The culture of culinary programming on TV has always stereotypically given content that promotes ‘healthy’ lifestyle choices as approved by celebrity chefs, though the latest show to be commissioned by Channel 4 looks like it would be anything but, after they confirmed a new documentary based on the of consumption of fried chicken and increasing popularity of stores offering the fast food in the UK.
Taking on the inventive working title of The Fried Chicken Shop, the one-off documentary show will offer viewers a look at the daily activities of one featured shop in the south of London (England).
The format is claimed to be a ‘Big Brother‘-style filming process of fixed cameras, aimed at capturing all the ‘action’ from the shop and providing places for interviews with staff and customers.
Channel 4 claim that the documentary (produced by Mentorn Media as part of the network’s Cutting Edge brand of documentary shows) will be an ‘examination of the cultural and economic urban landscape of modern Britain’, and will be a “surprising and celebratory” experience for viewers.
Channel 4’s commissioning editor Emma Cooper said of the new show: “The Fried Chicken Shop will explore the scale of the nation’s obsession and increasing love of fried chicken. Filmed in one of the UK’s popular fried chicken shops and serving the diverse community of London, it has produced a surprising yet exciting and genuinely illuminating film and tells us the story of Britain today through our voracious appetite for chicken wings.”
The Fried Chicken Shop will certainly be a unique program, even if the restaurant featured turns out to be a poor imitation of KFC (a mini-‘documentary’ of which can be seen below along with a classic advert that combines another item on Channel 4’s line-up), but will it be a tasty addition to viewer’s watch lists? The most ironic placement possible at this point would be to put the documentary on following a Jamie Oliver show…
[…] when you thought documentaries on fried chicken shops and one night in the life of a nightclub bathroom were new peaks in unusual programming, the same […]