Arabella Weir

Posh Nosh is a 2003 BBC television programme parodying television chefs; the title and basic outline a reference to a cooking show pilot pitched by Neil Hamilton and Christine Hamilton. Written by Jon Canter and Arabella Weir from an idea by Weir, and directed and script edited by Chris Langham, the programme stars Arabella Weir and Richard E. Grant as chefs the Hon. Simon and Minty Marchmont, owners of a very posh restaurant called “The Quill & Tassel”. There were eight nine-minute episodes, in which the chefs carry out their mission to bring “extraordinary food” to “ordinary people”.

Simon and Minty prepare various dishes ranging from architect’s fish and chips to bread AND butter pudding, offering snooty and frequently surreal commentary along the way. For instance, they employ words in odd ways in parody of specific culinary terminology, such as “interrogate a lemon”; and their cooked vegetables are not peeled but “embarrassed”, after which they might be “annoyed” instead of boiled. They also frequently insist on ultra-specific, often prohibitively expensive, ingredients—such as Greek currants that you actually have to fly to Greece to buy.

At the same time, a thread of increasing domestic tension runs beneath the surface of every exchange between Simon and Minty, like Simon frequently rolling his eyes at Minty’s malapropisms or Simon sarcastically commenting on Minty’s cooking skills, along with some not-so-subtle hints about Simon’s repressed sexual orientation. The couple illustrate aspects of the British class divide, with Minty as a middle-class social climber who married Simon for his status. She constantly brags about her high station in life, while also seeming to run “The Quill and Tassel” kitchens single-handed. A running joke in the series is Simon’s crush on his tennis instructor José Luis. José Luis dies before episode 8, and Simon and Minty cook a meal to remember him in this episode. At the dinner, Simon is introduced to a new tennis coach, also played by David Tennant. Both Marchmonts are obsessed with their dog, Sam, going so far as to throw a birthday party for him. The birthday cake prepared for the party contains huge amounts of chocolate, which would kill dogs, a rather macabre joke.