Behind the glitz and glamour of television cameras, there's always more than meets the eye: events are amplified for dramatic effect, and anything that breaks the illusion can be edited or cut.
That applies to fingers, too. A young chef working in Frances Atkins' kitchen at The Yorke Arms was an unfortunate victim when he was cast to figure in an advert alongside Marco Pierre White.
Frances Atkins, who, according to Wikipedia (though she denies this) was the first female British chef to receive a Michelin star in 2003, told this story when she appeared in the latest episode of Paul Foster's podcast, The Nightcap.
The gory tale came when host Simon Alexander asked the chefs to tell a 'Boiling Point' story, when "things in the kitchen just
Chef Frances Atkins
got a bit too much."
Bernard Matthews Norfolk Turkeys, she explained, of which Marco Pierre White was named brand ambassador in 2010,decided to film an advert at The Yorke Arms, Frances Atkins' Michelin-starred restaurant in Harrogate, as they wanted somewhere that looked "like a wonderful country house."
Though originally, they had cast someone to be in the advert alongside the chef, the production team made a last minute decision to ask one of her junior chefs to do it instead.
“We had that Kemp man in and all these celebrities eating Marco’s turkey and the chef who was supposed to be doing this for Marco
had a tattoo of a snake round his neck, so the producer said: ‘we can’t have a tattoo on this, your kitchen’ll have to do it.”
“So this little lad that I had, he was really good, he had to do the dish."
Marco Pierre White was promoting a range of kitchen knives, which the chef was told to use during filming; but he slipped and almost severed his finger.
The Yorke Arms, Harrogate
“He was chop, chop, chop with the mashed potato, and they were filming, and he realised what he’d done so he ran away; it was hanging in the air. He ran away and ran out of the door,” she said.
“I rushed after him, and they’d got all this smoke stuff in the kitchen to make it look atmospheric, so nobody saw and they just carried on, covered up the blood and mashed potato and carried on filming.”
The worst part in all of this, she joked, was that the advert didn't even stay on the airwaves for a fortnight (but luckily for you, we unearthed it for you, see below).
“We watched this advertisement with great interest when it came on television, just to see. It lasted for a week, then it got chucked out.”
“And poor little chappy, he ran away because he was so mortified about his finger.”
Chefs, what's the worst injury you've ever sustained in the kitchen? Would you risk chopping your finger off for the sake of being in the same room as Marco or Gordon?
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