Dave Greenslade – What Was Pebble Mill?

This photo is from episode 3 of Gangsters series 1. It features Maurice Colbourne as John Kline and Saeed Jaffrey as Rafiq. Gangsters series 1 was a 6 part crime serial set in the Midlands underworld. It was shown on BBC1 on Thursday Sept 23 1976.

Here is the entry from the Radio Times:

“A series of six programmes by PHILIP MARTIN with Ahmed Khalil , Elizabeth Cassidy, Paul Antrim, Paul Barber, Alibe Parsons, Saeed Jaffrey and Maurice Colbourne as John Kline. Incident 3 –
A missing consignment of heroin, an abandoned railway station. Surveying the scene are Rafiq, the sophisticated gangster, and Khan, the double agent. How will Kline escape the factions ranged against him at the Battle of Snow Hill?
Music composed and directed by DAVE GREENSLADE
Script editor PETER ANSORGE Designer IAN ASHURST Producer DAVID ROSE
Director ALASTAIR REID. BBC Birmingham”

Roger Slater was a boom operator on the series, with John Gilbert the recordist. Murray Laidla was part of the audio crew in Studio A when the barge was built in the studio.

Joyce Hawkins was the costume designer.

The Rum Runner nightclub was taken over by Gangsters and turned into a strip club.

Jenny Brewer on Artemis 81 from pebblemill on Vimeo.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

In this specially recorded video, Jenny Brewer, who worked as a production assistant in the 1970s and early 1980s, talks about some of the challenges of making the three hour, epic drama, by David Rudkin: Artemis 81.

The film was transmitted on 29th December 1981. The BBC genome project (digitised historic Radio Times entries), provides the following information about Rudkin’s drama:

A film by DAVID RUDKIN with Hywel Bennett
Dinah Stabb , Dan O’Herlihy featuring Sting and Anthony Steel, Margaret Whiting Roland Curram , Ingrid Pitt
A Danish museum case shattered, the pieces of a pagan statue hidden in cars on a North Sea ferry, the subsequent deaths of ferry passengers, an old musician terrified that a curse upon him will cause the devastation of the Earth.
Gideon Harlax, a successful young novelist of ‘ the paranormal and unexplained ‘, thinks he has found the material for a new book. But as Gideon coldly exploits human tragedies, angry powers from Man’s ancient past are gathering. Alien Planet Danish ferry Oxford library
Original music by DAVE GREENSLADE Passacaglia by GORDON CROSSE
Film cameraman DAVID JACKSON Film editor MIKE HALL Designer GAVIN DAVIES
Script editor ROGER GREGORY Producer DAVID ROSE
Director ALASTAIR REID

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/e4712cf3ce794d8d9c47c637bf8dbadd

The following comment was left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Stuart Gandy: ‘I remember working on this in the dubbing theatre. Dave Baumber did a wonderful mix. It needed a lot of post-sync recording. A very interesting film, would love to see it again. I don’t think it was ever repeated.’

Tag: Dave Greenslade

Gangsters Series, Episode 3, 1976

Artemis 81