Empire Road from pebblemill on Vimeo.
Producer Peter Ansorge and writer Michael Abbensetts talking about the 1978-9 series ‘Empire Road’. ‘Empire Road’ was the first and only black soap opera on British television. It was recorded in Pebble Mill Studio A, and on location in Handsworth. It starred Norman Beaton as Everton Bennett. Two series of ‘Empire Road’ were made, comprising 16 episodes in all.
Thanks to Paul Balmer for this photo of the cast and crew of Poldark, taken in Pebble Mill Studio A circa 1975. Pushing the sound booms around on Poldark was Paul’s first job in television; he is on the back row on the extreme right. The series was filmed on both location and in studio, where it was recorded ‘as live’. It was produced in London, but ‘hosted’ by Pebble Mill, using Birmingham crews and facilities. The crew included designers Gavin Davis and Michael Edwards, cameraman Michael Williams, John Gilbert on sound and make-up artist Maggie Thomas.
The series went out between 1975-77, and starred Angharad Rees, Robin Ellis, Jill Townsend, Paul Curran, Mary Wimbush, Judy Geeson, Ralph Bates, Clive Francis, Hugh Dickson and Richard Morant. The drama was set in Cornwall and included mining, smuggling and shipwrecks!
Photo by Willoughby Gullachsen (Gus), no reproduction without permission.
Ice Dance was a ‘Screen Two’ drama which went out in March 1989. It was written by Stephen Lowe, directed by Alan Dosser and produced by Michael Wearing. The drama starred Warren Clarke, Joanne Allen, Andrew Fletcher, Amanda Worthington and Helena McCarthy. It followed the story of a pair of young skaters from Nottingham, whose dream was to emulate Torvill and Dean.
This photo features cameramen Keith Froggatt and Steve Saunderson on the crane, and 1st AD, Will Hartley on the left under the crane.
Alan Plater on writing, commissioning & genre from pebblemill on Vimeo.
This clip is of the Hull based writer Alan Plater talking in 2008 about writing drama and the difficulties of getting commissioned today. It was recorded by David Rose for his ‘My Journey Together’ lecture, and David has kindly given his permission for it to be used on this website. Alan sadly died on 25 June 2010.
Alan Plater
Photos from Les Podraza. The photos feature Les, who was a scene hand at Pebble Mill, with director John Bruce, and actors Trevor Eve, and T.P. McKenna.
The screenplay for Parnell and the Englishwoman was written by Hugh Leonard and tells the story of a 19th-century Irish nationalist politician who has an affair with the wife of an English MP. The drama went out in 1991. Trevor Eve played Charles Stewart Parnell, with Francesca Annis playing Katharine O’Shea; T.P. McKenna played Justin McCarthy. It was produced by Terry Coles out of BBC London, hosted by Pebble Mill.
