He is the 49-year-old screenwriter and creator of the DR1 hit series ‘Borgen’, but most Danes know him for a different reason
What’s ‘Borgen’?
It was a 2010-13 political drama about the Danish parliament at Christiansborg, which is sometimes dubbed Borgen.
What’s it like?
It’s a darker version of ‘The West Wing’. Think ‘Yes, Minister’ without the laughs.
Who would watch that?
Everybody. The show won international awards and they watched ‘Borgen’ everywhere in the world from the US and Britain to Romania and South Korea. In fact, they are probably still watching ‘Borgen’ in ‘Borgen’ right now because the politicians also find their fictional counterparts to be far more engaging.
And Price started this mania?
While people around the world associate the name Adam Price with political spin, most Danes are used to seeing him with a meat-fork and a spatula in his hands.
He’s a cook?
Before he created ‘Borgen’, he was a food critic at Politiken newspaper. He and his brother James Price hosted the DR1 cooking show ‘Spise med Price’ (Dine with Price), in which the two brothers cooked extravagant dishes and put unhealthy amounts of butter in everything they made.
Like what?
Their popular take on the traditional southern dish Pulled Pork is the reason you can now get the shredded meat pieces in hot dog stands and gas stations.
And Adam gave it up for screenwriting?
Although most Danes did question what a food critic would know about Christiansborg besides its cafeteria, it wasn’t like he suddenly went “Bork bork bork”, threw away his kitchen utensils and wrote the entire first season in one draft. He is actually a law graduate of the University of Copenhagen and he also wrote several episodes of other hit series like ‘Taxa’ and ‘Anna Pihl’.
But where did the cooking skills come from?
His father John Price was also a famous TV chef and actor and taught him about cooking and theatre. He also coined the duo’s famous mantra “rigeligt smør” (plenty of butter) in his classic 2008 cookbook called ‘Spise med Price’.
What’s he been up to recently?
He co-wrote the 2015 miniseries ‘Kampen om tungtvannet’ (‘The Saboteurs’ or ‘The Heavy Water War’), an ambitious multi-lingual recreation of the atomic race during WWII, which has received strong reviews and is available on Netflix. He is currently working on a new series for DR, ‘Herrens veje’ (Rides upon the storm), which is due out next year.
