The prawn cocktail goddess returns to her roots (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

The prawn cocktail goddess returns to her roots

4:58pm Friday 17th June 2011 in Highlights By Melanie Dakin

FANNY Cradock and The Queen were the most popular women back in the 50s and 60s. They dominated our TV screens and yet, Her Majesty only put in an appearance on high days and holidays. Fanny, however, was the first celebrity chef and inventor of the prawn cocktail and she reigned on telly from the 1950s through to the mid-70s. Sporting a satin ball gown and tiara, she was a formidable character, berating her husband live on air while concocting meals that ‘wouldn’t stretch the purse’.

Fanny’s colourful personality and clipped manner have been immortalised in two plays. Brian Fillis’ Fear of Fanny was written in 2002 and dramatised on TV in 2006 starring Julia Davis in the lead role. Also in 2002, Julia Darling wrote Doughnuts like Fanny’s, which was reprised, under the title The Life and Loves of a Kitchen Devil in 2004. This one-woman show starring Sandra Hunt is now setting off on a new tour, which opens at Harlow Playhouse this month.

Born Phyllis Pechey in Leytonstone in 1909, Fanny had a turbulent early life as her parents struggled to fend off crushing debt. Her first marriage ended in tragedy, when her husband Sidney Evans died in a plane crash just months after their wedding. She went on to marry twice more (once bigamously) before meeting Major John Cradock, who left his wife and four children to be by Fanny’s side. There he stayed for more than 40 years, as her fellow writer of Bon Viveur, The Telegraph’s restaurant column, and on the stage where the pair pioneered extravagant live cookery shows as Major and Mrs Cradock and, most famously, on a string of live TV programmes. The couple went on to enjoy a 20-year career as culinary hosts.

Dressed in floaty evening attire and caked in make-up, Sandra retells the highs and lows of Fanny’s life. During the show, the stage transforms from bedsit to the Albert Hall, from doorstep to mansion. Sandra relates her remarkable story, which is told as though Fanny is performing a cookery demonstration while dishing up personal anecdotes.

Ambition caused Fanny to abandon two children, just as her own mother had dumped her on her grandparents. Her superior attitude also got her into trouble. She was sacked by the BBC in 1976 after she heavily criticised the menu of cookery competition winner, Gwen Troake.

“Julia Darling did her own research and she said that Fanny’s story was all about abandonment,” Sandra tells me. “Her treatment of her children is as much to do with Fanny’s lack of self knowledge in some areas. Playing her as a character you can see her creating her own harm and not really knowing, flying through the moment so strongly and with such flair she just didn’t notice.

Fanny invented so much stuff about herself and the lives she had. There’s enough material for five plays

Sandra Hunt

“Fanny invented so much stuff about herself and the lives she had. There’s enough material for five plays. She did have quite a rough time but one of her inventions was her French aristocratic background. She wanted to make a fabulous life for others to hear about.”

Being under public scrutiny so much of the time may well have contributed to Fanny’s dramatic decline but would a man have suffered the same fate?

“Women are more in danger of having that beady eye kept on them. The mistakes that women make will be picked up on, especially when they get famous and successful. Fanny tended to open her mouth before putting her brain into gear.”

Fanny Cradock – The Life And Loves Of A Kitchen Devil opens at Harlow Playhouse, Playhouse Square, Harlow Wednesday, June 22 at 7.30pm. Details: 01279 431945