Framed to Perfection VII

FAR FLUNG FLOYD (1993)

Director: David Pritchard

Cinematographer: Paul Otter

Before art in television became a recent thing, there was only the odd director who gave a damn about making it look good. One of those pioneering troopers was the portly and sadly now late David Pritchard, who gave us multiple series of Keith Floyd’s fabulous travelogues. They’re very much like Billy Connolly’s “world tour” documentaries, except with cooking sketches instead of live comedy sketches.

And a host who has not and will not sober up.

Unlike Connelly though, Floyd was actually at home amongst the common citizen, whilst being visibly uncomfortable in the presence of the vile social elite. He did not suffer fools gladly, much to his ultimate unpopularity. He just would not be the stock-cretin the establishment required him to be. Good for him.

Director Pritchard stubbornly, and perhaps unwisely, shot using expensive film stock, but that just means his work remains timelessly beautiful. The BBC seem to have remastered Floyd on France, which they have posted on iPlayer to stream, so I dearly hope they eventually treat the rest of Pritchard’s work with the same respect. The rest of the series sadly now exist only as pretty low resolution DVDs and YouTube bootlegs. If I can tell they’re bad, then you’ve really got a problem!

Well, since the soul-destroying heatwave in the UK has made me fall off the wagon this weekend, I thought I’d treat you to a shot from probably my favourite of Floyd’s shows. Here he’s been escorted around North Thailand by the very sweet and old-fashioned anthropologist John Davies. I actually bought Mr Davies’ book to honour my love of the show, although I have not yet figured out how to read the thing, due to my poor vision.

Best laid plans and all that!

I hope this post finds you well. I’m hoping to be in better health soon enough, now that the rain has finally started to burn off the heat. I’ve been living off cheap supermarket whisky for the past few days, so I could do with a reason to be sober.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!