Director who ‘changed face of food TV forever’
He was someone who lifted the lives of everyone who knew him RICK STEIN
CELEBRITY chef Rick Stein has led tributes to the television director who “discovered” Keith Floyd and transformed how British food television appeared.
David Pritchard, who died on Sunday, was a producer with the BBC in Bristol when he popped into legendary restaurateur Floyd’s brasserie in Clifton.
In 2019 British television is saturated with cookery shows of every conceivable flavour, but it was a very different world when Mr Pritchard enjoyed his fateful steak frites with Floyd in 1982.
The extravagant and chaotic Floyd, who was briefly a reporter on the Western Daily Press before becoming a chef, was far removed from the somewhat staid studio-based food television of the time.
Mr Pritchard though spotted his potential and the pair produced shows that utterly transformed how Britain watched food television and by extension how we ate. He later went on to have a long and fruitful collaboration with Rick Stein, producing his globe-trotting shows.
The Cornwall-based chef paid tribute to his producer, who was in his early 70s, on Twitter on Sunday.
He said: “I’m very sad to say that David Pritchard, my friend and the TV director I have worked with for over 30 years, died this morning.
“He was a remarkable person, someone who lifted the lives of everyone who knew him. We will all feel a great emptiness now he has gone.”
A number of other prominent food industry figures were quick to salute a man who helped raise the profile of chefs.
Wine critic Oz Clarke said: “I have many fond and bibulous memories of David stretching right back to his riotous times with Keith Floyd.”
TV chef James Martin said: “A legend and a true master of his art and he made food shows proper.”
Bristol-based restaurateur and drinks writer Kate Hawkings said: “Very sad news. He was a regular customer of mine in the 90s and one of my very favourites. Sketching out shows on the paper tablecloths, he was an epic luncher, generous tipper, enormous fun and always totally charming. A lovely, lovely man.”
Mr Pritchard was creative director of Devon-based independent television producer Denhams.
In a statement, the company said: “We are so very sad to say goodbye to a much-loved member of the Denhams family, David Pritchard, who notably changed the face of television and cookery programmes for over 30 years. Our thoughts and love are with his wife Fiona and daughter Lucy.”
In an interview with the Western Daily Press in 2009, about the time he launched his memoir Shooting The Cook, he recalled meeting Floyd for the first time.
He said that Floyd told him at the time “cooking is the new rock and roll” and how right he was. The book spills the beans on what went on behind the scenes with Floyd – the botched camera shots, the bust-ups and even the monumental hangovers
Describing Floyd he said: “There’s something about the tone of that 60-a-day voice. He has a touch of the Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole about him.”
He finished that interview by saying: “I really think I have the best job in the world.”
The millions of people who have enjoyed the programmes he ushered in will no doubt agree.