A Touch of Eastern Promise – Radio Times

ATEP Radio Times article

 

 

 

 

 

 

ATEP Radio Times

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

This Radio Times interview with Tara Prem was published in February 1973. The article publicizes the 30′ drama, A Touch of Eastern Promise, written by Tara, which was the first British television film with an entirely Asian cast. The Radio Times does not mention this fact, but concentrates on the similarities of the Bollywood film industry and the Hollywood film industry. The film was set in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, and tells the story of Mohan, and his obsession with a Bollywood film star – Shalini. It was produced by David Rose and directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg.

 

A Touch of Eastern Promise – Tara Prem

ATOEP conf film from pebblemill on Vimeo.

In this video interview Tara Prem talks about writing the 1973, 30′ film, A Touch Of Eastern Promise. Script editor, Barry Hanson, also talks about how the film was made. The producer was David Rose, and Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the director. This single drama was the first film on British television with an entirely Asian cast. It tells the story of a young man, Mohan, who dreams about Bollywood films, and particularly a glamorous actress, who is coming to sing in Birmingham that evening. It is a film about dreams in contrast to reality, and explores what it means to live in immigrant communities in British cities in the 1970s.

 

A Touch of Eastern Promise

A Touch of Eastern Promise

The Actual Woman & Pig Bin

From 22-24th April 2015 there was a conference at Royal Holloway College, part of the University of London, on Forgotten Drama. I was lucky enough to attend the conference, and there were several sessions which mentioned BBC Pebble Mill.

On the afternoon of the second day of the conference was a session on Second City Firsts, the anthology, half-hour drama series to come from BBC Pebble Mill in the 1970s. The series brief was to bring new talent to screen, often in the form of writers or directors fresh to television. Two plays were screened: The Actual Woman by Jack Shepherd, and Pig Bin by Brian Glover. A discussion followed the viewing, which included Jack Shepherd and director, Philip Saville, talking about The Actual Woman, and Tara Prem, who directed Pig Bin, along with Philip Jackson, who starred in it. Lez Cooke from Royal Holloway, chaired the discussion.

BBC English Regions Drama produced 74 half-hour plays from 1972-78, of which 53 were Second City Firsts. 14 half-hour plays were transmitted under the Thirty-Minute Theatre banner in 1972, followed by another six half-hour dramas which were transmitted without an anthology series title in Feb-March 1973. From October 1973 to May 1978 53 half-hour plays were transmitted under the series title ‘Second City Firsts’. There was one more half-hour drama, ‘Art … Adrift’ by Peter Terson, recorded in 1974, which was not transmitted.​
Both The Actual Woman and Pig Bin were lost Second City Firsts, but Jack Shepherd had a Phillips 1500 cassette of the former, and Tara Prem a VHS of the latter. The archive society Kaleidoscope have now digitised and preserved these copies, which were used for the screenings.

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The Actual Woman – features three characters, a husband and wife, and the husband’s brother. It is a psychological drama, where each character has the wrong idea about each other. None of the characters is very likeable, and the audience does not empathise with them. It is set in the Yorkshire countryside, with the married couple wrongly assuming that the brother lives in some rural idyll. It is a fairly dark tale, the husband and wife seem to hate each other, and there is an attempted rape of the wife, by the husband’s brother. The viewpoint shifts between the characters, with voice over presenting their thoughts during certain incidents in the drama.

Actor, Jack Shepherd, explained that he wrote the play as a live studio piece for the experimental arts magazine show: Full House. The show went out on BBC2 in 1972-3 from 9-11pm on a Saturday night, and included sketches, music, poetry and a live drama, in front of a studio audience. It was presented by Joe Melia. However, the play had to be re-envisaged as a location piece, after Full House was decommissioned in 1973. The voice over sections would have been soliloquies in the original studio production.

Philip Saville directed the piece and spoke about how the locations and bitter weather had really contributed to the atmosphere of the drama. It was also unusual as being an early experiment of shooting single camera on location, on tape, using a news type camera. Tony Raynor was the VT editor, and one of the few crew to get a credit.

Philip Jackson in Pig Bin

Philip Jackson in Pig Bin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pig Bin – was an extreme studio piece, set in one room, a police holding cell in the basement of a football stadium. Again, there are only three characters, an adult Leeds United fan, played by Philip Jackson, a young boy fan, and a police officer. The piece was a longer version of a short play written for Tara Prem by Brian Glover (her future husband) for her BBC studio directors course final project. Producer, Barry Hanson saw the recording from the course and suggested that it was expanded for a Second City First. The play relies on the quality of the acting, which is extremely good, and still stands up today. The Leeds accents of two football fans are quite strong, and there is great attention to detail.

This production was Tara’s first experience of directing, and she explained about the production process. Rehearsals would last for around a week, whilst the piece was choreographed. There was one day in the studio, with camera blocking taking most of the day, and the actual recording taking around two hours. Two or three cameras would have been used, but recording would not have been continuous. Studio days were very intensive, and overrunning was virtually unheard of, due to the expense of overtime. The play would have been recorded in chronological order. Philip Jackson described the ‘producer’s run’, which was a performance of the whole piece for the producer to see, and for the crew to wander round and work out how best to shoot it. A camera script, with the various cameras and shots on would be produced by the director. This was the bible, and although you could make changes on the recording day, it was extremely difficult if you did. Directing was challenging, as the action would all be happening on the studio floor, and the director would be up in the production gallery divorced from what was going on. Generally you had to talk to the actors through the floor manager; you could go down to the floor, if necessary, but it meant that things were serious if you did. The vision mixer would be cutting the play as the recording went on.

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The panel were asked to explore the notion of the half hour play. Jack Shepherd said that he missed it, because the point of view of the writer is less present in modern dramas, but that single half hours are not profitable, and don’t sell abroad. Tara explained that the half hour format would never come back to TV, but that people who want to, will produce such pieces for online distribution, because that is now achievable on a very small budget, so anyone can have a voice, which is a positive thing. The actors’ perspective was also given – that there were now fewer opportunities to contribute to serious drama, whereas now you have to take what comes. Philip Saville said that television drama is now much more filmic, and less theatric. The result, almost certainly of more location and less studio recording.

You don’t see these kinds of dramas on television any more – and that, I think, is a shame. They tend to explore the human condition in a way in which few modern dramas do. They may seem slow and technically far poorer than contemporary dramas, but they have a powerful authorial voice which has been largely lost due to the commissioning process and demands of modern television.

(Thanks to Lez Cooke for supplying information about the number of half hour plays produced by ERD)

Editing Boys from the Blackstuff

Editing Boys from the Blackstuff from pebblemill on Vimeo.

Video recorded by Colin Fearnley, no reproduction without permission.

Colin Fearnley recorded this video in November 2004, on the last evening of editing at BBC Pebble Mill. He filmed the editors looking round the empty edit suites and reminiscing about the programmes they had edited there. Mike Bloore remembers editing Boys from the Blackstuff in VTD, on 1″ videotape, with director Philip Saville sat on the sofa in the edit suite.

Editor, Mike Bloore

Editor, Mike Bloore

 

 

 

 

 

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

Keith Brook: ‘Well done to Mike. A great editor and thoroughly nice guy. We had so much fun at Pebble Mill.’

Abby Bottrill: ‘Aww, the legend that is our very own Sir Mike Bloore.’

Early to Bed + Jack Flea’s Birthday Celebration

The BFI are screening two Pebble Mill Second City Firsts, Early to Bed and  Jack Flea’s Birthday Celebration as part of a series of forgotten dramas. The screening is to be held on Tuesday 3rd February, at 6.10pm at the BFI Southbank, NFT3. You can book tickets online: https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=CBAD85AB-44CD-4D30-ACE5-F25672CFAB42&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=4159993E-A281-42E4-A299-3431E39987B4

Early to Bed. Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

Early to Bed. Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early to Bed was Alan Bleasdale’s first television play. It was directed by Leslie Blair, and starred David Warwick, Alison Steadman, Johnny Meadows and Patricia Leach. The 1975, ‘Second City First’ is set in a Lancashire mining village, it tells the story of an eighteen year old, played by David Warwick, who has an affair with his married, next door neighbour – Alison Steadman. Bleasdale thought that Blair’s direction turned an average script into a very watchable play.
Jack Flea's Birthday Celebration
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the link to the synopsis of Jack Flea’s Birthday Celebration from the BBC Genome project: http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/689430d99ef64c58a1b6c3c947b854fc

Synopsis

Jack Flea’s Birthday Celebration by IAN MCEWAN
Jack Flea finds himself living with a woman nearly twice his age, who decides to make him her fantasy child. It is a role our young hero cannot resist.
Script editor PEDR JAMES
Designer MALCOLM GOULDING Producer TARA PREM Director MIKE NEWELL

Contributors

Editor: Pedr James
Designer: Malcolm Goulding
Director: Mike Newell
Ruth: Sara Kestelman
David: David Wilkinson
Mrs Lee: Eileen McCallum
Mr Lee: Ivor Roberts