Toast

Toast is a British coming-of-age drama set in the English Midlands during the late 1950s and 1960s. Nigel Slater is a boy with a real gift for cooking, which is more than can be said for his mother, whose best dish is toast. After her death, Nigel is left with a father he has never easily got along with. A housekeeper, Joan Potter, enters the household, and it becomes clear she has hopes of marrying his father. She is also an excellent cook, and her lemon meringue pie wins over Nigel's dad. That sets up a contest between Nigel and Mrs Potter for the affection of the man of the house, played out in the kitchen, while Nigel takes cookery classes at school and later works in a pub.

The film is adapted from Nigel Slater's autobiographical memoir and was directed by S.J. Clarkson, made between her earlier television work and her later feature Madame Web. Lee Hall wrote the screenplay, and Faye Ward produced it for BBC Film, Ruby Films and Screen West Midlands. Freddie Highmore plays the older Nigel, with Oscar Kennedy as the young Nigel, Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs Potter, Ken Stott as the father and Victoria Hamilton as the mother. It runs 96 minutes. On IMDb it holds 6.5/10 from around 11,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.6/10 from roughly 270 votes. A critics' rating of 6/10 from 33 reviews places it in similar territory to the audience scores.