Two Fat Ladies
Two Fat Ladies | |
---|---|
Starring | Jennifer Paterson Clarissa Dickson Wright |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 4 |
No. of episodes | 24 |
Production | |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Production company | Optomen Television for BBC |
Original release | |
Network | BBC Two |
Release | 9 October 1996 (1996-10-09) – 28 September 1999 (1999-09-28) |
Two Fat Ladies is a British cooking programme starring Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright. It originally ran for four series – twenty-four episodes – from 9 October 1996 to 28 September 1999, being produced by Optomen Television for the BBC. Since then, the show has been repeated frequently on the Food Network and Cooking Channel in the US and on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In the UK, the show has been transmitted many times on the satellite channel Good Food.
Overview
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Clarissa_Dickson_Wright_2011.jpg/200px-Clarissa_Dickson_Wright_2011.jpg)
The show centred on Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright travelling the United Kingdom for most of the episodes, except for one episode in Ireland and a Christmas special in Jamaica, on a Triumph Thunderbird motorcycle driven by Paterson. It sported the registration N88 TFL (the British bingo call for number 88 is "Two Fat Ladies", initialised in the suffix "TFL" of the registration) and had a Watsonian Jubilee[1] GP-700 "doublewide" sidecar where Dickson Wright rode. They travelled to various destinations, such as an army garrison and an all-girls school, where they prepared large meals, often with unusual ingredients.
Paterson's uncle, Anthony Bartlett, was Gentiluomo to the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, and so one episode was videotaped at Westminster Cathedral and another at an Irish convent. While cooking at Westminster Cathedral, Paterson cooked an original dish, Peaches Cardinal Hume.[2]
Optomen Television's synopsis of the programme said, "The Ladies are cooks not chefs – they reject the pretensions and elaborations of haute cuisine and are aggressively unfashionable, delighting in such ingredients as clotted cream, lard and fatty meats."[1]
Theme song
Paterson and Dickson Wright sang their own theme song written by composer Pete Baikie, and Paterson often burst into song during the show, once introducing apple pan dowdy with a verse from the song "Shoo-Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy" (erroneously attributing the song to The Andrews Sisters). They revelled in cooking at grand locations, such as at Lennoxlove House near Edinburgh.
Cookbooks
"The Two Fat Ladies" produced four cookbooks which accompanied each of the four television series. In order: Two Fat Ladies: Gastronomic Adventures (with Motorbike and Sidecar), The Two Fat Ladies Ride Again, The Two Fat Ladies: Full Throttle and Two Fat Ladies Obsessions.[3]
Release
The Two Fat Ladies DVD set was released in the United States in July 2008. The Acorn Media UK set includes a 40-minute BBC tribute to Paterson, biographies of the stars and "six yummo recipes" in a booklet. It contains all 24 episodes across four discs. The show had previously been released in Britain as a Region 2 DVD set.[4]
Episode list
Series overview
Series | Start date | End date | Episodes |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 9 October 1996 | 13 November 1996 | 6 |
2 | 29 September 1997 | 24 December 1997 | 7 |
3 | 2 September 1998 | 22 December 1998 | 7 |
4 | 7 September 1999 | 28 September 1999 | 4 |
Series 1 (1996)
No. Overall | Episode Number | Title | Location | Clarissa's dishes | Jennifer's dishes | Air date |
1 | 1 | Fish & Shellfish | The Shark's Fin Hotel Mevagissey, Cornwall | 9 October 1996 | ||
2 | 2 | Meat | Westonbirt School Gloucestershire |
|
| 16 October 1996 |
3 | 3 | Fruit & Vegetables | Westminster Cathedral London |
|
| 23 October 1996 |
4 | 4 | Cakes | Hallaton, Leicestershire |
|
| 30 October 1996 |
5 | 5 | Game | Lennoxlove House East Lothian |
|
| 6 November 1996 |
6 | 6 | Food in the Wild | Hawkhirst Scout Camp Kielder Forest, Northumberland |
|
| 13 November 1996 |
Series 2 (1997)
No. Overall | Episode Number | Title | Location | Clarissa's dishes | Jennifer's dishes | Air date |
7 | 1 | Cocktail Party | The Brazilian Embassy Mayfair, London |
|
| 29 September 1997 |
8 | 2 | Lunch | Vintage motorcycle rally Hesket Newmarket, Cumbria |
| 6 October 1997 | |
9 | 3 | Picnic | Male choir in Llandudno |
| 13 October 1997 | |
10 | 4 | Afternoon Tea | A cricket match Warborough, Oxfordshire |
|
| 20 October 1997 |
11 | 5 | Breakfast | Black Sheep Brewery Masham, North Yorkshire |
|
| 27 October 1997 |
12 | 6 | Dinner | 1st Battalion, The Royal Gurkha Rifles Aldershot, Queen Elizabeth Barracks, Church Crookham |
|
| 3 November 1997 |
13 | 7 (Christmas Special) | Christmas | Winchester Cathedral Choir The Pilgrims' School, Winchester, Hampshire |
|
| 24 December 1997 |
Series 3 (1998)
No. Overall | Episode Number | Title | Location | Clarissa's dishes | Jennifer's dishes | Air date | Viewers (millions) |
14 | 1 | Benedictine Nuns | Kylemore Abbey Connemara, County Galway |
|
| 2 September 1998 | 3.85 |
15 | 2 | Pony Club | The Cotswolds, Gloucestershire |
| 9 September 1998 | 4.31 | |
16 | 3 | The Cambridge Eight | Boat club Cambridge University |
| 16 September 1998 | 4.63 | |
17 | 4 | Barristers at Lincoln's Inn | Lincoln's Inn, London |
|
| 23 September 1998 | 3.36 |
18 | 5 | The Air Race | East Fortune Airfield, Scotland |
| 30 September 1998 | 4.21 | |
19 | 6 | Lock Keepers | Grindley Brook, Shropshire |
| 7 October 1998 | 4.35 | |
20 | 7 (Christmas Special) | A Caribbean Christmas | Chukka Cove Polo Club Good Hope Country House, Jamaica |
| 22 December 1998 | 3.34 |
Series 4 (1999)
No. Overall | Episode Number | Title | Location | Clarissa's dishes | Jennifer's dishes | Air date | Viewers (millions) |
21 | 1 | Potatoes Galore | Jersey |
|
| 7 September 1999 | 2.27 |
22 | 2 | On Safari | Knowsley Safari Park Lancashire |
| 14 September 1999 | 2.87 | |
23 | 3 | Timber! | Ardnamurchan peninsula |
|
| 21 September 1999 | 3.05 |
24 | 4 | A Day at the Races | Floors Castle, Kelso St. Abbs, Northumberland |
| 28 September 1999 | 3.37 |
- Note: Series 4 was halted after the death of Jennifer Paterson shortly after completion of its fourth episode.
References
- ^ a b "Two Fat Ladies". Optomen International. Archived from the original on 26 October 2015. Retrieved 26 October 2015.
- ^ "Healthy Recipes". tipsions.com. Retrieved 30 July 2020.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Amazon.co.uk: two fat ladies: Books". www.amazon.co.uk.
- ^ "New DVDs: 'Two Fat Ladies,' in full – DVD Spin Doctor". Dvdspindoctor.typepad.com. 26 July 2008. Retrieved 22 March 2014.
External links
- Two Fat Ladies at IMDb
- Two Fat Ladies at Cooking Channel