The homely depictions of Natalie Coleman that have accompanied her two-day-old title as Masterchef 2013 champion haven’t really done the girl justice. Yes, she learnt to cook beside her Mum and Nanna and continues lovingly to “feed up” her widowed grandad in his East End, high-rise flat. But Coleman, 29, is a fascinating combination of focus, determination, graft and the ability to make a name in a male-dominated industry.
Talking to her as the clock ticked down to the transmission of her victory, it was clear that she’s a bit like the lobster that would win her the final round: tough on outside, soft in the middle and a little unconventional. You suspect she’d survive being dropped in a pan of boiling water.
This year was the fifth time she had entered the show. “My Aunt Ellen entered me first and I said, 'They’re not gonna ’ave me.’ First two years, I got rejection letters. The third year, I got as far as a phone call. The fourth year, I even got an audition. Then this year, they let me on.” Perhaps those rejections were timely. “Yeah, I gone away and taught myself things and made myself better. At the weekend, I’d get up at, say, 12 (I’m not an early riser) and just watch cooking shows for hours.”
Coleman’s reaction to winning on Thursday night was a silent, dewy-eyed understatement of joy. She hid her face in the chest of her defeated competitor and waved away tears in the interview, concluding: “The girl from Hackney did good.”
I wonder how such an introverted character will cope with fame, and then I realise that she already has some – within the underground music scene. She is the resident DJ at the East London club night Mooch, plays at festivals and has appeared at the top London nightclub Fabric. “When you’re DJ-ing people know you because they’ve come to listen to you. But no one on the street knows who you are. I’ve been stopped four times today already, but I know it will go away soon. I don’t plan on being on the TV all the time.”
Through DJ-ing Natalie’s used to hot, sweaty, noisy caverns, whose sole purpose is indulgent pleasure – a bit like a top restaurant kitchen. It seems that the pursuit of happiness underpins everything she does.
“Growing up, Mum and Nan would alternate the Sunday roast every week, and then we’d have a massive afternoon tea a couple of hours later. We’d have three meals watching The Waltons and all that Sunday TV. It just made us really happy.”
But pleasing others won’t be enough to sustain a career. Luckily Coleman has a hidden talent: “I’ve got the memory of an elephant. When chef Simon Rogan gave us the cooking challenge for the chef’s table on the penultimate show, I didn’t need to go back and look at his instructions. I already had it in my head. When I DJ I have 240 CDs in my case, and I can tell you exactly where every one is.”
And then there’s that drive. “I set a goal, and when I get there I like to set another. I’m quite an obsessive personality. I wanted to be a DJ, then I wanted to run a club night and I wanted to DJ at Fabric. I made it happen. I think I get it from my dad, a black cab driver.”
At the moment Natalie is like Eliza Doolittle before Henry Higgins got his hands on her. “I got all As and Bs at GCSE, then I did A-levels. I even did English Literature, although that’s hard to believe when I speak like this.” When judge Gregg Wallace asked what reaction she hoped to evoke with her main course for the final, she replied: “I want you to be full, happy and not moan about anyfink.”
Astonishingly, she was crowned winner on December 5, 2012 and went back to work in the credit control office that filled her hours between DJ-ing, without telling anyone but her boss. “Everyone else thought I’d been on jury service.”
John Torode sums her up: “resilient, egalitarian, proper”. It strikes me that she’d make a good manager of other people. “One day, but right now I’m not in that position. I’ve got a lot to learn.”
Torode says she must concentrate on “coping with the whirlwind. The world has fallen in love with her. Life is about to change.”
Hopefully, she’ll find escape from the melee while mixing her discs to the raised hands of a dancing crowd. You sense she’d be missed by her mates in the underground world if she was lost to the bright lights of the media.
In any case, she’s not motivated by money – “I just want to pay my bills” – but she is motivated by making smiles, and now she has the chance to create thousands of those.
No comments:
Post a Comment