Why Boiling Point shouldn't be compared to The Bear
Boiling Point spoilers follow.
When Boiling Point opened its new four-part run on BBC One with one long, unbroken take, it was hard to ignore the nod to the 2021 film of the same name, which ended the worst shift in history with Stephen Graham's chef Andy suffering a stroke near the errant potato peelings.
But the other acclaimed kitchen drama that might come to mind as we dive back into the world of Point North eight months later is The Bear.
Both are workplace dramas set amidst sizzling cooktop burners; both have troubled chefs running things; both are so nerve-wracking that it's surprising Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) hasn't gone the way Andy has; both have a word beginning with a 'B' in the title. The list goes on.
But despite all this, they are vastly different shows and have been lumbered with an unmerited comparison – one which the Boiling Point team have been keen to distance themselves from.
Executive producer Hannah Walters pointed to the location as the sole point of similarity, saying at the launch of the show, "There aren’t that many kitchen-based dramas. You’ve literally got The Bear and Boiling Point. But, you know, we were here first."
Boiling Point star Izuka Hoyle, who plays Camille in the North Point kitchen, said she finds the comparison interesting, adding: "When you dissect them, we’re quite different TV shows – but what it does open up is that there’s not enough TV shows about the intricacies of working in hospitality.
"Because I think if there were, you’d be able to separate them more and realise that. There’s a need for it – it’s also the ultimate playground. What better way to show a slice of life?"
At a surface level, its simple to see two shows set in a kitchen and throw them in the same bucket, but it's a bit like tossing Billions and Industry into the same slagheap simply because they're both based in the world of corporate finance.
Finding a hectic kitchen and then pointing a rolling camera at it certainly isn't a new phenomenon. In the reality TV space, it's a thriving genre. Hell's Kitchen has 22 seasons under its belt. MasterChef has spawned a global franchise of offshoots. Bake Off offers a lighter, albeit occasionally stressful take on the theme.
Meanwhile, on the big screen we've had tortured genius chefs aplenty. There's Stanley Tucci's sumptuous Big Night, Jon Favreau's heartwarming Chef and Bradley Cooper's distinctly less heartwarming addiction-riddled turn in Burnt. Even Ratatouille had its fair share of panicked plating up and genius neuroses.
Boiling Point and The Bear show how this setting can thrive on the small screen too, but once you have trimmed off the culinary conventions, their differences become easier to render.
Boiling Point brings hard-edged tension where The Bear is spikily warm. Perhaps the difference can be in part attributed to the contrast in British and US sensibilities – like watching The Office's sardonically awkward UK stint in comparison to the milder, crack-a-minute US version.
In The Bear, a character googling how to make hollandaise sauce and confusing it with mayonnaise would probably be played for laughs (and likely be centred around a pre-'Forks' Richie), but in the Boiling Point kitchen, it's a source of existential dread and nervous anxiety as we wait for the moment this will spectacularly come crashing down.
Where The Bear can simmer with farce and turns almost slapstick at points – like when the sort-of cousins inadvertently drug a bunch of partygoing kids into an afternoon slumber – Boiling Point plays out more like a horror film.
This is clear in scenes like when the North Point team find Jamie (Stephen McMillan) coated in blood in the toilet cubicle he's locked himself in. There are screams for a tourniquet and yelps down the phone for an ambulance. Meanwhile, when Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) gets stabbed in the backside in the midst of a heated argument with Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), he just walks it off.
The unique nature of each show can be found in how each uses the phrase "Yes, Chef". In The Bear, it's become not only a calling card for muscle-tee'd Jeremy Allen White – "Yes, Chef!" – but also a landmark of the show's found-family camaraderie in the restaurant.
Meanwhile in Boiling Point, any utterance feels stripped of that playful exclamation point – "yeschef" – instead operating as a hurried, albeit dutiful acknowledgement of a job that really, quite urgently needs doing.
While The Bear is steeped in a reverence for its mouth-watering trussed up cuisine, this isn't something the Boiling Point kitchen particularly cares about. It's not a show that romanticises the beauty of pairing an omelette with crushed crisps. It's about the day in, day out grind of keeping a business alive and working a hellish job in the hospitality industry, where all you're really doing is making unending copy-and-paste plates.
Boiling Point is more acutely aware of the reality behind the Michelin-star smoke and mirrors. We don't have tomato tins containing a small fortune here, just a never-ending series of flaming pans or boiling pots about to combust like powder kegs.
Boiling Point is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
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