Alec Bray

I can’t remember [an audience walking out] at any audience show I worked on at the Beeb – but times were different then, TV still a relative novelty.

I remember one show of a series in the TV Theatre – "Bold as Brass" (1963 – 1964) with Jimmy Edwards and Beryl Reid.  It was a really dire show  – and during Line-Up, the FM, AFM and others were in the street outside the Theatre pleading with members of the public to come into the theatre to watch the show!

For "Bold as Brass" there was only one VT machine, so the whole show had to be played back before the studio could be released (full check, not spot check as done when recording with two VT machines). On one notable occasion, after what seemed an interminable wait, Jimmy Edwards picked up his Euphonium and did the glissando start to "The Island of Capri" – and all the rest of the brass band joined in and they had a full on jam session – it really was the very best part of the whole programme.

And as a result of that programme, Miss Beryl Reid has the lowest possible position in my estimation of performers (a story in itself).

 

Dave Mundy

On one “Talk of the Town” show I had to fit a  Micron to the young Lena Zavaroni’s thigh with the help of a male dresser. While checking that it was working OK I heard her ask her  chaperone why we hadn’t left the dressing room . The chaperone said to  her, “ …they’ve seen it all in their line of work and think nothing of it!…”

The best (or worst!) radio mic. story happened at the TV Theatre when a new sound lad had to fit one on Esther Rantzen who lifted her skirts and said, “Help yourself!”’

 

Bernie Newnham

And Su Pollard, who lifted up her skirt front to the sound man and said, "I know what you want!"

 

Graham Maunder

Shirley Bassey was a Stuart Morris production at TVT

 

Dave Plowman

Shirley Bassey did a ‘special’ at Thames Teddington in the 1980s. That will very likely survive somewhere.  Many of her greatest hits.

Superb sound by Peter Wilcocks.

 

Pat Heigham

In the TVT, Crew 3 used to put a bag of sweets under the camera head on the Mole, and the boys and girls helped themselves. Bill Cotton noticed this one day, and asked who paid for them. Eddie Stuart (No.1 camera) said that the crew did. Bill beckoned me over and gave me 5/- to go and get some from the shop on the corner. I thought that was a bit mean as the contents usually cost around £2 or so, in those days!

 

Vernon Dyer

Yes, that’s right, during B & W Minstrels rehearsals we would put a bag of sherbet lemons there. We’d take turns to buy a half-pound during our lunch break. 

 

Roger Bunce

[Ed: Tech Ops people were invited to visit the refurbished Shepherd’s Bush Empire]

[The visit to the old TV Theatre] won’t be the same without Hostility in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or Gladys in the Tea Bar, serving scalding tea, and the clock whose second hand always tumbled from 0 to 30 seconds; or the bloodstains on the Balcony where the skulls of Cameramen abruptly ended the pull-out-to-the-HAWS [High Angle Wide Shot]. Them were the days!

 

Vernon Dyer

Now then Rog, as a former mole-swinger I take exception to that ‘bloodstains’ slur. Not on my watch!

 

Roger Bunce

Sadly, it was on my watch that John Lintern was only saved by the monitor cradle!

 

Peter Fox

Roger! Do you mean sadly he was saved? How could you! Perhaps you just meant sadly it was on your watch. Or both.

Dave [is] right about the safety frame being older, and very usefully (in some ways) having a central monitor, but it was Mole specific, as it utilised both monitor sockets at once and wouldn’t have fitted straight on a Nike. Of course neither made much difference if the crane was swung out to the side. In that case the cameraman would have served to protect the nice frame. The best thing about the Nike was that the swing was smooth and with it’s long arm one could minimise, or try to avoid, tracking over the notorious bump at the transition from ramp to stage. Even with a steel plate let into the floor the problem was never really solved.

 

Graeme Wall

Just out of interest when was the Nike used at TVT? Never saw it there myself.

 

Mike Minchin

Roger Fenna swore by the Nike in the Theatre.  That would be during the 1980s.  I was less sure, owing the length of the arm (and the height of the bucket on low shots).

 

Graham Maunder

I know we definitely used the Nike during my time at TVT though don’t have any pics.

I did find one shot from TVT of the late great Ron Green being ably (?) tracked by yours truly and swung by Simon Morris on a Lena Zavaroni show, probably circa 1981/2

 

Simon Morris

I’m sure I swung the Nike in TVT and I think I was involved in the "plaster-in-the-bucket-gate”.

As I recall, the bucket didn’t fit under the circle so a small crane up was needed as we tracked back on low wide shots… I think we mis-timed one and gently touched the circle …

Again, if memory serves, we had the dent in the circle painted but forgot about the remains of the circle in the bucket!

 

Peter Fox

I thought I remembered  painting out the white patch, but wasn’t sure enough to write so. I don’t remember how we found the right paint though. Maybe it was a "professional" job, Ron would have been good at arranging something like that, or maybe we were just lucky finding an abandoned tin backstage. We didn’t bother with Polyfilla which was our downfall. Any idea what show, why or when?  Apart from "early eighties".

[The incident happened] a couple of days after we persuaded "The management" that it would be a really good idea to put a Nike on the ramp (and to good effect I might say). Tony Abbey accosted us with a smallish  chunk of purple plaster that Bill Marshall had discovered in the bucket. No question of where it came from!

He was trying to be a bit fierce but you knew he was on our side really. The Nike stayed. I not sure the monitor and safety frame that Bill’s men made would  have made much difference in a crash but then we trusted our swingers and trackers.

A Mole seemed awfully tame after that.

 

Graeme Wall

Similar problem with the Mole with the column pumped up.  I remember Ian Gibb muttering “mind the clock” every time we had that sort of shot.

 

Robin Sutherland

So how many incidents involving Mole cranes hitting the circle at TVT were there? I can certainly recall one with John Lintern on camera with his head forced into the viewfinder and the monitor and "roll bar" bent forward after it hit the clock attached to the circle edge showering him in glass. I’m pretty sure the unfortunate tracker was Roger Casstles who went on to find fame as producer of “The Clothes Show”.

 

Vernon Dyer

I don’t remember a Nike in the Theatre, but am I right in thinking a  Mole was used on some occasions in the well? A second one presumably. I never worked on a show that way, but seem to recall visiting one day and seeing it.

 

Simon Morris

My other memory of the Nike in TVT is stealing the shots from camera 2 in the pit as the Nike camera platform would go below the stage.

 

Graeme Wall

Yes for some of [Stewart Morris]’s epics we had two Moles in the TVT.  I think “In Concert” also used two Moles, can’t remember the director’s name but Rick Gardner was the VM.

 

Peter Hider

My Mole disaster event took place on an Olivia Newton John special on Easter Sunday, directed by Yvonne Littlewood .I was on Camera one and I think John Hoare was on the Motorised in the well. We were in the middle of a track in to an MS of Olivia when crash! #!$%!  The motorised had driven at full speed straight into the side of my camera and worse still reversed back pulling the cable and side off the camera which was wrecked.

For some reason there was no working spare at TVT so one has to be derigged from the Grove. It took over an hour. OLN was in tears, YL was distraught and far from happy. We finished the show but I never worked with YL again. I do remember who was driving the Motorised but unless they come forward I remain silent.

 

Roger Bunce

I was there for that one. It was in the days when there were two Moles in the Theatre – one on the ramp and one in the well. So, it was a two Mole collision. I doubt that a motorised would have had enough height.

I confess that I was swinging the Mole in the well. We had a fast reposition, which involved tracking forward and swinging our arm out, low across the stage. All fine on rehearsals. But on recording, just as we started moving, a Sound Man darted into the corner of the well, to feed a mic cable. He hadn’t seen us coming, and I couldn’t swing the arm without knocking his head off. I was craning up wildly, trying to get over him, while waving at the tracker to stop the move. But he was looking down at his marks, unaware of the problem. I finally managed to grab his throttle and push it back, bringing us to a shuddering halt. Too late. Our Camera hit the bucket of the other Mole. John had spun his Camera sideways, to avoid damaging the lens and, at first, it seemed a very mild impact. I thought there was no damage – until I saw John’s focus handle spinning through the air. As Peter has said, it took an eternity of unspeakable embarrassment to repair.

 

Mike Minchin

I can’t remember whether we ever had two Moles in the Theatre.  I do remember the Motorised in the Well, while Camera 1 had a Mole, but most of my memories are of Roger Fenna on the Nike (cam 1) and myself on the Mole in the well (cam 2).  It was a stinker, because the floor wasn’t strong enough, and any tracking wobbled all over the place.  This despite a metal plate put into the floor – at not quite the right angle.

I do remember the incident of the side of the camera being ripped off – at a remove.  We heard it was just the focus control – or was that another occasion?  Only a couple of weeks earlier, I had turned round to Stewart Morris (directing from the back of the ramp) and told him I had no intention of getting as close to Roger as Stewart wanted me to go  "when he was in his Kamikaze mode."  I was allowed to get away with it, and then felt justified when the focus handle came off!

We never saw them delivering (or removing) the second crane to the well, but imagined that it must have been a major operation, probably involving ratcheted cables down the audience gangways.

 

Peter Fox

I spent most Stewart Morris shows in the well (ding dong) on a mole crane, except for one series, low down in a cleared area mid stalls, with a zoom borrowed from Kendal Avenue, probably to get some occasional blurry foreground audience, I think bands were always shut away by then, It was a bit limiting though.

The riggers manoeuvred the mole down the slope next to the seating having pushed it right to the back of the flat tracking "ramp". They used a Tirfor ratchet thingy, with a long wire rope  And there was a big eye bolt on the back wall if I recall correctly to hook it into. I don’t really recall actually seeing them do it though, unless there was a breakdown? Not much scope for busting a half shaft in the well though. It just appeared and disappeared by magic overnight.

 

David Beer

My TVT Mole story was one morning when I went down into the pit to turn the DC power on, the Mole on the stage suddenly shot backwards with nobody controlling it and fortunately, nobody behind it! I quickly turned the power off before it ended up in the band room, and when I checked, I realised the shot card holder had been swivelled round out of the way and was pushing the track control fully into reverse. To compound the train of events, the power switch on the Mole had been left ON. Lesson learned, I always checked it was in a safe condition before turning the DC power on thereafter.

 

Peter Combes

When Martin Dilly went to Crew 3, he formed a formidable pair — with Steve Blatchford driving — , on the Mole for "the Black and White Minstrel Show" and the "Billy Cotton Band Show", sometimes pulling the crane arm out at 90 degrees at the end of a high speed run down the TVT ramp. Ed Stewart kept his eyes close to the viewfinder, perhaps not wanting to be reminded of what was rushing past him.  Great days.

 

Pat Heigham

I used to operate the ‘side set’ boom, mounted on the edge of the circle which covered the o/p side of the stage (probably in front of the pros arch on the apron stage which I believe was built over the original orchestra pit.

Having been used to venturing under the stage (to check the riser mic), and over the roof (to check the cable to the dome mic – used for general comms, I think), I was pretty familiar with the Theatre!

I remember that even when occupied by BBC as a studio, as it was still licensed as a theatre, the ‘iron’ the safety curtain, had to be lowered and raised in the presence of the audience, and we could not run cables through the pros arch.