This Charmless Man


Nicholas Parsons : The Straight Man (autobiography 1994) Mark Lawson Meets Nicholas Parsons (BBC 4)

Nudged together because, although more than twenty years seperate them, they are connected by the overweening ego and vanity of the subject.

Lawson started his interview with "You were born in 1923" at which Parsons interrupted him "typical journalist, stressing my age".

And this was the tone of the whole programme. No matter what small caveat Lawson attempted to raise Parsons was quick to blame others or claim it was part of some overall masterplan or blame the press for misrepresenting events.

Both in the book and in interview every step of Parsons' life has been carefully considered, a massive success and responsible for changing the face of British popular culture.

His self-belief knows no bounds : "I made Sale Of The Century the most popular programme on British television", "poor old Arthur Haynes - his career was finished once we seperated", "I made the part of the narrator in The Rocky Horror Show my own. Every stage version since is based on my creation."

And so it went on : a half hour one-on-one interview with a light entertainment celebrity shouldn't have you squirming in your chair with embarassment or viewing with your hands glued to your face in a Munch like scream, but this one did.

Even when Lawson attempted to suggest that Parsons' TV image was that of a bland everyman he was at once on the ultra-defensive "I'm a trained actor (he almost said "luvvie" I swear) I was playing a part."

The book's exactly the same for page after ego driven page : every first night is a rave review, every TV show a moribund failure until Nick sprinkles his magic on it, every joke he tells is world class and reduces the audience to vapour.

As examples of a rampaging ego totally without doubt these are object lessons. It's a shame that Parsons isn't able to see himself as the small, utterly disposable player in the big picture. It's more of a shame that I wasted three hours watching the programme and reading the book.

There's A Rat In My Kitchen


Continuing to strut, swagger and swear on Channel 4 is Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares US 2, where Gordon visits a "failing" restaurant somehere in the United States and turns it around inside a week.

Each week's edition follows exactly the same formula : Gordon bounces up (we never see him arriving in town, he just appears like a pantomime demon through a trapdoor - fully formed and ready to go)

He then tuts and huffs about the exterior vista of the place, grumps and harrumphs about the interior, plonks himself down and, after an extended period of clucking over the menu, picks out a few items to sample.

Without fail these fail to please his educated palate. Usually because one, some or all of the constituent parts are cooked from frozen/are still frozen.

During his meal Gordon cosys up to the waiting staff. This is an unchanging and important of his technique. He sets up an "us and them" scenario to undermine the (often blinkered) owner's power over his employees. Then melds them back together again after the second ad. break.

He then introduces himself to the owner and/or head chef and sets about deconstructing the business, a process during which he makes maximum use of his ability with some rough anglo-saxonisms and a variety of pseudo-psychological devices designed to make the idiiot patron realise what a misguided fool s/he has been.

After a makeover of the premises and the menu (the first of which is universally popular, the second less so) Gordon organises a relaunch night. He hovers over this like a foul mouthed Black Angel, waiting for things to fall apart so that he can step in and right the wrongs.

Eventually the restaurant is judged "back on track" and Ramsay sweeps out of town in a cloud of glory and glamour, leaving the owner and the employees standing awestruck with an air of "who was that masked man?"

There are essential problems with the format : Gordon always has to lock horns with the Head Chef and/or the owner as he attempts to introduce his changes. But is it not the case they invited him in the first place ? If they feel they have no need for "Chef Ramsay" (as he is worshipingly called) and his ideas what is he doing there ? I'd like to see the episode where he says "right. stuff you then, I'm off" and leaves them to clear up their own mess.

The programmes are insufficently resolved. Last week we were told by an end credits voiceover that "despite a successful relaunch the business' debts were too great and , five months after Gordon's visit, the restaraunt closed" Why ? I demand to know how they managed to stuff it up a second time; I'd also like to know what happened to the staff - especially those that Gordon had identified as assets and promoted to f-o-h manager or Head Chef.

This week we had a Gordon voiceover in which he gloomily predicted that, despite his efforts, the owner was too stuck in his ways to embrace his changes and would slide back into the old ways as soon as the God like one had left the building. But that was all we were given. Maybe all of the businesses fail after the Ramsay makover and we're not allowed to know this.

I also fret over the middle section where Gordon's "team" arrive and overnight transform the restaurant's eating area from the drab, souless hell it was into a sparkling, gleaming state of the art thing of beauty.

This is probably not a cheap business but we're never told who pays for it. You have to think that if the place wasn't in terminal decline then the owners would have had the capital for some paint, a few new sticks of furniture and some repalcement crockery. This is the producers acting as deus ex machina and achieving results by introducing something other Ramsay into the mix :- money.

Having carped and criticised though there is something wonderfully hypnotic about the whole process. Despite or maybe because of the strict formula you end up sucked into the whole thing. The players are such obvious archetypes that it's obvious from the first five minutes who's a strength and who's a liability; the fun is in watching Ramsay destroy, dismantle and then rebuild.

Final point on Ramsay himself. Apart from his guttermouthed speed-freak delivery he has an unsettling collection of physical tics. He scratches, pulls and rubs at his face constantly. He has an odd bouncing from the knee delivery when agitated (which is most of the time) and never seems totally at ease unless berating some hapless egotist of a manager or cooking.

A very odd but oddly engaging programme.