Max Beesley A Taste of My Life

Hello. Welcome to A Taste Of My Life -

the show that the serves up people's lives with something of a twist.

This is a culinary trip down memory lane.

Food is incredibly revealing about who we are and what we do.

It tells us a great deal about the way we live our lives.

So what better way to get to know our guest than by sampling the tastes and flavours of their life?

Although today's guest has had a successful career as a musician,

he first came to prominence in the bawdy costume drama Tom Jones.

DOOR CLOSES

When personal tragedy struck with the unexpected death of his mother,

he dealt with the trauma by taking on a gritty role in the hit medical drama Bodies.

Give her some more. WOMAN WHIMPERS

Not me. WOMAN GROANS

Give her some more.

Or I will.

But most recently, he's entertained viewers as the deputy manager

of the most salacious hotel ever to grace our TV screens.

You have all the attributes of a good receptionist.

You're polite, handsome, flirtatious and, yet, strangely asexual.

Thank you.

Yes, today's guest who'll be joining me in the kitchen

is actor, musician, keen chef and heart-throb Max Beesley.

'Coming up on today's show, Max the chef is given something

'of a rib-tickling by his step-brother, Jason.'

Like I say, he can do it.

He just needs to get the portion sizes sorted out.

'College friend and singer Omar gives us the low-down on Max's taste in women.'

He needed a little bit of learning, some teaching.

'And he reveals how tough it was doing the medical drama Bodies after the tragic death of his mum.'

It was my sort of homage to my mother, you know.

Max Beesley, welcome to A Taste Of My Life.

It's an absolute pleasure to be here.

Now, you were born in Manchester into a family of musicians.

My mum was a jazz singer and my dad was a jazz muso, so it was great.

That kind of pushed me towards

what I was gonna do.

I wasn't really an academic at primary school. I was a bit naughty.

I was always messing about and trying to make the girls laugh.

Your parents divorced when you were very young.

Yeah. I think I was about one, yeah.

It was just natural for me to see my dad every weekend and go to school

and get told off by my mother in the morning and at night times. D'you know what I mean?

But my mum was just an amazing, amazing lady and my old man is an amazing guy, you know.

So, it was my norm, really.

So, mum cooked. I mean, that's the food that you remember, probably.

Yeah, Mum tried to cook. My mum used to think by steaming fish and giving me jacket potatoes with no butter

or low-fat butter was good for me.

But I hated it because there was no taste, really.

Which is precisely why I'm going to rustle up something tasty and succulent with some fried halibut,

lightly seasoned flour, plenty of butter in the pan,

and all those horrid memories of boiled fish will fade away.

I can remember my mum steaming fish between two plates on top of a saucepan

and I knew what I was getting for supper because you could hear the rattling from miles away.

Yep, yep. Well, that was the same thing.

I had the fear in me whenever I saw the pressure cooker because I knew...

I didn't know what she'd be cooking because she'd steam everything.

So, the fish went in there, the new potatoes.

I can see the new potatoes now with the skin still stuck to the metal plate

that was in the pressure cooker and her trying to salvage them out of there.

Parsley and oil on top, a plump baked potato and, as a tribute to Max's mum, boiled broccoli.

I would have much preferred to have eaten this

in 1978.

What was your favourite meal of the day?

Was it breakfast or was it teatime?

Teatime.

Teatime up there is like 6:30pm or 7pm.

One thing my ma used to make great, actually, she used to make great spaghetti bolognese

and she used to call it something different than that, which is rather rude but great spaghetti bolognese.

Really lovely. That was it.

"I'm going in for me tea."

It's just a weird thing that. I used to go, "I'll see you straight after and we'll have a vibe."

And we'd go in and tuck in and get back out again.

Your mum died quite recently.

All our parents die. It's inevitable, isn't it?

Yet, it's the one certain thing that we are probably most unprepared for as humans.

But she was a naturally very talented woman.

She had an amazing art for singing,

and she started working of the age of about 14.

So, a very strong, individual woman, a survivor,

and I have a lot of her things, I think, in me.

I've got a nice balance between me mother and me father.

It's a strange thing because it's the biggest fear of your life yet it's something that you kind of

work through and overcome, so there's that sense of guilt and there are many, many things going on.

But... Yeah, she, she, she died a little too early, I'd say,

by misadventure, you know, an accident in hospital,

which made it very difficult

for when the Bodies script came through to take that job on.

Cheers.

In hindsight, now, it was a really important role for me, that.

Because it turned a lot of things round, I think, for me with the work

and, more importantly, it was my sort of homage to my mother, you know.

Have you got any brothers and sisters or were you the only one?

The family history is very similar to Dallas, if you ever saw Dallas.

-I did see Dallas.

-It's really crazy. I've got an elder brother, Gary,

who's an amazing guy, and a sister, Katie, who, again, is one of the loveliest people you'd ever meet.

She's just gorgeous, you know. I've got a step-brother, Jason, who I, really, grew up with.

He's just one of the loveliest guys you'll ever meet. He's a diamond.

I've got a little bit of a surprise for you.

We were looking forward to a fantastic meal that Max cooked for us one Christmas.

Looking, probably about seven years ago now.

It was just after Max had spent £3,000 on cookery course.

Do you remember that? It was going to be lamb.

The plan was a lovely bit of lamb and we were told that all day long we weren't allowed to eat

a single thing otherwise it would spoil our dinner,

which was fine until we realised that dinner was taking at least seven hours to cook.

So, by then, we're all absolutely famished

and Max brings out the dinner,

which was...

a child's portion -

like a newborn, actually - a newborn's portion of food,

which left us all starving.

So I'm just gonna attempt to recreate that dinner today.

Obviously, I'm not gonna scrimp and save in my portions. They're gonna be whoppers.

Obviously, this is just for one person.

Had this been Max's portion,

this would have been for 20.

He's quite sarcastic, in't he?

I've got all the equipment, as you can see.

He's a scumbag.

No, he's the best brother.

How long are these gonna take, these babies?

What's happening over here?

Oh, yeah. I'm starting to get a bit of colour on these now.

Yeah, we were in a curry house that night and the After Eights came out,

you know, they sometimes put After Eights,

and we ripped the After Eight paper and stuck 'em on our teeth.

Am I doing this right? I always forget that.

He'll want to be better than Nigel,

like he wants to be better than everyone.

That's remarkably scalding on the fingers.

Lovely. So this is the vibe.

I think this is how you get your...your jus -

or gravy, if you're from Levenshulme.

'What he whacked in there? Oh, wine.

'What's he put in there? Just wine, innit?'

Jus.

But if you come from Levenshulme in Manchester, it's gravy.

He really is one of the kind of people who would give you the shirt off his back.

And, in actual fact, I've had approximately 20 shirts off his back.

My whole wardrobe's full of Max's clothes.

Max's.

There you go, mate. Tuck in.

That's great.

I'm sensing a little bit of competitiveness there.

No, that's great, man.

I had no idea he'd done that.

You're a pretty popular guy.

You've got a lot of, actually, quite high-profile friends.

Yeah. I've got five or six very, very, very, very, very, very, very close friends, which is great.

-And a couple of them are high profile.

-Do you cook for them?

I do, actually, yeah.

And my girlfriend's friends - she's got all her girlfriends -

do get the hump if the Sunday roast isn't on if I'm working or something, because there's nowhere else that

they wanna go other than my house because I do make a blinding Sunday roast, you know.

It's funny this thing about friends.

-People who cook, you always end up with a lot of mates.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, you do.

-One of your friends from a long time ago has got a little surprise for you.

# There's nothing like this

# There's nothing... #

It's 20 years now since that we've known each other so, that's a...

Or 20 years best mates, as he would say.

So it's been fun, man, you know what I mean.

He helped me when I was at school, I got expelled from boarding,

because I was a naughty boy back then.

-So he's great.

-I can't believe he's cooking.

-This is stewed chicken,

as taught to me by several relatives.

It's a kind of standard West Indian dish.

I can't believe he's cooking. That's great.

He was two years below us in school, and I just remember he was always

trying to get in with the older lads.

And he finally managed to do it because we had a band,

a school band called Jazz Tracks.

I remember, just after it was the end of term and my mum had met his

mum for the first time after I'd stayed in the house or something.

She said, "Was he all right?" She said, "Yeah, yeah.

"He wanted to smoke but I told him he had to go out into the garden."

And my mum didn't know I smoked at that time, so thanks a lot.

Don't put this in if it's not appropriate but, I remember,

he always wanted to introduce his ugly girlfriends to us at school.

Obviously, it's changed now because his taste's got a lot better but,

when he was 15, he needed a little bit of learning, some teaching.

-Chicken stock...

-Chicken stock -

-he's looking for his cubes.

-..which I don't think I have.

-Bisto.

-You're joking.

-Oh, he's putting meat Bisto in.

-'Turkey will do.'

It's the same species, innit?

Oh, he's just whacking it in.

I don't know how we're gonna do this but maybe put it in a piece

of Tupperware or something and maybe you can have a piece.

# There's nothing like this. #

-So I can offer you a bit of Omar's chicken stew.

-Absolutely.

I'm very excited to see if he's...

battered the chicken or not.

Let's have a look.

# There's nothing like this

# Not even remotely like this... #

-It's nice, though, in't it?

-Yeah, it's nice.

-Very, very good, Omar.

So, how come you ended up working with Robbie Williams?

I played with Take That.

I played with the band and befriended

Rob there, became very friendly with Jason as well.

He is a phenomenal, phenomenal performer - one of the best I've ever worked with, you know.

On top of that, if he's your mate to boot, as well, that's just great, isn't it?

Still to come on A Taste Of My Life,

Max lets us in on the secrets of Mariah Carey's penne al'arrabiata.

Makes a great bit of pasta, old Mariah.

Friend and co-star from Tom Jones, Brian Blessed remembers a very innocent and naive young actor.

You always felt, cos you were very green as an actor,

that you had to eat all food on the set all the time. We'd only nibble it.

An experienced actor like me knows that.

And Max reveals his fantasy dinner guests over a final feast that will have you swooning.

Maybe Marilyn could be serving the food in a kind of pinafore with nothing else on.

Do you ever cook to impress?

I'm talking maybe girlfriends here.

If you can make someone laugh and play the piano and cook quite well, I think you're in good stead.

Just maybe whack out a bit of Bach, then throw in a nice salmon tartare,

and boom, surely, surely I've got to be in.

The one thing that you use specifically. Is there one dish?

Italian stuff, quite easy.

A little bird told me you're quite good at pasta.

I did some work with a lady called Mariah Carey who's lovely.

The film wasn't lovely but when I was working with Mariah I tasted her arrabiata and it was fantastic,

really good. She makes a great bit of pasta, old Mariah.

You cook for your friends and you cook for your girlfriends.

I was hoping you might cook for me.

I can have they go, I'll have a go.

I always like a bit of a challenge.

Looks like Max is keen to go it alone on this one.

OK, so. I'm going to start by dicing some chillies,

just to give it a bit of a vibe.

I like to use quite a lot of chilli

and I also

keep the seeds in there as well.

It depends on who your guests are, whether they like hot stuff or not.

I personally love it.

What I want to do is, with the chillies and the garlic

and the basil, flavour this oil up.

Look at that, just great for the heart attack.

Just throw this in.

Now, my favourite bit. Basil.

Pull this out somehow.

That oil is getting nicely flavoured now, lovely.

Just wilted, not really overcooking it.

Dry your basil off before you wilt it otherwise you'll get that

horrendous effect.

In goes the tomato.

So throw that in round about now.

Throw these babies back in now. Give it a little stir.

This could burn our throats out, Nigel.

Just take a little bit of that.

Keep some of the roots of the basil in, I just love it.

Add a little bit of oil to the pasta to give it a nice glaze.

Take the top off, that's always a help.

Lovely, I like the idea of flavouring the oil.

I used to throw everything in at the beginning and clutter it up with loads of different soft herbs,

but I think the simplicity of it is what makes this really nice, just with basil.

There it is, penne al'arrabiata.

Mr Nigel Slater from his first student of the day.

Really scared.

-You weren't joking when you said spicy.

-It is spicy, isn't it?

That's gorgeous.

-Nice one.

-Thank you. Very good.

-But of course your first real big break was Tom Jones.

-Yes, it was, really.

I suppose in hindsight

that was a really, really great gig to get. I think it...

took a few people by surprise, getting that role.

Since you do me the honour of asking, Sir, I am marching North

against the pretender and his rebels in the service of liberty and his Majesty King George.

'I was quite green in the first couple of days of filming

'and my confidence grew throughout the five-month shoot.'

It was a great, great...

initiation, if you like, into the acting world.

Of course, you got a chance to work with Brian Blessed.

Brian Blessed is such a lovely man, you know, he does these crazy things.

I think he's attempted Everest a couple of times

and he does things like say, "I'm going in the original 1920s gear."

I'll go, "What?" He'll say, "If Sherpa Hensing can do it, so can I."

I've got a little message for you from him.

Did you really catch up with him?

You once described me as being a cross between a yeti and a holy man.

This is the yeti. And a holy man.

You always said to people, "You've got to have the Brian Blessed experience."

I mean I must say I also have a Max Beesley. I have always found

you sensitive, a young man of great vision.

Morning, master.

HE SHOUTS

There was a marvellous as regards food.

You always felt, because you were very green as an actor, you had to eat all the food on the set.

You nibble it, experienced actors like me knows that.

There's no end to my talents.

So I'd pretend to eat it but you ate it and your stomach got bigger and bigger and bigger.

THEY SHOUT

You've not spoken yet, you've got so much to offer, so much to discover about you as an actor,

but you have all the seeds of greatness and I think you'll achieve it.

I admire you immensely.

I'm absolutely flattered and honoured that Brian said those things because

I hold him right up there.

It's a weird thing

in this business that we're in, you're lucky if you meet

one or two people, maybe one a job, one every two or three jobs, that you really stay in contact with.

And then of course you moved onto Hotel Babylon

and played the deputy manager in what was actually an incredibly salacious and saucy hotel.

Complementary sessions in our health and beauty spa.

-'Whatever or whoever you want to be.'

-Thank you.

'We'll look after you.'

Very glamorous, very stylised.

For me as an actor it enabled me to have a bit of fun with a character

which is lovely juxtapose from doing something like Bodies, for instance,

which is really mentally very, very heavy and depressing, you know, in a weird way.

As you've become more and more successful, do you find that your tastes have changed?

On the grapevine I've heard that you're rather fond of a bit of lobster.

Lobster is something that

I hadn't really experienced as a kid, growing up in Burnage, south Manchester.

It wasn't a delicacy of the area, really.

I'm pulling out all the stops here, a beautifully boiled large lobster,

coated in cheese sauce and grilled for just a short while.

I used to see lobster on the menu and I have an attachment to that

which as a working-class kid it was definitely a thing of, "That's for the affluent, the lobster.

"I'll try that one day." I ate lobster for the first time,

I can't remember now, it was years ago, in one of these places.

I really liked it, I liked it.

It had quite a weird texture and weird taste but I think half of it was the idea of ordering lobster.

It was role-play, definitely.

And if that isn't enough,

some garlic breadcrumbs scallops.

Again the knack with these guys is not to overcook them.

Literally a minute or two under the grill until they're almost opaque.

OK, lobster is pretty wonderful.

It's almost status symbol food, in a way.

This is probably the largest one I've ever seen in my life.

This is...

the "I've made it" lobster.

Yeah. This guy has had an incredible life so I don't feel too bad about eating him.

It's like you do lots of things and you suddenly realise,

"I'm doing something very exciting, something I want to do."

Was there a point when you actually thought, "This is really rather good?"

I do pinch myself and I feel very lucky to be healthy, first of all,

but to be able to eat well, to go on nice holidays now and again.

I also do have those

working-class ethics installed which make me think whenever I do go and buy an expensive bottle of wine

I can hear my dad going absolutely psychotic in the back of my mind,

thinking you must be crazy to go in with all that money, you know.

So your final feast, what are we eating?

For starters we're going to have a carpaccio of veal

with a bit of olive oil and some shavings of Parmesan cheese.

Then beautiful pieces of meat here, sealed and then cooked,

medium but sort of French medium, medium rare.

Along with an aubergine gateau.

I came across the veal by accident in Venice.

I was doing the film with Mike Figgis called Hotel.

We went over to Cipriani hotel and someone ordered it for me.

I ate it and it just melted in my mouth, the most amazing thing.

-It's your last meal, so I guess...

-It's got to be that way.

Do you like profiteroles?

I adore profiteroles.

I'm big on profiteroles and chocolate eclairs.

It is naughty, that, isn't it?

-How are they coming on?

-They're coming on belting.

Look at that, that looks beautiful.

Food doesn't get any sexier, does it?

It's a lovely wow dish, isn't it?

It's a wow dish. It looks very...

It's what I call chef-y cooking.

So pretty.

If you want to hit it, we can.

-They're nice, aren't they?

-That's yours, that's a little bit firmer.

That's right.

And that's Max Beesley's final feast.

Carpaccio of veal,

a layered aubergine gateau...

simple steak fillets

and rounding off with profiteroles.

It's been a very full and busy life

but there must be something you haven't done, you'd like to do.

Yes, I haven't won a BAFTA, I haven't won an Oscar and I haven't filmed with Robert De Niro.

What is it that makes you really happy?

Do you know what? This is going to be a strange answer.

I really like the sky.

-Yeah?

-Does that sound weird?

I love the sky, I've got a weird thing about it.

I can go home to Hampton Court, kneel on my bed, I've got a big open window

at the back, and look at the garden for about two hours on my knees, and nothing else exists in the world.

I really do love filming.

I love work, I love going in and feeling like I'm doing something with my day.

Who would be present at your final feast?

We know what you're eating but who are you going to eat it with?

This is a tricky one, but I'd definitely like De Niro...

sitting here, and Christopher Walken,

who I love. I like Richard Burton,

I thought he was a monstrous actor, just phenomenal, you know.

-Steve McQueen.

-Yes.

If I could have had a lady in there it would have to be Marilyn Monroe.

That was my first ever crush.

OK.

-Maybe Marilyn could be serving the food in a kind of pinafore with nothing else on.

-OK.

-Is that OK?

That's absolutely fine.

Max Beesley, thank you very much for being on The Taste Of My Life.

Thank you for having me.

-I appreciate it.

-To you.

Eh, to you, it's been a real pleasure.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 2006

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