Boiling Point
The Fast and the Farmer-ish
For about 40 minutes, Boiling Point (BBC1) appeared to have been misnamed. The restaurant drama didn’t so much boil as simmer gently over a warm heat.
Parts of the script seemed to have been written by the dialogue coach of The Apprentice. ‘We’re going to smash it,’ said manager Dean.
‘You’ve got this,’ said Carly (Vinette Robinson), head chef and co-owner of Point North restaurant.
Meanwhile, one of the diners asked waitress Robyn whether she might have some pepper. It was that exciting.
Boiling Point began life as a 2019 short film that was expanded into a 2021 feature. This television sequel includes many familiar faces, including Stephen Graham. In the film, he played Andy Jones, head chef at Jones & Sons, who had a heart attack after a kitchen bust-up.
Parts of the script for Boiling Point seemed to have been written by the dialogue coach of The Apprentice, writes ROLAND WHITE
He is now out of work and bitter that Carly has set up on her own. It’s a big night for her. The packed house includes investors who’ve come to look at the business.
It was obvious during the slow build-up that something would happen eventually. Carly had to rush home to check on her mother, after a medical emergency alert. And junior chef Johnny, on his first night, was clearly out of his depth.
At last, Point North exploded into life.
There was a lot of shouting after new boy Johnny pretty much set fire to the kitchen. Sous chef Freeman — in charge while Carly was seeing her mum (Mona Lisa’s Cathy Tyson) — buckled under the pressure and boiled over in fury.
So there is definite promise of drama to come. The boorish investors have decided there is no future in northern cuisine (could they not see the restaurant was rammed?). Freeman quit after Carly — who clearly needs management training — suggested that he caused Andy’s heart attack. And Johnny went home to baby twins, which is why he needed a job so badly.
I wonder if that lady diner ever got her pepper?
There was a valuable lesson in The Fast And The Farmer-ish (BBC3). If you wish to bowl tractor tyres at a skittle alley of garden sheds, you shouldn’t use a New Holland tractor to launch the tyres.
As presenter Tom Pemberton put it: ‘They’re big, they’re powerful, but going backwards is not their forte.’ Who knows when that sort of knowledge might come in handy?
The Fast And The Farmer-ish is one of those shows you can’t believe you’re actually watching. But you can’t take your eyes away it’s so daft.
A cross between Clarkson’s Farm and Top Gear, it should more accurately be called Farming Folk Do Silly Things In Tractors (And Swear Quite A Lot).
The Fast And The Farmer-ish, starring Tom Pemberton (pictured) is one of those shows you can’t believe you’re actually watching. But you can’t take your eyes away it’s so daft
YouTube star Pemberton is very shouty, and so excitable that I suspect an assistant producer puts a scorpion down his underpants before the cameras roll. He is agriculture’s Murray Walker.
There are six teams, and they make Gordon Ramsay look like a model of diplomacy. ‘The difference between farming in Shetland and in England is that we aren’t a lot of soft b*****ds,’ said Scottish Josh.
Apart from tractor skittles, the teams had to spear a bale of hay before handing it relay-style to their teammate. And later balance a tractor on a makeshift seesaw.
Perhaps a more true-to-life test might be: travel down a narrow country lane, and see how many cars you can hold up behind you.
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