Jenny Brewer – Page 3 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Jenny Brewer talks about her BBC career

Jenny Brewer talks about her career at BBC Pebble Mill from pebblemill on Vimeo.

Specially recorded interview with Jenny Brewer talking about her career at the BBC. Jenny began working as a secretary in the late 1960s, and ended up as a commissioning manager in the late 1990s. Much of Jenny’s production work was in the English Regions Drama Department, headed up by David Rose in the 1970s.

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

Jean Palmer: ‘I worked for Jenny when she was a commissioning manager up in the posh offices in the fifth floor.’

Gordon Astley: ‘..I think I remember Jenny in the BBC Club’s production of “A Funny Thing Happened……” I had just joined the BBC !!!’

Judith Markall: ‘I remember Jenny and she mentions Eric Holmes! I was his Secretary and I couldn’t have worked for a nice man!!!!!! Much remembered.’

Occupation Democrat – Tech Reqs

These Technical Requirements (Tech Reqs) documents are for a studio drama, called Occupation Democrat, recorded in July 1984. This was the working title of the drama, and it was changed before transmission to Murder of a Moderate Man.

The drama was set in an airport hostel, and a prison, and recording was also going to take place in the men’s toilets! It was being recorded on 1″ videotape, with VHS viewing copies being run off at the same time. Although the recording was taking place in Studio A at Pebble Mill, the Tech Run was taking place at Elstree, so presumably the rehearsals took place in London.

Robert Tronson was the director, John Bowen the producer, Jenny Brewer was the production associate, with William Hartley the production manager. Charles Bond was the designer, with Al Barnett the costume designer and Susie Bancroft the make-up designer. Dave Bushell was technical manager, with Annette Martin as vision mixer and Ivor Williams and Leigh Sinclair were the VT editors.

David Rudkin talking about the origins of Artemis 81

Origins of Artemis 81 from pebblemill on Vimeo.

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

Specially recorded interview with writer David Rudkin talking about how the drama ‘Artemis 81’ came about. ‘Artemis 81’ was transmitted in 1981, when producer David Rose still headed up the English Regions Drama Department. The drama was a three hour epic about the battle of good and evil, starring Hywell Bennett and Sting. Alastair Reid was the director, Dawn Robertson the associate producer, Jenny Brewer the PA, Roger Gregory the script editor, Ian Churchill the camera operator, Bob Jacobs and William Hartley were the production managers, and Mick Murphy was the AFM.

‘The Battle of Waterloo’ – photo by Willoughby Gullachsen

The Battle of Waterloo

Photograph by Willoughby Gullachsen, no reproduction without permission.

The photo features (left) Martin Carthy, playing ‘Wolfhound’ and (far right) Peter Benson as ‘Sniffer’. Please add a comment if you can identify the middle actor. Other actors to star were Warren Clarke as ‘Slewpot’, Dave Atkins as ‘Bamber’, and Dai Bradley as ‘Ferris’.

‘The Battle of Waterloo’ was a live studio drama, written by Keith Dewhurst and produced at Pebble Mill in 1983. It was produced and directed by Robin Midgley, the production associate was Dawn Robertson, with Bob Jacobs as the production manager. Phyllida Lloyd (who went on to direct the film Mama Mia) was the AFM, Jenny Brewer the PA, Peter Ansorge & Roger Gregory the script editors, Roger Sutton the vision mixer and Dave Doogood the camera supervisor.