Hopefully …

Pat Heigham

I used to operate the main boom on Cliff’s desk – no personal mics then!

We were depending on a Telecine (TK) insert to give time to track to the other end of the studio, for Robin Hall and Jimmy McGregor’s song.

From the gallery: " We don’t have the film – going to song…..!"

So a mad swing from Cliff, and rack out, while my tracker bumped over camera cables to reach the appointed spot. No idea what it must have sounded like – but that’s live television for you!

Alec Bray

“Tonight” in Studio G Lime Grove.

We rehearsed (some time in the mid sixties) – seemingly most of the afternoon – a song by Robin Hall and Jimmy Macgregor about General De Gaulle and his home town of Colombey-les-Deux-Églises  – even at this time it seemed somewhat bizarre for this to have become such a big news item.  Lots of captions, and a song: the whole piece was going to start the show, instead of the normal titles (run from TK).

There was a quite complicated caption sequence to go with the song (written by our pair of balladeers).  This is what required the rehearsal – the CPS Emtitron cameras looking at music stands – and tracking in and out to adjust the shot (no zooms on these Cameras!) – as the scene guys removed the photos and other pictures one by one.  It was always a tricky time working with caption stands, as the scene guys never ever wore cans, they worked to, and relied solely on, the camera cue lights.

All rehearsed, break for line up.

Come back to the studio floor, get into position.  Two minutes to go – but no sign of Robin Hall and Jimmy Macgregor.  Usually they were very reliable.  One minute to go – still no sign of Robin Hall and Jimmy Macgregor.  Then, about 15 seconds to go, Robin Hall and Jimmy Macgregor burst through the studio door, panting. Then Jimmy looked down, shouted out something like “oh shucks, I have forgotten my guitar!”  There was just enough time to cue TK for the regular titles  (Luckily the titles were still threaded on TK!)

In 1963, Studio G Lime Grove hosted “Tonight” Monday to Friday, and “Grandstand” on a Saturday.  Some time after “Tonight” was dropped, Studio G became the home of “Top of the Pops” for a while – it then got a Mole crane!  For “Tonight” and “Grandstand” there was a motorised Vinten – and peds – mounting CPS Emitron cameras.  For “Grandstand”, large scoreboards were placed in a line in front of the “Tonight” set, with people behind them placing the football scores into slots.

Now, Studio G sloped downhill – this could be proved by placing a football at the Gallery end of the Studio and watch it roll to the other end.  For “Tonight”, the main interview area was on a rostrum at the Gallery end of the Studio (towards Lime Grove itself).  So, if you were at the far end of the Studio, and had to suddenly get to the interview area (as frequently happened (the running order was constantly changing as the show went out), it was literally an uphill struggle to get into position!