Negative, Ground Floor Plan, 1971. This digital resource is available under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, with kind permission of the Birmingham & Five Counties Architectural Association Trust, thanks to the Architectus project (part of the Jisc Content Programme 2011-13).
This is the architectural plan for the ground floor of the Pebble Mill studios, from the architect John Madin’s practice.
Copyright Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission.
Photo of floor manager Eurwyn Jones, taken by Peter Poole circa 1977, in the Review Theatre.
I was recalling for somebody else the other day one of my more hysterical broadcasts and thought you might like to hear it too!
I can recall a story involving stereo transmissions, when in the mid ‘80s Radio WM along with several other stations finally ‘went stereo’. To celebrate we broadcast each evening a particular style of music to demonstrate to local musicians the possibilities stereo would bring to their ‘on air’ experiences. …Folk, Country, Asian etc.
My duty turned out to be the below stage concert broadcast announcer for a relay of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and I spent ages boning up on the works to be played and the musicians involved. I discovered for instance that there was no agreed pronunciation of the conductor’s name Neeme Jerve. Anyway the time arrived for me to announce the arrival on stage of the Leader and the Conductor and in true BBC Proms tradition I had my script marked so that I could physically cue them to walk from their position beside me, below stage and arrive in front of the audience at precisely the moment I said their name on air. The first two worked well but when I got to the name of the solo pianist for the evening, Peter Donohoe, he did not arrive on stage and my announcement of his name was greeted with an unexpected silence from the audience. I put down the microphone and rushed to the steps leading to the stage to discover what mishap had befallen him, at the same time attempting to assemble some words in my mind to explain to the listeners what had happened. I could see that he had got halfway to the stage but had turned back to collect a small canister of muscle spray which pianists keep close at hand and which he had passed by where he had left it at rehearsal at the foot of the steps to the stage. At that moment he reached the stage and the applause resulting gave me the time to get back on air and introduce the music.
At the end of the first half I handed back to Ken Dudeney in the studio for a pre-recorded 20 minute interval feature only to discover to my horror that the said piano soloist had decided to give the audience an impromptu encore which went on for some 6 minutes meaning that not only were the players of the CBSO being denied their interval lubrication but I was faced with an impromptu session of my own as the orchestra had decided to stick to their scheduled 20 minutes sherry consumption. Luckily Ken had a variety of trailers to help fill the gap, but I too had lots of fascinating facts about the second half programme and the history of the Town Hall with which to regale the mystified listeners until the Orchestra got back on stage and the rest of the concert continued without more heart stopping moments!
Pete Simpkin
Pebble Mill News March 1984
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.
The Pebble Mill News of March 1984, announces that The Archers’ Clarrie Grundy is pregnant with her second child: the baby is of course Edward Grundy! The Grundy’s first child, William was named after Prince William, and coincidentally Princess Diana was also pregnant at this time, with her second child.
Thanks to Robin Sunderland for sharing his copy of the Pebble Mill News.
Jim Broadbent
Christopher Fairbank
Philip Jackson
I attended the Kaleidoscope, Pebble Mill archive screening event on Saturday in Stourbridge, and had the opportunity to see some wonderful shows from the 1970s and ‘80s. An added bonus was that some of the programme makers, actors and presenters were able to come along and discuss their work.
One treasure from the archives was the 1980, BBC 2 Playhouse: Games Without Frontiers. It was a multi-camera studio drama, devised and directed by Michael Bradwell, who came along to the screening, as did Philip Jackson, one of the lead actors. The play also featured Jim Broadbent, Eric Allan and Christopher Fairbank – so a very strong cast.
The drama was improvised by the actors during the rehearsal period, and then written down, so that it could be plotted for the cameras, in a similar way to how Mike Leigh’s dramas worked. It was set on a North Sea ferry from Holland. In order to research ideas for the play the actors went on a weekend away to Amsterdam – including the obligatory trip to the red-light district, paid for, of course, by the BBC!
The action was almost all set in the ferry bar, with a couple of scenes in the corridor, so it had quite a claustrophobic feel. The set was built on the top floor of the Pebble Mill office block, which acted as the studio.
The play was remarkably watchable, mainly because of the developing relationships between the characters. There were some funny comic touches and excellent character acting. The story revolves around the two main characters, Clive (Philip Jackson) and Stewart (Jim Broadbent), who are on their way home after a weekend in Amsterdam. They describe their weekend’s adventures, including the trip to the red-light area, and we learn a lot about their home and working lives. Technically the pictures and sound were still good quality.
This kind of drama would not be made nowadays: it is a character driven study, with nowhere near enough action to satisfy a contemporary audience. Also it would not fit into the popular sub-genres of modern drama – it isn’t crime related, or a thriller.
Peter Ansorge was the producer of Games Without Frontiers; he came along to the showing and took part in a panel discussion about it, and other dramas, before the screening. He said to me afterwards that he had no idea that the play still existed, and he hadn’t seen it for many years! So many studio dramas of this era were junked, as videotape was expensive, and tapes were wiped to be re-used.
Vanessa Jackson