Remember the Peter Kay airport sketch where he’s trying to explain that the bag of white powder in his luggage is Coffee-Mate and the customs officer responds “I’m not your mate”?
“He’s not your mate” is what I wanted to scream on Monday when the first episode of Mitch and Matt’s Big Fish (9pm, UKTV Food) aired. Not since Smashey and Nicey have I heard the “m” word used with such gay abandon. When he wasn’t reiterating how “rock’n’roll” fishing was, restaurateur Mitch Tonks was tagging it on to sentences so religiously I began to wonder if he had any friends at all.
Certainly, this was the last thing sidekick, international rugby star and Celebrity MasterChef winner Matt Dawson, came across as. I don’t know whether it was just poor scripting, but the first show in this 10-episode road trip around the coast to discover the best of British fish felt stilted and amateurish and, worst of all, disingenuous.
Things didn’t get off to a good start. Tonks rocked up with a battered VW camper van, which, surprise, surprise, broke down almost as soon as it left the carpark. (Predictably, it was up and running after two hours in the garage.)
If the banal banter weren’t irritating enough, the programme was also desperately uninformative. When the pair were hauling lobster out of Dartmouth harbour, it would have been good to hear more on the art of lobster fishing, but no. The only ‘interesting’ facts we were given was that their pincers were a bit like a knife and fork and one that size could fetch £100. The fisherman had also landed a massive crab and told us he preferred male to female crabs. Why? We didn’t find out.
Things improved in the kitchen as Tonks prepared an amazing looking lobster, garlic butter and hollandaise sauce dish. But no mention was made of the fact that controversially, the tomalley (the liver and pancreas) appeared to have been left on, Dawson just urging us inanely to “eat all the green stuff”.
Although the next recipe of teriyaki mackerel kebabs looked equally delicious, nothing could disguise the fact this programme was at sea in more ways than one. Rick Stein has nothing to fear – this was very far from rock‘n’roll, mate. n
“He’s not your mate” is what I wanted to scream on Monday when the first episode of Mitch and Matt’s Big Fish (9pm, UKTV Food) aired. Not since Smashey and Nicey have I heard the “m” word used with such gay abandon. When he wasn’t reiterating how “rock’n’roll” fishing was, restaurateur Mitch Tonks was tagging it on to sentences so religiously I began to wonder if he had any friends at all.
Certainly, this was the last thing sidekick, international rugby star and Celebrity MasterChef winner Matt Dawson, came across as. I don’t know whether it was just poor scripting, but the first show in this 10-episode road trip around the coast to discover the best of British fish felt stilted and amateurish and, worst of all, disingenuous.
Things didn’t get off to a good start. Tonks rocked up with a battered VW camper van, which, surprise, surprise, broke down almost as soon as it left the carpark. (Predictably, it was up and running after two hours in the garage.)
If the banal banter weren’t irritating enough, the programme was also desperately uninformative. When the pair were hauling lobster out of Dartmouth harbour, it would have been good to hear more on the art of lobster fishing, but no. The only ‘interesting’ facts we were given was that their pincers were a bit like a knife and fork and one that size could fetch £100. The fisherman had also landed a massive crab and told us he preferred male to female crabs. Why? We didn’t find out.
Things improved in the kitchen as Tonks prepared an amazing looking lobster, garlic butter and hollandaise sauce dish. But no mention was made of the fact that controversially, the tomalley (the liver and pancreas) appeared to have been left on, Dawson just urging us inanely to “eat all the green stuff”.
Although the next recipe of teriyaki mackerel kebabs looked equally delicious, nothing could disguise the fact this programme was at sea in more ways than one. Rick Stein has nothing to fear – this was very far from rock‘n’roll, mate. n
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