Episode 2
This week’s dollop kicked off with a few clips to remind the audience that normal life in Rotherham is all about force feeding kebabs to kids and not understanding the concept of boiling.
The visit to the last match at Millmoor was a pointless set piece, supposedly intended to attract local men to the project.
The whole Pass it On idea was shown to be worthless. Even under pressure from the production team- nobody was actually doing it. That’s really going to work in other towns then. You know- ones where you won’t have the celebrity chef and the TV cameras to gee you up.
No nonsense sidekick Julie Critchlow told him he had to shake his team up and bring in some new faces. See- in the show, it’s never the idea that’s bad: it’s the people of Rotherham. Luckily- there’s always a collaborator on hand to explain this to the camera.
This pep talk happened in the hairdressers and included a number of quick camera cuts and different angles (including one of those arty but difficult to pull off into the mirror shots).
How many takes do you think it took before they got that “get rid of the deadwood” scene right?
So back to Millmoor to seek out new blood. How lucky were they that Mick the Miner happened to turn up? And to randomly pick him to go first.
Not that lucky really- seeing as he had been headhunted by researchers who visited Maltby colliery (or Maltby Mine as the series called it). He had given them his details and they had invited him along. Despite the fact that he lives 24 miles away from Millmoor (Armthorpe, on the other side of Donny) and is on record as saying he wanted nothing to do with Jamie Oliver- he turned up. Hey presto- he is picked as the guy to go first.
He was willing to say and do anything to get on telly. In his suspiciously stiff wooden chat with Jamie, he repeated: “that’s the first thing I’ve ever cooked in my life” over and over. He then went on about how there was a stigma about men cooking.
“I’m a miner, know what I mean”.
Not really. In a way- this is as bad as last week for confirming stereotypes. Northern men are useless, sexist oafs. Like everyone else in the series- they can only become real men by copying the Jamie example. Jamie made the point that these were “proper lads” and it was great to see them “transformed”.
Obviously wishing to prolong his TV career- Mick the miner chipped in with:
“What I’ve done today is probably the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life”.
What sad empty lives the nation must think we lead. How we aspire deep down to be as good as the target audience. They have it all and we live in caves. Thank goodness a missionary came to show us posh ham and asparagus.
Jamie responded to camera:
“Show me why miners don’t cook. Real men do cook”.
Of course miners do cook, but for the series to work and the spin offs to sell- we need to buy into the idea that Jamie can remove the stigma of cooking for men (Even though there is no stigma).
There was a dud story line about a beef farmer who’d never eaten beef or something- then it was back to class.
The girls were worried about the new comers threatening their shot at TV stardom. After seeing Mick put in some A grade arse kissing about the taste of chillies- they had to up their game. For the camera- Natasha explained how they were letting down the great man. How he was taking the trouble to do all this for them and they were letting him down.
All failure is down to us. All success is down to Jamie.
Back in town- there is a little scene which enables everyone to see the brand name on the back of the kitchen fitters T-Shirts. Let’s hope that Sainsburys don’t accidentally get any exposure in the same way when the staff start wearing their logo.
In walks hapless council leader Roger Stone. Here we see a mark getting played. The Sun quoted a figure of £130,000 when talking about the running of the shop. On camera- Jamie parrots a few clichés and puts the hand on him for the cash and says he wants the council to keep it on when he’s gone.
Country and Western fan Roger fell for this once before when he signed up for a scheme similar to Bookstart last year. When I say similar- it’s like pretty much exactly the same only the council leader got to meet Dolly Parton and the council tax payers had to fund it. He is non committal, but we know the drill now Roger.
Back to Natasha. Planting her own food, saying her kid thought kebabs grew in the ground and getting her friends to shake their bums while they stir fry. She tells Jamie that Rotherham people are stubborn. Boy does she want to keep her TV career alive. She overacts when she gets her surprise promotion- but it’s OK.
In a perfectly logical step (by the standards of Ministry of Food) no nonsense sidekick Julie Critchlow- who it has been firmly established can cook- joins the group. She will be taught how to throw salad leaves into a bowl by someone who it was firmly established last week can’t cook- even though her boyfriend works in a café and she uses a knife like someone who has loads of kitchen experience.
Will Natasha pull it off? (Yawn).
Jamie calls her live on the radio- and she tells him it was all good.
Will they show the next radio show- when he calls to ask Clare how the lessons are going and is told that nobody turned up to the last one?
“If you’re ever low. If you ever question if Pass it On I a load of old bollocks- if your confidence ever goes. Go see Mick.”
Mick has changed “after his Epiphany”. He thought it was for women- till he met Jamie.
This is a remarkable man. Someone who has steadfastly refused to cook but, when offered the chance to be on telly, completes a 40 mile plus round trip to be shown how to put salad leaves in a bowl by someone else who pretends they never cook.
We are treated to a little teaser for next week, where those useless Rotherham bastards are kicking off about nowt again to thwart our hero’s vision. No nonsense sidekick Julie Critchlow and Jamie have a chat on a driveway. There are cuts to close ups of both, a two shot, an over the shoulder shot and a long shot to finish. How many takes do you think it took them to get the right level of drama?
This week- the images of Rotherham were less toxic than last week, but the whole thing was more obviously contrived. Everything was so clearly set up and the characters played their parts with such gusto. This makes the cruel, exploitative images of last week even worse. Surely,no-one can seriously believe that what is being shown is reality.
This means that the poor girls we were invited to hate last week are OK now because Jamie saved them.
The image of single mums who Jamie has not met is still kebab muncher.
Remember that Roger Stone- when it’s time to sign that next cheque.
Normal life in Rotherham is all about force feeding kebabs to kids and not understanding the concept of boiling- that’s the advert you paid for.
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Mmm. This week the poverty of the concept and contrived nature of the thing/ was exposed even further, Willy the beef farmer(owner of a very large kitchen aga/rayburn) and Mick the miner perhaps need to renegotiate their domestic catering arrangements but tv cooking lessons?
Natasha and Claire possibly need debt-counselling and /access to something like a food co-op.
My massive gripe though- it’s World Diabetes Day coming up, people are trying VERY hard to explain what a serious medical condition diabetes is. There are approximately 20,000 children in this country with type 1 diabetes (my son being one of them) an auto -immune disease not connected with obesity or life style and worldwide the mortality rate for children is appalling. What do we see on last night’s show JO wandering round the outside of Rotherham General and Diabetes Resource centre. Great message,we have high rates of diabetes in the area as we are too damm lazy to cook, diabetes again linked with junk food. Aaagh!!
Good job guys, we need outside help to encourage us to read ,we’re too idle/stupid to cook, and we’re now paying the price of this with high rates of illness and diabetes- good job JO and Rotherham council.
You dont realise when you refer to Mick’s epiphany that you’re talking about a man whos life was changed by listenening to Bruce Springsteen. A man so obviously blinded by 21st century glitz. No heroes of real world worthiness for Mick, no Nelson Mandella, Mother Teresa or even Jesus. No, Bruce is the man and now apparently so is Jamie O (his freinds call him that you know).
Jamie has told Mick ” dont be a stranger when all this is over”. Obviously Jamie is thinking about the lucrative spin-off series where Mick’s oscar winning acting abilities will be in great demand. Perhaps they could go to Australia and explain the art of ‘proper’ barbecueing to a few inbreds who dont understand the meaning of the word ‘burnt’.
Or, as Jamie is conquering America, perhaps they could go there to teach the yanks about healthy eating and explain the meaning of the word ‘obese’. Maybe then someone could explain the American constitutional right to bear arms, hopefully with a demonstration featuring our hapless heroes Jamie and Mick.
Its me im back, its the Maltby Bard.
Ive seen Jamie O, stood with six foot of lard.
You know who i mean, you’ll easily guess it.
Its our own Mick the miner, from down Maltby pit.
He’ll say what J.O wants, and that is a fact
and if it dont sound right, dont worry he can act.
He harps on and on, “its the best thing ive done”.
nevermind when he wed, or the birth of his son.
“Your marvelous Jamie, the best thing in my life”
is that a sigh of relief, i can hear from his wife.
But wait is that a storm, on the horizon i see.
an undercurrent of animosity, just like at Maltby.
Jamies class dont like Mick, its hardly surprising.
i think that next week, there may be an uprising.
“Down with the ‘yes’ man, the ass kissing Muppet”
Then they’ll burn effigies, of Jamies fat puppet.
I dream and i dream, until the time it comes true,
But until that day, i’ll just feel blue.
such bitterness, such bile. It’s quite sad really. Undoubtedly, there’s some manipulation involved in the creation of the series but you can’t argue with the appalling levels of obesity in Rotherham. You just can’t take an outsider (from the south, gasp) coming and showing you how to cook. This whole blog is just lame. It’s a decent TV show with a well-meaning message. It makes Oliver money as well, so what? There’s worse ways to build an “empire”.