Background

from Christopher Perry:

I’m having fun writing a book at the moment about TV pilots, and trying to make a definitive list.

Could I stretch your memory to maybe list any tx or untx pilots for titles ( and if you remember who made them?)

If I don’t or can’t find more info about them, I may come back to you and see what you remember or if you know where the tapes might still be held. But the title and company gives me somewhere to begin.

It’s a very hard subject to research if something isn’t shown.

Warwick Cross

I remember doing an OB for two days in a pub in Carshalton, Surrey for a pilot for a programme called “Top Pub”.  Pilot never went out to my memory and no series ensured.  This idea was a variation on the established Top Form format of the mid 60s.

Best guess for date was June or July 1967.  It was a KA scanner/crew.  Best guess is it was OB Events from Ken House.

Never mind the pilot, though – a pub for two days solid is an excellent location!  Even the tea served between licensing hours was delivered in pint mugs!

Pat Heigham

Ah! Filming in pubs!!

My story: although it was not a pilot, but a non-studio sequence for ‘Desmonds’ an LWT sit-com based in a barber’s shop in Peckham.

The cast were coloured, and very good actors – we were shooting in a pub, and obviously I had to have the juke box switched off for the dialogue scenes. Come wrap, however, it could go back on, and I was happily jivin’ along to the music, as I wound up my cables.

The cast were enjoying a pint, and one of them, surveying my action, remarked; "Hey, Pat, youse doin’ it better’n we!"  Praise indeed!