Knives out as diners cook up storm

The Irish series of Come Dine with Me was unveiled today by the narrator who has made the show famous.

Dave Lamb’s acerbic voiceovers have made the show a big success for Channel 4 and he also narrates the TV3 series which begins on Monday night.

The series has been filmed twice in Dublin and once in Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford with the first episode featuring the Cork contestants being broadcast on Monday at 9pm for five nights.

The Cork contestants include a strict vegetarian who cooks quorn schnitzel and a pro-hunting country mother.

Lamb, who was in Dublin for the launch, said the first Irish series seems to have been more fun than the British one which has been running for six years.

He said one contestant’s idea of post-prandial fun was to go out and look for his missing horse in the dark.

“I felt there was a warmth to it. Everybody who went on the show was really up for it. There was not as much vicious back-biting. It all felt like a bit more fun. It’s a bit more racy than the British version,” he said.

Lamb says the fare that the Irish contestants was a mixture of the “sublime and the revolting”.

Several of the contestants from the Irish series turned up for the launch. Cora Murphy, a cosmetic nurse based in Crumlin, said she made sure her guests were well oiled by the time food arrived. “At that stage they would have eaten kebabs,” she said.

The series’ executive producer David Sawyer said the British version had been out in Ireland for so long that it would be pointless to do it any differently.

“It’s a well-established series and I think people have seen it in this country for such a long time, there is even a Facebook page for an Irish version, that eventually when it does come over, they really want to do it,” he said.

“Because it is a relatively new series, people are a little bit wary of putting the boot in. That said they are frank, but they don’t take offence as quick as the English do.”