Category: Television

‘Red Shift’ by Alan Garner

In this video, Bob Jacobs (1st Assistant Director) and Oliver White (film editor), talk about their experiences of working on the 1978 ‘Play for Today’, Red Shift. The drama was written by Alan Garner and directed by John Mackenzie.  It was a complex play set in three time periods: Roman, Civil War and present day.

‘Red Shift’ by Alan Garner, 1978 Play for Today from pebblemill on Vimeo.

For more information about Alan Garner you might want to take a look at this Alan Garner website  http://alangarner.atspace.org/index.html .

Oliver White – Film Editor

Bob Jacobs – 1st Assistant Director

‘Pebble Mill at One’ Running Order 1981 – David Short

Here is a running order that I kept from my first day as a trainee camera assistant at Pebble Mill. I had arrived from the training dept at Evesham and reported for duty on Monday, 21st September, 1981. I was taken up to the floor where the old bar used to be, to meet the crew (led by Keith Salmon) who were playing snooker before rehearsals began. “Landed on my feet here”, I thought!!

David Short – Cameraman at Pebble Mill from Sept. 1981 until May 1985 (when I transferred to TV Centre)

(The producer of this episode was Stephanie Silk, the director Tony Rayner, and the PA probably Jane McLean)

'Pebble Mill at One' - Running Order

Morte D’Arthur – David Short (cameraman)

Here is a crew photo from Morte D’Arthur and a shot of me operating an EMI 2001 camera with Gillian Lynne looking on. Morte D’Arthur was the first time that I had a chance to operate a camera on a major drama production. I had a lot of encouragement from fellow cameraman, Jim Gray, who encouraged me greatly. Drama became my favoured type of production to work on.

David Short  – Cameraman at Pebble Mill from Sept. 1981 until May 1985 (when I transferred to TV Centre)

In the first photo l to r: Toby Horwood, Phil Thickett, Gillian Lynne (seated centrally), Bob Meikle (back right)

Crew of Nike

David Short on the EMI 2001 with Gillian Lynne

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Photo copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission)

The following comments were added on the Pebble Mill Facebook Group:

Steve Dellow: ‘I’m sure that the last EMI2001’s were in Studio B during autumn ’83….? Then it was Link 125’s all round….and of course the old EMI in Pres?

Dave Bushell: ‘Looks like a 2001 – nasty things!’

Steve Dellow: ‘When I arrived in Sept ’83, Studio A was being refurbished and I was assigned to Colin Speirs to do acceptance testing. So maybe the recordings were done earlier in the year before it was stripped out?

Nasty things? From what I heard,once they were lined up they stayed lined up, not like the Links that needed realigning twice a day! However, they didn’t like being left pointing at a line up chart for an excessive period – like Doug (Services) did when he left it while he went for his dinner! New tube please!’

Dave Bushell: ‘Just stirring it, Steve! I never liked the tinted-monochrome feel of the EMIs but I was a voice crying in the wilderness when I arrived at Pebble Mill in 1984. Criricising the EMI 2001 was not a move guaranteed to endear me as the new boy.’

Steve Dellow: ‘No worries – I was coming from an engineer’s direction! ;-)’

Dave Short: ‘Ask any cameraman who worked during the 70’s or 80’s what was the best camera to operate, and the EMI 2001 would come out tops.’

Pete Postlethwaite in ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’

Copyright for these photos resides with the original photographer, no reproduction without permission.

John Greening who was the First Assistant Director on this mammoth Dickens adaptation comments that:

‘Pete was a force of nature – along with Keith Allen and Paul Schofield. Generous to a fault, he even offered to perform for free in my BBC drama directors course project. What a gent. I also got very drunk at his house once with designer Rob Hinds and production manager Alastair Duncan – but that’s another story…’

Pete Postlethwaite in Martin Chuzzlewit

‘A Box of Swan’ -photos by Willoughby Gullachsen

Adrian Dunbar (John)

Sandy Ratcliff, Pete Postlethwaite, Hilary Sesta, Adrian Dunbar

Photos by Willoughby Gullachsen, no reproduction without permission.

A Box of Swan was a ‘Debut on Two’ drama produced at Pebble Mill, transmitted on 9th Oct 1990 on BBC 2.  Alan David Price wrote the script, and  it was produced by Vicky Licorish and Philippa Giles, Diana Patrick was the director.

The BFI database describes the drama as a:

‘Play about a young man brought back to his roots by the death of his father, a road sweeper for 27 years. John moved to London to further his career as an architect, but his ambivalent feelings towards his family are brought to a head when he returns home for the funeral.’

http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/445934

The film starred Pete Postlethwaite as Tony, Adrian Dunbar as John, Hilary Sesta as Mother, Sandy Ratcliff as Patricia and Bryan Pringle as Father.

Thanks to Dave Bushell, who was the lighting director, for identifying the drama from the photos.  Dave remembers that there were six plays in all on ‘Debut on Two’, two filmed on location and four in Studio A. They were written by new writers with established actors. The locations for ‘Box of Swan’ included an Italian restaurant and a undertaker’s chapel-of-rest, in Bearwood, West Midlands.

The other ‘Debut on Two’ plays were  Kingdom Come, Widow of Vulnerability, The Wake, Breast is Best, and the Conversion of St Paul. They were a similar idea to the ‘Second City First’ series of studio dramas from the 1970s, which also featured new talent, and particularly new writers.