Whites camera action

After the fly-on-the-wall documentary on Gordon Ramsay, Boiling Point, was screened in March last year, Caterer's letters page was awash with damning comments which labelled the chef as "a bully-boy", "intolerable", "bombastic" and "egotistical". In short, Ramsay was accused of bringing the industry into disrepute.

Boiling Point was certainly not Jamie Oliver's Naked Chef, or Ready Steady Cook - praised for portraying the industry in a positive light. But is there really such a thing as bad publicity? Are the more realistic fly-on-the-wall programmes really having as bad an impact on the industry as the deluge of letters to Caterer would have us believe?

Industry response

So important have these questions been to the industry over the past 12 months that the Hospitality 2000 survey carried out by Caterer (in association with the Chess Partnership) in June this year made a point of trying to find out. It asked: does the high profile of today's top TV chefs and the multiplicity of food and drink programmes actively encourage new entrants to the industry?

The response to the survey does not match the rash tone of the letters received about all the "negative" programmes. The survey concluded: "While several respondents blamed documentaries like Gordon Ramsay's notorious Boiling Point and the spate of ‘docusoaps' for negative perceptions, most actually thought catering's new-found celebrity status aided the industry; one in five held that view strongly and three in five partially agreed."

Attracting students?

Whether or not these programmes encourage entrants into the industry is debatable, but they don't seem to be putting off prospective students. Martyn Wagner, head of hospitality, leisure and tourism for Westminster College in London, says that he has had no indication from research to back up the belief that negative publicity keeps people away, even though he does agree that it doesn't help the industry's image. In fact, says Wagner, recruitment at his college is climbing.

Even a post-Boiling Point Ramsay is revered. Wagner says that he has never heard his students make any comments about the violent nature of Ramsay's behaviour. And despite the image seen on TV, he says: "A lot of our students would like to work for Gordon Ramsay because of his skill level." Wagner also adds that he, like a lot of his colleagues, has admiration for the temperamental chef's talents. "I think he's a superb craftsman," he says.

It is how Ramsay achieves the quality of his food, and the fact that the whole country was party to it, which upset the industry. To be fair to Ramsay, he isn't alone in getting his knuckles rapped for behaving badly on TV. Five years ago, John Burton-Race was severely criticised after violent behaviour in his kitchen was screened in The Big Story. Then there was the BBC's Hotel series on Britannia's Adelphi hotel in Liverpool, and before that the controversial programmes on Bristol's Swallow Royal hotel.

All these programmes left leading industry figures fuming at what they saw as negative publicity. On Ramsay, Michael Gottlieb, president of the Restaurant Association, said: "Many people are very angry about how he is damaging our image. Moreover, they believe he has a moral obligation not to" (Caterer, 6 May 1999, page 16).

Again, though, each of these programmes seemed to prove there is no such thing as bad publicity. Bookings for both the Adelphi and Bristol's Swallow Royal rose following their shows being broadcast. In the Swallow's case, profits jumped by more than 40% for 1997 - the same year the show was broadcast - while the then-general manager, Philip Sagar, said that if a television company wanted to make another programme he would agree (Caterer, 15 January 1998, page 10). Ramsay's restaurant is always fully booked and only seven weeks ago the chef received the Caterer & Hotelkeeper Catey for Chef of the Year - an award voted for by some of the industry's leading chefs.

While the "positive" cookery programmes excel at entertainment, what Boiling Point and Hotel have shown is a more realistic side of a tough industry. This is a point highlighted by the Caterer report, which says: "Almost four out of five respondents overall felt that TV coverage tended to set up unrealistic expectations. Most also agreed with the view that TV programmes tended to make the job appear glamorous when, in reality, it wasn't. Only 15% disagreed with this view."

John Roberts, director of the Butlers Wharf Chef School in London, says that his students aren't blinkered by any glamorous images. He says that there is a huge difference between the Adelphi/Ramsay programmes and the cookery shows. "They are two extremes," he notes. "There's a big difference between being a celebrity chef and business and entertainment."

Pat McDonald, with his six-part series If You Can't Stand The Heat… which ran on Channel 4 last year, tried to bring this realism home. On running a restaurant, he says: "Cooking is not just rock ‘n' roll, it's hard work." And he believes that his programme "gave people, who may have thought about the dream of opening a restaurant, more of an insight into what running a business is all about".

Manipulation

No matter the style of the programme, there is a belief that series such as Boiling Point and Hotel are manipulated by the television production companies. McDonald says that he had full control over his programme, but others have complained about what was eventually broadcast. Britannia Hotels, owner of the Adelphi, was reported to be unhappy with its documentary. Marketing director Duncan Stephenson said that the BBC had "taken liberties" and shown "a lot more than it should have done".

It is true that producers will film excessively (there was about 26 hours of filming for each of the six 26-minute-long episodes of If You Can't Stand The Heat…) and then pick out what will appeal to a wider public. Roberts sums up the industry's general feelings: "I am told that people prefer mistakes and cock-ups because they are more entertaining, so those programmes focus on those things."

Public appetite

The public, however, seems equally enthralled by both positive and negative programmes. No doubt more shows will pop up on our screens as TV companies cash in on the public's appetite for programmes about the hospitality industry. Another Boiling Point has already been filmed for broadcast at the end of the year, and industry chiefs can only wait to see what the second series has in store.

However "realistic" and hard-hitting the series turns out to be, it may still face the charge of showing a distorted picture of hospitality work. As Ian McKerracher, the Restaurant Association's chief executive, says: "If people really behaved that appallingly to their staff throughout the industry, then we wouldn't have an industry."

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 10-16 August 2000