Fear of Fanny

I've never had much of a clue what kind of person Fanny Cradock was off screen. On the surface, what bits and pieces I've seen of her TV show always made her seem very quick on her feet, somewhat posh in a calm, intimidating sort of way but most of all perfectly confident. Very little (if any) of that attitude is to be found in this film. Julia Davis comes across uptight instead of posh or intimidating, and constantly nervous and easily upset instead of calm and confident. (That includes the TV show segments so it's not a matter of the movie implying Fanny might have looked formidable on TV but was actually insecure and neurotic off camera.)

I just couldn't recommend this film - when even the obvious stuff is so far off base (whether that's on purpose or because Davis just couldn't pull off a proper Fanny is another matter), I simply can't lend any believability to the more complex parts that are meant to be dealing with the woman's private life and personality while not so subtly passing judgment on both every 20 minutes. 2 out of 10.

As the top TV chef on the BBC, Fanny Craddock showing the masses how to produce elaborate dishes on a tight budget. Working with her long suffering husband Johnnie, Fanny is a domineering character who likes things just the way she likes them – an attitude that comes across on the screen no matter how she holds it in. Her children are remote and those that work with her generally do so in fear of their next mistake. At the height of her fame though, this aspect of her character starts to eat back on her life.

I'm getting older but I'm not old enough to remember when Fanny Craddock was a major influence in the world of TV chefs and generally I ignore their programmes anyway. However I was slightly aware of Craddock just because of the domineering and the way she used to talk down to her audience as if they were all a bit below her. This film focuses on the years when she was established and then moves through as her style quickly gets dated and her career comes to an end. In doing this the film never gets that deep into the character but yet does enough to show what a tragic figure she becomes as a result of her own actions. In this regard it is simplistic but interesting enough to work for what it is. Despite the terribly comedy title, the film is not that funny aside from the figure of fun that Craddock herself was. It is sad to watch her break and, although some actual depth and insight would have been nice, the events themselves are enough to carry the film. I did think at the end though that, apart from her recipes being stuck several decades back, Craddock would be in her element now as television has become cruel and full of matriarchal types (think Weakest Link, How Clean is Your House, You Are What You Eat etc etc); how ironic that barely a generation ago the thing that essentially ended her career would now have producers clambering to sign her up for a game show of some sort.

As Craddock, Davis does a very good job on the surface and is convincing throughout as this battleaxe of a woman. She struggles to find a person within the character but this is the material's problem as much as it is hers. Gatiss is a little bit better but again he doesn't have much in the way of character to work with – he has been told "you are long suffering" and left to get on with it. The rest of the cast fill in around the edges nicely enough but at the end the film doesn't even belong to Davis, it belongs to the caricature that was Fanny Craddock as this is what looms large over every scene.

Worth a look then for a potty history of who this famous TV chef was in terms of her public life and as such it is entertaining and quite interesting. However those looking for understanding and/or insight into why she was and who she really was when she was stripped bare in the quiet moments will not find anything that clever here.

Fear of Fanny (2006) which is a biography about Fanny Cradock and not vaginaphobia (it's a real phobia apparently) I'm currently on a Julia Davis binge, trying to find and watch all of her many tv performances in which she's starred. In this Davis plays Fanny Cradock the 70's TV chief with a devilish smirk, over her badly painted arched eyebrows .Cradock plagued the TVs in the 7Os with her mushroom vol-au-vent;s and lobster pate and all those other culinary delights which darkened the taste buds of our parents in search of that table top masterpieces for the table spreads. Cradock partner in crime her husband a permanently sozzled Johnny played excellently by Mark Gatiss. The film a BBC production, highlights the facade that Cradock created, it was all an act for the camera's and her fans. She was a bully on screen and in the home, but this hides her loneliness in her that her two sons had both left home, when Cradock hadn't approved of the girlfriends and life choices.

Its a nice nostalgia piece, all the colours principally browns, greens and yellow are all muted and look at times like vomit as does the food to be fair.

The final straw for Cradock is when she belittles a an amateur cook on the BBC TV show Esther Rantzen's Big Time, the audience finally see her for what she is.

Following the sad demise of Johnny we see Fanny, in her dotage arranging the dinner's in her care home much to the chagrin of the kitchen staff.

Its a nice study by Davis, not essential and not that funny perhaps the nature of playing a real person reigned in Davis's dark side, but does make you yearn to see what the real fanny was like.

My recollection of Fanny is from the dim and distanced past and it was the Fanny popularised by Benny Hill, which is seen in the film.

As for Vol-au-vents which I know you were thinking, I tasted these at one of my sisters weddings in the 70s, those condensed cream of mushroom soups opened my taste buds to such delights Vesta's Chow Mein with their crispy noodles, and other various over seas delights. It was around this time that I tried and tasted curried egg, which my brother and sister in law brought the recipe when traveling to the far east. 9/10 for the memories 5/10 for the food and 7/10 for the film.

This was a great show about a deeply insecure woman with intense emotional problems. The show catalogued a lifetime of pretence and despair and the pain she inflicted on others most notably her daughter in law.

I wasn't old enough to see her shows the first time but I remember the infamous blue boiled eggs and the green mashed potatoes as well as other equally hideous food.

Her treatment of the dying Johnny when she couldn't even bring herself to visit him in hospital seemed especially harsh but Fanny suffered from her own demons which seemed to torment her constantly.

All wrong, Darling. Completely wrong! Hypercritical (of others) Fanny Craddock must, one might suppose, be writhing in frustration at not being able to correct this aspect of her portrayal. The voice was rather hoarse, a bit affectedly posh, honking, loud and rather braying it was not unique for its time, it was the voice of the older actress or gregarious hostess and with her almost clown-like make-up (I recall her face looking white with make-up)combined to be her instantly recognisable trade-mark. The sound spoke eloquently of its process of formation - of cigarettes, of alcohol and being used frequently, loudly and confidently. Out of sight of the camera but within easy reach viewers might have supposed there was a lit cigarette and glass of something ready for instant use between takes.

Johnnie was from that "stand up straight, head up, chest out, stomach in" era and class that - all blazers, brilliantine and cravats, a familiar sight of those times. The little Benny Hill Show section with late comic actor Bob Todd caught the style perfectly. The style at least implied that the man was a gentleman and former army officer, probably ex-cavalry hence the stiff back - the posture even had a name: "a military bearing". As part of this was a gallant and rather courtly attitude to "ladies". Being "properly dressed" ie blazer and all, was not reserved just for "going out" but could be felt to be an obligation once breakfast had been cleared away indeed perhaps before breakfast (part of "keeping up standards"). (Newsreels of the 1930's show football fans going to the match in three piece suits and hats - it was an era where, relative today, people were over-dressed). It would have been more comic (and more moving) if Johnnie had been that more formally attired and courtly only to receive the verbal lashings from Fanny in return.

I'm not sure that Fanny was a "victim of her demons" rather than product of her time - a twilight period for class, family money, Empire, privileged travel and cheap subservient staff.

A film version with a more substantial script (including some reference to her earlier life) and two standout lead performances would be a dish to be relished, unfortunately currently only in anticipation. Difficult to imagine anyone better than the ubiquitous Jim Broadbent to play Johnnie. More difficult to cast Fanny - its the voice that's the problem.

Postscript: an superb biography of Fanny Craddock is to be found on Wikipedia. It notes her extraordinary pre-TV life including early destitution, particularly hard for someone from a once "good" family. However well worth reading too the surprising biography of her famous father - apart from being fascinating in its own right it sheds a great deal of light on Fanny. "Fear of Fanny" apparently was originally a stage play.