The Deep Concern – press pack

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

the-deep-concern-press-pack-synopsis the-deep-concern-press-pack-episode-credits

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a few sheets from the press pack to accompany the 1979 thriller series, The Deep Concern, on BBC1. It was written by Elwyn Jones, directed by Richard Callanan, produced by David Rose and script edited by Michael Wearing.

Thanks to Beth Porter, who played the character, Carrie Stone, for sharing the press pack.

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

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Barry Hanson – Aug 1943-June 2016

Peter Sasdy & Barry Hanson on Witchcraft. Photo by Willoughby Gulachsen, no reproduction without permission

Peter Sasdy & Barry Hanson on Witchcraft. Photo by Willoughby Gullachsen, no reproduction without permission

Gavin Davies, Barry Hanson, Alan Dosser, Tom Beech, perhaps on Muscle Market. Photo by Willoughby Gulachsen, no reproduction without permission

Gavin Davies, Barry Hanson, Alan Dosser, Tom Beech, probably on Broke. Photo by Willoughby Gulachsen, no reproduction without permission

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barry Hanson sadly died in June 2016. Here is his obituary in The Guardian, written by Christopher Hampton and Stephen Frears:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/aug/14/barry-hanson-obituary

Barry Hanson, who has died aged 72, moved through several branches of his profession before finding his true vocation as a television producer. At Pebble Mill, the BBC’s broadcasting centre in Birmingham, under David Rose, he produced a series of plays known as Second City Firsts (1973-74). Next, for ITV, came a film that was to come fourth in the BFI’s list, made in 2000, of the 100 best TV shows of the century: The Naked Civil Servant (1975), based by Philip Mackie on Quentin Crisp’s memoir about his battles for sexual freedom, directed by Jack Gold and starring John Hurt. This won a Bafta award for Hurt, and the Prix Italia. Almost immediately it established itself as one of the most memorable and groundbreaking programmes of its era.

After several more hard-hitting plays and series for TV came Barry’s most celebrated project. The Long Good Friday (1980) was written by Barrie Keeffe for Thames Television, where Barry had arrived to work with Verity Lambert. When the company’s nerve failed in the face of the script’s uncompromising power, Barry had it bought back from them and decided to launch it as a film for the cinema.

Financed by Lew Grade’s ITC Entertainment, it was directed by John Mackenzie. However, its central premise, that the carving-up of London’s Docklands between Bob Hoskins’s London mobster and the New York mafia is disrupted by the IRA’s attempt to muscle in on the action, so alarmed decision-makers that it was decided to remove this crucial element and bury the film in some ITV graveyard shift.

Barry’s response was, with Mackenzie, to hijack the negative and head for Los Angeles. There, after much intricate manoeuvring, a sale was eventually arranged to George Harrison’s Handmade Films: and so emerged what, as last year’s re-release reminded us, is almost certainly the finest British gangster film since Brighton Rock.

I first knew him as a member of the small – but tolerated – heterosexual minority when I arrived to work at the Royal Court theatre, London, in 1968. He had stepped sideways from the publicity department to become an assistant director to Peter Gill in his DH Lawrence productions and to Robert Kidd on my play Total Eclipse. He then progressed to directing Sunday-night productions without decor (as they were known) and a collective satirical piece in the Theatre Upstairs called The Enoch Show, about the wave of racism stirred up by the speeches of the Conservative MP Enoch Powell.

His Yorkshire roots always remained of great importance to him and he shared with many of his friends from the area – the playwrights Mercer and David Halliwell and the actor Victor Henry – a keen nose for metropolitan bullshit and a healthy mistrust of authority. These qualities stood him in particularly good stead when it came to the troubled realisation of The Long Good Friday.

The following year, 1969, he left for Hull to run the first arts centre in Britain, where he worked closely with Alan Plater and presented Richard III with Hoskins, among many other plays.

From the Royal Court, Barry brought with him an instinctive sense of commitment to the directors he worked with – including Stephen Frears, Michael Apted and Ken Russell – and, even more strongly, to the writers: John Osborne, David Mercer, Howard Brenton, David Rudkin, Trevor Preston and Stephen Poliakoff. In disputes with management, he invariably took the side of the artist, but the colder winds that began to blow in the 1980s, as television was prised from the fingers of the creators and handed over to ever thicker layers of administrators, created a climate that no longer suited his buccaneering temperament.

There was other work – The Wine Programme on Channel 4 (1982), the first-ever series on the subject, Russell’s Lady Chatterley series and A Year in Provence (both 1993) – which engaged him and kept him moving. But the glory days were over and the increasingly debilitating effects of his rheumatoid arthritis made matters considerably worse. He continued in TV till 1995, and returned to film production for a one-off, Creep (2004), a horror story set under the streets of London, with the disused Aldwych tube station among its locations.

Barry was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, to Harry Hanson, a compost salesman, and his wife, Irene (nee Raistrick), a burler and mender, removing and remedying imperfections in cloth at the local wool mill. Educated at Bellevue grammar school in the city, he began, along with his fellow pupil the future actor Edward Peel, to take an interest in theatre there, and went on to read English at Newcastle University. A year’s teaching at Bradford grammar school made it clear to him that his fate lay elsewhere, and he took a job in publicity at Harrogate theatre, from which he moved on to the Royal Court.
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His Yorkshire roots always remained of great importance to him and he shared with many of his friends from the area – the playwrights Mercer and David Halliwell and the actor Victor Henry – a keen nose for metropolitan bullshit and a healthy mistrust of authority. These qualities stood him in particularly good stead when it came to the troubled realisation of The Long Good Friday.

In 1969 Barry met Susanna Capon – I believe I introduced them. They married in 1971 and their daughter, Katy, was born in 1978. For many years, they kept a convivial house in Hammersmith, west London, entertaining a wide range of friends.

An amicable divorce in 2012 did not prevent Susanna and Katy from supporting Barry through his long final illness, in Pembrokeshire, where they had moved to be close to Katy’s solicitor practice and their grandson and granddaughter.
Christopher Hampton

Stephen Frears writes: Barry Hanson was a terrific fellow – he came from the Royal Court where the writing was new, lively and serious and continued to put writing in the foreground when he went on to work in television. I made four films with him, all provocative and full of vitality, all about the new Britain that had emerged after the war, all serious but drenched in popular culture.

We made them very quickly with the best of young British actors (Richard Beckinsale was in two of them) and the best of young British technicians. Barry was always on the side of good work: he could make your head spin with excitement.

• Barry Anthony Hanson, film and TV producer, born 10 August 1943; died 20 June 2016

The following message was posted on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Lynne Cullimore: ‘Sad to hear this. I did not know him but used to work on the publicity for Second City Firsts, so of course came across him. Its always sad when you hear of a fellow “Pebble Miller” not being around anymore.’

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The Alchemist – Tony Garnett

Roger Shannon and Tony Garnett in conversation. Copyright Flatpack

Roger Shannon and Tony Garnett in conversation. Copyright Flatpack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night I went to Tony Garnett’s book signing event at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. Tony was in conversation with Roger Shannon, and when asked why he wrote his memoirs, The Day the Music Died, he said, because he had to. He described it as a very painful process, where sometimes he had to stop writing because he couldn’t see the page through his tears! Tony certainly seemed to have experienced more than his fair share of tragedy, especially early in his childhood, when he lost his mother. He told the audience that until he wrote the book, that he hadn’t realised how much his childhood experiences had shaped his approach to the dramas he later produced. Tony was born in 1936, in Erdington and remembered the war in Birmingham well. He was brought up in a large family, with many uncles and aunts, and lots of cousins. He began his working life as an actor, and had a promising career, appearing in a number of stage and television plays. One television play he acted in was The Alchemist, produced by Peter Dews, which was a live drama from Gosta Green, BBC’s Birmingham drama studios before Pebble Mill was built. Also appearing in this production was Topsy Jane, who Tony described as the love of his life, who sadly later suffered from mental health issues.

Here is the Radio Times entry for The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson, transmitted on 29th May 1961, at 21.20. You’ll notice Tony’s credit towards the bottom of the list, playing ‘Kastril, the Angry Boy’:

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/90d4bd2d1ff14e8b8724dc8bbfe8419b

“starring
AI.AN DOBIE
PATSY ROWLANDS
JOHN WARNER
Produced by Peter Dews
Neighbours, Officers:
Colin Campbell , Mary Chester
Roser Croueher , Murray Gilmore Timothy Harley , Loelia Kidd
Henry Manning , Monica Stewart Isobel Swan
Face and his confederates, Subtle and Doll Common, get up to every trick, squeezing money out of the gullible and the greedy. These lead to outrageous complications which resolve only as the play ends.
Designer, Charles Carroll From the Midlands
See page 21

Contributors
Unknown: Patsy Rowlands
Unknown: John Warner
Produced By: Peter Dews
Unknown: Colin Campbell
Unknown: Mary Chester
Unknown: Roser Croueher
Unknown: Murray Gilmore
Unknown: Timothy Harley
Unknown: Loelia Kidd
Unknown: Henry Manning
Unknown: Monica Stewart
Unknown: Isobel Swan
Designer: Charles Carroll
Face, the Housekeeper: Alan Dobie
Subtile the Alchemist: John Warner
DoH Common, their Colleague: Patsy Rowlands
Lovewit Master of the House: William Mervyn
Dapper, a Lawyer’s Clerk: Edward Petherbridge
Abel Drugger, A Tobacco Man: Terry Scully
Sir Epicure Mammon, a Knight: Thomas Gallagher
Pertinax Surly, a Gamester: Jerome Willis
Ananias, a Deacon: David William
TribulationWholesome, a Pastor: Peter Duguid
Kastril, the Angry Boy: Tony Garnett
Dame Plianthis Sister, a Widow: Topsy Jane”

Unfortunately this production seems to have been Tony’s only work for BBC Birmingham, although he was friendly with David Rose, so it was a little surprising that he never produced any of the English Regions Drama Department plays from Pebble Mill.

Tony Garnett in The Alchemist, copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

Tony Garnett in The Alchemist, copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission. Thanks to Joyce Hawkins for sharing the photo.

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Girl and The Other Woman

Girl BBC Store The Other Woman BBC Store The Other Woman, location photos RG

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The BBC Store has released two BBC Pebble Mill dramas, Girl (a Second City First) cost £1.99, and The Other Woman (Play for Today) cost £3.99, for payable download. Here is the link to the downloads: https://store.bbc.com/collections/prejudice-and-pride .

There is also an article about The Other Woman, which is accessible from the link above; this article includes quotes from Roger Gregory, who was production assistant on the production. Included in the article is a note about the viewing figure, which was a very impressive 21% of the whole UK population! The Other Woman starred Jane Lapotaire, Michael Gambon and Lynne Frederick. Girl was one of Alison Steadman’s early works.

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The Other Woman

'The Other Woman'. Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

‘The Other Woman’. Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 1976 Pebble Mill produced Play for Today, The Other Woman, is going to be released on BBC Store soon, meaning that viewers will be able buy, download and keep the drama.

The researcher on the release would like to make contact with anyone who has memories of working on the programme, to contribute to an article which will be published to tie in with the release.

If you worked on the drama, or have memories of it being produced, then please add a comment, and I will forward your details to the researcher.

The drama was transmitted on BBC1, 6th January 1976. Here is the entry from the Radio Times, courtesy of the BBC Genome project:

“The Other Woman by WATSON GOULD
Kim, an angry young artist, disrupts the lives of Robin, a family man, and Niki, a temp sec- for whom she is the other woman.’
Film cameraman MICHAEL Williams Film editor HENRY FOWLER Designer GAVIN DAVIES
Script editor WILLIAM SMETHURST Producer DAVID ROSE
Director MICHAEL simpsox BBC Birmingham

Contributors

Unknown: Watson Gould
Editor: Henry Fowler
Designer: Gavin Davies
Editor: William Smethurst
Kim: Jane Lapotaire
Robin: Michael Gambon
Niki: Lynne Frederick
Aunt Darnley: Barbara Atkinson
Miles Darnley: Leon Sinden
Rose: Rosalind Adams
Louise: Eve Pearce
Ben: Benedict Taylor
LoiS: Martyn West
Barman: John Joyce”