For many Nigella Lawson fans, the charm of her TV shows is less to do with her recipes and cooking than it is the picturesque lifestyle she presents on screen.
In this week’s episode of At My Table, the ‘domestic goddess’ was seen sauntering through a misty forest during an early-morning stroll with her pet Labradoodle.
However Miss Lawson has let it slip that the lovable pooch is not hers, and in fact belongs to the owners of a barn used by the BBC to film exterior shots for the show.
It comes a few weeks after the illusion that the 57-year-old was cooking in the kitchen of her own plush home in west London was shattered.
In this week’s episode of At My Table, the ‘domestic goddess’ was seen sauntering through a misty forest during an early-morning stroll with her pet Labradoodle
However Miss Lawson has let it slip that the lovable pooch is not hers, and in fact belongs to the owners of a barn used by the BBC to film exterior shots for the show
Shots of Miss Lawson winking at the camera as she works in a kitchen that mixes top-of-the range equipment with shabby-chic utensils are actually filmed within three flimsy walls in a warehouse in Acton.
Now the pretense of picturesque walks with Meg the dog is under scrutiny after a tweet sent to a fan by Miss Lawson.
A viewer asked: ‘Who is the dog? Why has he not blessed our screens before?! He is SO beautiful.’
Miss Lawson replied: ‘Alas not my dog. She’s called Meg. Meg belongs to the owners of @RedfordFarmBarn who I rented the barn from
‘She’s a Labradoodle with a bit of lurcher thrown in.’
During Monday’s show, filmed near Ludlow, Shropshire, Nigella told viewers: ‘I am unapologetically urban, but this year I have felt the call of the wild.
The pretense of picturesque walks with Meg the dog is under scrutiny after a tweet sent to a fan by Miss Lawson
A viewer asked: ‘Who is the dog? Why has he not blessed our screens before?! He is SO beautiful.’ Miss Lawson replied: ‘Alas not my dog. She’s called Meg’
Shots of Miss Lawson winking at the camera as she works in a kitchen that mixes top-of-the range equipment with shabby-chic utensils are actually filmed in a warehouse in Acton
‘So I have decamped to the countryside. I just felt the need to wake up under a big sky.’
Although Miss Lawson, 57, drops frequent hints to make viewers believe they are getting a through-the-keyhole view of her mews house in one of central London’s most fashionable residential streets, the programme is actually filmed several miles away on a film set at an industrial estate.
In the BBC press release for the programme, she even tells of her delight at showing off her newly renovated kitchen, adding: ‘I’m very excited… for you to see the re-done kitchen!’ Her real kitchen may have been re-done, but her fans won’t actually get to see it.
All the backdrops are false. The plants in the fake kitchen garden are made to sway in a fake breeze from fans, and even books on the shelves are simply a row of cardboard spines.
Viewers could be forgiven for thinking that Miss Lawson lives in one of several desirable London homes shown briefly on screen, but that, too, is make-believe. Instead, she lives in a pink mews house in a cobbled street.
During Monday’s show, filmed near Ludlow, Shropshire, Nigella told viewers: ‘I am unapologetically urban, but this year I have felt the call of the wild’