Walking on My Hands excerpt – The Husband, the Wife and the Stranger

Sayo Inaba and Adam Faith, in The Husband, the Wife and the Stranger. Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is an excerpt from Beth Porter’s autobiography, Walking on My Hands, Chapter 12, My Life in Comedy: Comedy in My Life, about her production of the drama:

The Husband, the Wife and the Stranger, BBC2 1986

“Waiting for me back in Birmingham was the chance to produce my first piece of drama. It was a studio piece based on an idea to adapt two Japanese stories by the actress who was to play the lead. I had no idea whether the head of department, Robin Midgley, had already explored the development of the piece, but I wasn’t shown any pre-existing material.

I did, of course, know that the stories had been filmed by one of my cinematic heroes, Akira Kurosawa as Rashomon. The premise is that a tale of love and betrayal is told from three separate points of view. The first challenge was to find a suitable writer. I fixed on the idea of asking Adrian Henri, one of the famer Liverpool poets whom I’d known for decades. It seemed to me that his sensibilities would be just the approach needed to confront the moral ambiguities of the premise as well as presenting the implied sex and violence without any prurient overtones.

I was delighted when Adrian agreed, and while he was writing I got on with finding a director. Robin suggested teaming up with Roger Graef, the brilliant American documentary maker who was keen to get into drama. But as much as I admired him, I wanted a safety net of a director whom I knew could juggle schedules, actors, and unforeseen trouble, should there be any. I really thought this would be a great opportunity to create a bonded company feel, and when Robin agreed to my suggestion that Andy Roberts take oversight of the music, I felt we were on the way.

I asked Gerry Mill who directed me so brilliantly in Howard Schuman’s Anxious Anne. He had a great reputation with actors and was familiar with the demands of drama. Because the whole project had been the idea of the Japanese actress, we were committed to her. So Gerry and I drew up independent lists of the two actors who’d complement each other on screen. On both our lists was Derrick O’Connor whom I’d appeared with all those years ago in the James O’Herlihy plays at The Bush Theatre. He was available and keen to be involved.

We wanted to try to get a name that audiences would recognise to raise the profile of a studio piece, and we hit on a great idea. At the time the ever-popular singer, Adam Faith, was appearing in the West End, having publicly declared he wanted to do more acting. He’d had a big success some years previously with his TV series Budgie. Both Gerry and I liked his open fresh-faced appeal which had the potential to turn a bit nasty. Whereas Derrick could do nasty in his sleep, but we knew he could also play the victim.

We went to see Adam’s play and took him out for a meal. Happily, he agreed to do Adrian’s play. Now, all we needed was the play! For whatever reason Adrian was stalling. Uh-oh!

Gerry and I set out for Liverpool as on a military mission. Come back with the script, lads, and don’t get caught by the enemy! Actually, it was a scene from a sit-com. I sat with Adrian talking through the next scene, and he set to work typing. As soon as he had a few pages, I’d take them to the next room for Gerry to read. On we went like that, through the night, till the script was ready.

Actually, it was bloody good! Adrian did know exactly what to do. I guest his reluctance was down to nerves and insecurity. Yes, folk, artists – even great ones – get insecure. It’s only despots who think they know everything. The trick is to acknowledge the vulnerability and work through it, trusting your instincts and experience.

Gerry was terrific with the cast, allowing them the space they needed to inhabit the characters. The crew were keen to enter into the spirit of this unusual studio piece. I was keen to incorporate some of the more recent digital effects that were being developed for cinema, and Gerry trusted me to liaise with the editor to ensure our vision was melded with Adrian’s. We also had the bonus of Andy Roberts in control of the music.

We got lots of publicity, mostly due to Adam’s presence. The Radio Times devoted a full page to him. The half-hour play went out at 10.15pm on BBC2 on Monday, 8 September 1986. We got lots of feedback. And I was probably having a mini-breakdown trying to adust to life as a reluctant singleton. An ageing reluctant singleton. An overweight ageing reluctant singleton.”

 

Thanks to the producer of the drama, Beth Porter, for sharing this excerpt.

Beth Porter’s (long and amusing) autobiography Walking on my Hands, is available for a couple of pounds on Kindle, on the link below. Chapter 12 includes Beth’s adventures with the BBC.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Walking-My-Hands-responsibility-Streisand-ebook/dp/B01DUWNSRQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1460027101&sr=8-3&keywords=kindle+Beth+Porter

 

Below is the Radio Times entry for the drama, from the BBC Genome project:

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/a0ac4ec29e33434fb1ad17ff13426474

“The Husband, the Wife and the Stranger

by ADRIAN HENRI after a story by RYUNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA
Sunlight. Strawberries. Champagne. The perfect lover’s tryst. Or is it?
A stranger intrudes. A mysterious business deal.
Passions run high and a man dies. Who is innocent and who is telling the truth? Who do you believe?
Vision control supervisor PETER HODGES
Lighting supervisor ALEC ROBSON
Composers ANDY ROBERTS, JOJI HIROTA Designer MICHAEL EDWARDS Producer BETH PORTER Director GERRY MILL BBC Pebble Mill
Contributors

Author: Adrian Henri
Director: Gerry Mill
Producer: Beth Porter
From Stories By: Ryunosuke Akutagawa: The Roshomon Gate
Vision Control Supervisor: Peter Hodges
Lighting Supervisor: Alec Robson
Musical Supervisor/Composer: Andy Roberts
Designer: Michael Edwards
Husband: Adam Faith
Wife: Sayo Inaba
Stranger: Derrick O’Connor”

 

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Redevelopment of Pebble Mill site

Dental Hospital on former Pebble Mill site. Copyright resides with the original holder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The article below was published in the Birmingham Post, and Birmingham Mail on 21st March 2017:

“The next phase of a major regeneration at the former home of the BBC in Birmingham has been revealed.

Calthorpe Estates, which owns the old Pebble Mill site in Edgbaston, has lodged new plans with the city council to create a building of up to 53,820 sq ft containing a range of medical facilities.

This latest stage is for a building of up to five storeys on ‘plot 4’ which will face onto Pebble Mill Road off the A38 Bristol Road.

Other elements of the regeneration include the new dental school, which is now open, a private hospital to be run by CircleHealth and new student accommodation.

There is not much detail on this latest phase as the planning application is only seeking outline consent for the building as a whole but it could contain R&D facilities, a hospital and a ‘non-residential institution’ such as a health centre or clinic.

The site has been vacant since 2003 when the former BBC Studios were demolished and the corporation moved to the Mailbox.”

http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/business/commercial-property/next-phase-pebble-mill-regeneration-12769616

(N.B. the date given of 2003, for the demolition of Pebble Mill is inaccurate. Production stopped at Pebble Mill in 2004, and the building was demolished in 2005).

The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Ruth Kiosses: ‘Let’s hope they have a better pump under the building than PM did, oh what fun when the flood water used to rise up to wardrobe windows, giving approx five minutes to raise costumes off the floor before it gushed in. First time it did it the electrical plugs in the floor were smoking.’

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Producer Choice Explained

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Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This article was published in the Midlands News, the internal newsletter, in June 1992. Roger Waugh, the Head of Resources sets out to explain the principles behind, Director General, John Birt’s ‘Producer Choice’.

‘Producer Choice’ split off the Resource departments from Production, and resulted in mass redundancies in Resources. Redundancies are hinted at in this article, but the position wasn’t clear in 1992.

Thanks for Stuart Gandy for sharing this edition of Midlands News.

The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Carolyn Davies: ‘Still commonly used in inverted commas to mean ‘complete disaster’…’

Malcolm Hickman: ‘I remember I had to establish each business units’ asset size so they could be charged. A mammoth task.’

Mark Holdstock: ‘I couldn’t decide who was the worse DG. Birt or Mark Thompson producer choice was a completely stupid idea. When they started charging for record loans, we quickly worked out that it was much cheaper to pop into town to HMV and buy the disc.’

Steve Peacock: ‘Idiotic and divisive policy. Decimated the craft base and did us producers no favours at all.’

Caroline Feldon Parsons: ‘Producer Choice. Leading to much less actual sensible choice than a producer had before it was implemented. Lovely.’

Julia Versluis: ‘Until you had to pay for a service and discover it was three times more expensive this way.’

Julie Hill: ‘I jumped ship before that hideous “initiative” was enforced. Lost out on any redundancy though!’

Vicky King: ‘I remember it well, working in HR, one of the biggest change programmes I’ve worked on.’

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