It’s 4 a.m. on a recording studio day. Most working on the production will be well into their night’s sleep. For the caterers, that’s when the hard work starts, as on a typical studio day, that’s their start time.
Early bird gets what exactly?
“A normal day would be a 4 am get-in with a view to start making the breakfast about 6.30/7am.”, says Mark, who co-owns the TV catering company Chorley Bunce. “It’s hard to get people that actually want to get up at ridiculous o’clock in the morning and put that hard graft in.”
The company has worked on various TV shows, including Wheel of Fortune hosted by Graham Norton, Happy Valley, and It’s a Sin, which aired during the 2020 lockdown.
Starting work so early in the morning is certainly not a perk of the job for Mark and his workers, but some of the people the caterers meet make it all worthwhile.
“I worked on a film called Fifth Element (it didn’t do very well), but it featured Bruce Willis. Bruce used to come into the kitchen and tell us what he wanted to eat.
“On one occasion, he showed us how to make this Cajun Chicken Dish. He came into the catering van and cooked it for us so that we could cook it for him. We still do that dish on our menus today!”
From behind the counter
On the topic of The Fifth Element not doing great, it’s fair to say Mark has worked on shows with varying success.
“I’ve worked on things that I thought ‘this is going to be amazing’ and it ends up being absolutely rubbish and doesn’t run again.
“I worked on Peaky Blinders and I thought ‘I don’t know about this’ and then of course it turned out to be a massive hit!
“At the time, it was quite chaotic, just the way it was shot, it looked like it was really unorganised. But in the end, it obviously worked out well.”
Mark, who started his career as a restaurant chef in London, says every onsite catering is slightly different, and Mark speaks about some of his most interesting experiences serving the crew working on set.
“Me and Dave (co-owner of Chorley Bunce) have served food on the top of a mountain in Wales. We literally had to carry the stuff up, which took about an hour and a half to get to the top. We got a round of applause too when we got there!
“We’ve cooked on a nuclear submarine (in dock) before! We also had to serve 1200 extras on boats on one set, so we had to take the food out on jet-skis and deliver it to them on boats. It was an amazing thing to do!”
Odd hours
Dealing with the unexpected and changes within a schedule is something that is second
nature to caterers working on set. 100% flexibility is a must for anyone working in the kitchen on a TV set.
“You have to be 100% flexible. Even when you’ve gone home knowing the plan for tomorrow, you can wake up with an email, or they’ll ring you at 11 pm at night and say that’s not happening now.
The last-minute changes and flexibility are just the nature of the beast when it comes to catering on TV.
“It definitely annoys me, but it comes with the job. I try to have my phone on silent for a certain amount of time, but I need to look at it just to make sure nothing has changed.”
Mark and his team have felt the effects of the increase in dietary requirements and the impact it has on the crew meals they provide.
“Everybody I speak to in our industry feels that it’s a bit of a bugbear, they feel that dietary requirements have gotten out of hand.
“Everyone expects a bespoke service to them. It was the artists who used to have dietary requirements, and now the artists have very little, and it’s the crew who have all got dietary requirements.”
When asked for advice to pass on to someone aspiring to work in TV catering, Mark said: “You have to be very flexible, you have to be extremely hardworking, and you don’t have to take things to heart. You need to take criticism.
“Oh, and manage on not much sleep!”
For more articles about being on set, click here.
