchen of a gourmet restaurant. OK, there are some scenes in somebody's house, but it's still a great Britcom.
Lenny Henry stars in Chef! as a very talented chef. Like many stars of sitcoms, he began his career as a standup comedian. His success is predicated on not stooping to the low-class sort of audience that believes swearing is funny and more swearing is more funny. Indeed, he has developed a style of invective that would send the swearing-is-funny types scuttling to the dictionary if they knew what one was.
The basic plot of Chef! is simple enough. Henry is Gareth Blackstock, a chef whose inflated opinion of himself is probably justified. The 2-star restaurant where he works, despite its success, goes into receivership. You know the sort of restaurant I mean the kind that serves you a couple of tablespoons of really great ours d'oeuvres, and charges you a small fortune for the privilege of having to rush home and make a couple of sandwiches to fill up on.
With great difficulty he and his wife Janice buy the restaurant. Most of the action takes place in the kitchen and other locations in the restaurant. Each episode is complete in itself, but there is an ongoing plot involving the fate of the restaurant and the relationship of Gareth and Janice (played with wit and charm by Caroline Lee Johnson). Also in the cast is Roger Griffiths, who plays Everton, a fine contrast to the urbane Blackstocks. These are the only members of the cast you will see for any longer than 1 season although another character (Gustave LaRoche) appears in seasons 2 and 3, he is played by the estimable Ian Niece in Season 2 and by Jeff Nuttall in Season 3.
On the whole, Chef! is a very funny series. In the last season, 3, things take a more serious turn. Seasons 1 and 2 appeared in 1993 and 1994, while season 3 appeared in 1996. The 1995 hiatus might seem to indicate a problem, and in fact no more episodes appeared after 1996. It's fair to state, however, that the ongoing plot of Season 3 is at least resolved at the end.
I believe it's fair to observe that there is a very serious problem with this program. Save for the 3 main characters, the entire cast changes each season. One barely gets used to characters, and develops empathy for them, than they vanish and are replaced by strange faces. It doesn't seem reasonable to expect audience loyalty to a show when this sort of thing is going on.
The DVD set is a set of the 3 seasons as they were originally put out, in normal-sized cases. The thinner cases now so often used in sets would have been much better.
Alas, there are no subtitles. The English seem to feel that they don't owe the viewer any help in understanding what's being said even down to the most outrageous Yorkshire or Welsh accents. This is the same country that, for years, didn't feel it necessary to label their stamps as to the country of origin. (Then, of course, there was the pre-WWI Times headline I kid you not "Storm in Channel, Continent cut off!".) Such hubris has only been partially punished by their having to endure a separate Scottish Parliament.
There are some special features on the 3rd DVD in the set. They're OK, but a little on the thin side: primarily interviews with the 2 main principals and a segment of a British food show profiling Chef!. These range (timewise) from brief to extremely brief the interview of Henry last little more than 3 minutes! The whiffy title music wears out its welcome by the 2nd episode, becomes even more obnoxious by the 3rd and by the 4th you will be clicking the fast-forward button before the "ooooo" begins, with trembling hands and a hymn of thanks to the god of remotes.
Nevertheless, it's pleasant to have a DVD collection of all the existing episodes to this fundamentally fine comedy.