Comfort food and a little bit of Toast for Nigel Slater
Dec 17 2010 By Roz Laws
Roz Laws takes a look behind the scenes of the Birmingham production bringing food writer and TV cook Nigel Slater’s story to life.
There’s a heady smell of hairspray and fried chicken in the air.
Women with backcombed beehives and long frocks with gaudy prints are milling around the grounds of Highbury Hall.
Today, the former home of Joseph Chamberlain in Moseley is the backdrop to a major event in the life of another Midlander.
A scene from the childhood of food writer Nigel Slater is playing out for the cameras. Highbury Hall has been turned into a film set as it stands in for Wolverhampton Masonic Lodge on July 21 1968, the night of a Ladies’ Evening.
Coming down the stairs – again and again, as the scene is reshot – are Helena Bonham Carter and Ken Stott.
They are playing Nigel’s father and his housekeeper Joan Potter, with whom he started a relationship after the death of Nigel’s mother when he was nine.
With them is 11-year-old Oscar Kennedy, who plays the young Nigel, the teenage years being taken by Freddie Highmore.
He’s about to recreate a vivid memory in Nigel’s life, when he ate so much at the dinner that he was sick in his father’s car.
He tells the story in his bittersweet autobiography Toast, which reveals his childhood through his food memories. Now it’s a funny and poignant BBC1 film, adapted by Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall and a highlight of the Christmas schedules.
On the menu at the Masonic dinner is prawn cocktail, chicken in a basket and strawberries and cream.
In front of Oscar is a pink concoction which looks like the right starter, but has been changed because Oscar doesn’t like shellfish.
“I’m quite a fussy boy,” the Nottingham lad had earlier confided. “I wouldn’t say they’ve picked the wrong person for the role, but I don’t like a lot of food. I was OK yesterday eating ice cream, but I don’t like prawns.”
I tell him that he’s getting tinned lychees in pink custard instead.
