Pic: Tony Bartholomew Photography (lovely site, lovely pics)
In timely fashion, flamboyant, foul-mouthed Keith Floyd has died. Timely, because Channel 4 broadcast an interview with him by Keith Allen last night. The programme was captivating, as Floyd, clearly a 'recovering' alcoholic, necked beer, pastis and wine throughout the recording. However, Floyd, a maverick hero of mine (who really stirred up my interest in food, cooking and restaurants with his 1984 series, Floyd on Fish) looked more like 75 than his real age of 65 and was very shaky on his pins, requiring a stick to steady his walk. Sad, but Floyd sounded a man who was now angry with life and his current lot. Four-times divorced, Floyd was truly a TV cooking presenter pioneer and legend.
Partial source: Guardian - Why we love Keith Floyd (reproduced below), Independent - Floyd uncorked
Matthew Fort's piece from the Guardian Word of Mouth blog in August of this year is so good that I've copied it here:
Why we love Keith Floyd
Before him food television was humdrum, beige and fustian. His panache and flair changed it forever.
The news that Keith Floyd is fighting cancer is bad enough. The fact that it is bowel cancer has a certain – what shall we say? – ghastly resonance, because if any man can truly be said to have influenced the way we think about about food, see food, react to food, delight in food, it is Keith Floyd - the Floyd of Floyd on Food, Floyd on Fish, Floyd on France and any other country you care to name, Floyd Uncorked and any of the other 16 series the great man has presented since 1984. Delia, Nigella, Jamie, Gordon, Hugh and the host of others have simply trailed in his wake.
Floyd was – is; it would be a rash person who wrote off Keith Floyd at this stage of the game – the first, true, original rock 'n roll television cook. Before him all was staid, orderly, scripted and largely confined to the studio. It was fustian, beige, humdrum. With Floyd, food on television went Technicolor. It had life. Anything was possible – exotic locations, unscripted howlers, wild adventures, humour, drink, and casual nonchalance in the cooking department.
All this was a world away from the sensible Delia Smith, the studied care of Anton Mosimann or the Roux brothers, or even the theatrical campery of Graham Kerr. Floyd has given us personality, flair, colour and pleasure. He's made cooking accessible and fun, and a glass or three of wine should never be far from a cook's right hand. He has style. He has panache. Above all, he's a bloke. Women may have adored him too, but essentially Floyd is a bloke's bloke and he made it all right for blokes to be interested in food, even to cook.
Clearly he wasn't always the easiest man in the world to work with, as Shooting the Cook, the highly amusing memoir of his long-time producer and director, David Pritchard, makes clear (Pritchard has worked the same magic with Rick Stein since the heady Floyd days), but he's always had style. He introduced enthusiasm, individuality and panache to the screen, dominating with an insouciance and charm none have managed since. He has cooked real dishes in real time in real places. He was the first missionary for British produce and producers, and in the earliest shows he showed an innate ability to make these shy and reticent men and women relax in front of the cameras, the better to draw natural responses from them.
But after a couple of series of sharing the screen with others, it became all about Floyd. It didn't matter where he was - France, America, Italy, Australia, America - his rakish, slightly louche boyish energy filled the frame to the exclusion of anyone else. He was just too colourful, too substantial, too commanding, too egocentric. There he was, in cream trousers, blazer, cravat (wearing a cravat on screen! Now that takes real courage), as English as English can be, from the crown of his Panama hat to the soles of his brogues, unfazed by any situation in which he might find himself, cheery, chatty, ebullient, glass in hand.
Glass in hand. It became Floyd's trademark, part of the brand. He slurped and swigged, quaffed and gulped in a way that is unimaginable in today's sanitised, mustn't-set-a-bad-example, health and safety conscious world. His failures, of pubs, restaurants, marriages, fascinated us almost as much as his triumphs on television. Clearly he could be an absolute bastard, but it says much of the affection in which Floyd is held that his various acts of public foolishness have never been held against him, in the same way that those of, say, Gordon Ramsay have been used to chastise him.
We love Floyd, warts, booze and all because, in truth, blokes wanted to be like him, having a whale of a time, master of any situation and not giving a toss what anybody else thinks. And if there was a bit of collateral damage, well, sod it, that's what happens. Just top up my glass if you don't mind.
