Sedgefield, South Africa’s first slow town, has done it again. There is nothing slow about the town when it comes to excitement and glamour. A few weeks ago one of its most beautiful residents, Demi-Lee Nel-Pieters became South Africa’s second women to be crowned as Miss Universe and on Thursday the town got a new queen, Lady Scarlett (aka Ian Perryman).
Lady Scarlett had the television crew and audiences all over South Africa in stitches with her performance in the first episode of the BBC Britt Come Dine With Me South Africa (series 4).
Lady Scarlett outshone the other three contestants: the pole dancing Carmi van Heerden (Centurion), the hyper-critical Phillipine Modimogale (Centurion) and the chatty Nonhlanhla Ntwasa (Centurion) to walk away with the R10 000 cash prize money.
Episode one takes place in Pretoria and served up the perfect mix of hilarious kitchen drama, shocking guests and delicious entertainment. Confessions, interrogations, suspicions and laughter abound!
On Thursday evening more than 60 of Ian, a well-known guesthouse owner and food fundi’s friends gather at Pelican Lodge in Sedgefield to watch the launch of the series. The guesthouse and garden were decorated with memorabilia from the series and Ian had prepared the dishes, which he had made for the show, so that his friends could share in the fun. Screeches of delight was heard when Lady Scarlett was announced the winner of the episode.
Lady Scarlett now dreams about conquering not only the imagination of food lovers, but to become the ambassador of some of the country’s largest food producers.
“I’d love to put the fun and excitement back into cooking and entertaining,” she told The Gremlin.
The quality of this series 4 was good enough to distribute it abroad. So who knows – Lady Scarlett is most probably set for international fame.
With her fruit headdress (enough to feed a small family) and her high heel stilettos, she is ready to conquer the local and national scene as well as the international arena.
A star is born, long live Lady Scarlett.
And what a feather that is in the Sedgefield cap.
(Denise Lloyd)
