Television – Page 208 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Scarlet Pimpernel – publicity card

‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’ was a 3 part BBC 1 drama starring Richard E Grant in the title role. It was transmitted in January 1999. Elizabeth McGovern played Grant’s character’s wife, with Martin Shaw as Chauvelin, the head of the revolutionary French police, and the Scarlet Pimpernel’s chief adversary. It also featured Christopher Fairbank, Anthony Green, Ronan Vibert, Emilia Fox, Denise Black, Gerard Murphy, James Callis, Peter Jeffrey, Suzanne Bertish and Jerome Willis.

The director was Patrick Lau; with producer, Julian Murphy.

The production was a co-production between BBC Birmingham and London Film Productions, and the Arts and Entertainment Network.

Thanks to John Greening for making the publicity card available.

John Abbott on Shalom Salaam – photo by Dave Bushell

John Abbott

Photo by Dave Bushell, no reproduction without permission.

The photo is of John Abbott, Engineering Manager, during a shoot for ‘Shalom Salaam’ in Leicester in 1988. He was celebrating a significant birthday with location catering!

Dave Bushell

Daytime Live – behind the scenes

Here is a behind the scenes clip of ‘Daytime Live’ from 1 November 1988, presented by Alan Titchmarsh. It was one of the successors to ‘Pebble Mill at One’, and had a very similar magazine format. This clip is one of a series recorded by the BFI as part of their ‘One day in the life of television’ project in 1988.

The excerpt shows Alan Titchmarsh giving a behind the scenes tour of the ‘Daytime Live’ office, with a psychologist commenting on the state of the production team’s desks and what they say about them as people. Featured are David Morgenstern and Jane McCloskey.

‘Daytime Live’ was recorded in Studio C, like ‘Pebble Mill at One’.

Jane Clement added the following information via the Facebook page: ‘Nice to see the back of my head there (at the first desk as Alan enters the office, opposite the gorgeous Steph). It was actually Jane (not Jo) McCluskey, I think – she was Queen of Books at the time, a role I held myself before her when I took over from the late great Jenny Cowan. Of all my jobs at PM, that was probably my favourite, given my lifelong love affair with books. Also interesting to see David Morgenstern; he and I had bought a house together in Harborne that year (purely as friends, I should say); I was due to emigrate to Australia the next month (December 88) and I laughingly thought the house would be a good investment. How wrong I was!’

Julie Hall, Midlands Today – photo by Peter Poole

: Julie Hall

Photo by Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission.

Julie was a presenter and journalist working for Midlands Today. I don’t know when the photo was taken. Anyone remember her?

Peter Poole

The Franchise Affair – photo by Dave Bushell

The ‘Franchise Affair’ was a 6 part serial, which I think was hosted at Pebble Mill from London. It was transmitted in 1988. Terrance Dicks was the producer, Leonard Lewis the director, and Phillippa Giles the script editor. Dave Bushell was the lighting director and Rob Hinds the production designer.

The story was about a mother and daughter, living in a house called The Franchise, who are accused of kidnapping a 15 year old girl and making her work as a servant. See BFI database: http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/417012

‘Took this shot while we were shooting ‘The Franchise Affair’ at Bewdley station in 1988. I don’t think any work is going on – just three guys examining a very large ‘Boy’s Toy’. I think it’s Tom Beach (Props Buyer) on the left with Keith Moreton (chargehand electrician) and Eric Crouch (electrician).’

Dave Bushell