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http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/tvs-sternest-celebrity-chef-20120709-21qos.html
CELEBRITY chef Audrey Gordon isn't a real person, but that hasn't stopped people taking umbrage at her. Who is this insufferable snob on TV calling me an inferior human being because I use supermarket stock, they demand to know?
Part hoax, part comedy character, Gordon is the brainchild of actor Heidi Arena and the people at Working Dog, who have tapped into this vein of parody before with their faux travel guide to the republic of Molvania and all-Aussie adventure man Russell Coight.
But Tom Gleisner, one of those pulling the strings of ''Britain's sternest cook'', hopes that at some point the penny will drop. ''If you got through to the end of one of the episodes and still felt it was real and somewhat offensive, I feel we might not quite have done our job,'' he says. ''But I'm hoping that most people, by the time she's made her third politically incorrect statement in the space of one sentence, will have figured out this can't be totally serious.''
Gordon first appeared in the lavish cookbook parody Audrey Gordon's Tuscan Summer. According to the backstory, she is one of our best-known food writers, although it soon emerges that in addition to her dislike of migrants, children and vegetarians, she's been involved in a number of unsuccessful food-TV concepts over the years.
Advertisement Working Dog hired Arena, who played the wheelchair-user Dawn in The Librarians, for the book's photos but when they heard her speak as Audrey in publicity interviews, they realised they could take this preposterous character further. Worried she would outstay her welcome in a traditional half-hour comedy format, they were ''delighted'' when the ABC commissioned 10 three-minute kitchen segments for ABC1.
''We did our best to keep it within the bounds of reality,'' Gleisner says. ''We didn't have her hurting herself or saucepans falling on her head.
''The recipes are real. We decided early on that recipes that contained 27 cloves of garlic would blow the cover. We wanted - and hope - the show looks, sounds and smells like a genuine cooking series.
''For us, the comedy is not that the recipes are amusing; it's more the attitude of people who earnestly espouse the need to eat organic, free-range local produce and make you feel guilty if you don't. It was those areas that amused us; the sense of superiority that these are techniques I've honed over the years and that you in your tacky little kitchen at home will never be able to match my culinary skills.''
Gleisner believes the short format of Audrey's Kitchen could well be the future of TV comedy, as well as provide an opportunity for newcomers to hone their skills (as indeed happened for the makers of the viral hit Italian Spiderman).
''It's interesting the way people are absorbing comedy these days via YouTube clips. It's getting to the point now where people prefer the two- or three-minute clip - just give me the funny bit. Even the idea of sitting down for half an hour of comedy is too much.''
Audrey's Kitchen
ABC1, Saturdays and Sundays, 6.25pm
---------------------------
Sounds like fun!
CELEBRITY chef Audrey Gordon isn't a real person, but that hasn't stopped people taking umbrage at her. Who is this insufferable snob on TV calling me an inferior human being because I use supermarket stock, they demand to know?
Part hoax, part comedy character, Gordon is the brainchild of actor Heidi Arena and the people at Working Dog, who have tapped into this vein of parody before with their faux travel guide to the republic of Molvania and all-Aussie adventure man Russell Coight.
But Tom Gleisner, one of those pulling the strings of ''Britain's sternest cook'', hopes that at some point the penny will drop. ''If you got through to the end of one of the episodes and still felt it was real and somewhat offensive, I feel we might not quite have done our job,'' he says. ''But I'm hoping that most people, by the time she's made her third politically incorrect statement in the space of one sentence, will have figured out this can't be totally serious.''
Gordon first appeared in the lavish cookbook parody Audrey Gordon's Tuscan Summer. According to the backstory, she is one of our best-known food writers, although it soon emerges that in addition to her dislike of migrants, children and vegetarians, she's been involved in a number of unsuccessful food-TV concepts over the years.
Advertisement Working Dog hired Arena, who played the wheelchair-user Dawn in The Librarians, for the book's photos but when they heard her speak as Audrey in publicity interviews, they realised they could take this preposterous character further. Worried she would outstay her welcome in a traditional half-hour comedy format, they were ''delighted'' when the ABC commissioned 10 three-minute kitchen segments for ABC1.
''We did our best to keep it within the bounds of reality,'' Gleisner says. ''We didn't have her hurting herself or saucepans falling on her head.
''The recipes are real. We decided early on that recipes that contained 27 cloves of garlic would blow the cover. We wanted - and hope - the show looks, sounds and smells like a genuine cooking series.
''For us, the comedy is not that the recipes are amusing; it's more the attitude of people who earnestly espouse the need to eat organic, free-range local produce and make you feel guilty if you don't. It was those areas that amused us; the sense of superiority that these are techniques I've honed over the years and that you in your tacky little kitchen at home will never be able to match my culinary skills.''
Gleisner believes the short format of Audrey's Kitchen could well be the future of TV comedy, as well as provide an opportunity for newcomers to hone their skills (as indeed happened for the makers of the viral hit Italian Spiderman).
''It's interesting the way people are absorbing comedy these days via YouTube clips. It's getting to the point now where people prefer the two- or three-minute clip - just give me the funny bit. Even the idea of sitting down for half an hour of comedy is too much.''
Audrey's Kitchen
ABC1, Saturdays and Sundays, 6.25pm
---------------------------
Sounds like fun!