Dave Mundy
“Paul Temple” provided me with one of my most scary moments when Steve (Paul Temple‘s wife) was in a darkened room and held a very cold hand, which turned out to be a dead body!
I have the sig. tune on tape and it still gets me going!
My other most shocking feeling came in a “Dick Barton” episode when a man in a chair was pressed backwards and the sound of his back breaking lives with me today!
You can’t beat Radio Drama, they have the best pictures, as they are all in your head!
The “Goon Show” never worked on TV: who could give a graphic of ‘Bluebottle’ that would match yours?
Many years later I worked with Francis Matthews (‘Paul Temple’) in TVC and he actually lives near me in Esher, (Jaguar XJ!), so I often saw him on the High Street! I didn’t like to ask for an autograph as we were trained not to!
Peter Hider
Francis Matthews, what a really good egg.
I did the director’s course at Elstree in 1981 for which we were each given £26 per day per actor up to a maximum of three for three days to rehearse and record any length of drama that we could complete in one morning’s studio session. I chose to direct ‘Marble Arch’ by John Mortimer.
From my contacts of 20 years in studios I got the cream. Bruce McCadie (designer on “I Claudius”), built me the most lavish set they’d seen on Staff Training. The centrepiece was a retired Hollywood star’s boudoir complete with a lamp surrounded theatre mirror. I think Pete Fox was the Senior Cameraman and my actors were Sylvia Sims as the mistress, Frances Barbour as the wife and Francis Matthews as Lord Hammersmith. All three threw themselves in to this farce by John Mortimer who’d advised me on the phone as to how I could do his four hander with three actors.
I got so frustrated at one point, trying to direct from the gallery that I was relieved when Sylvia Sims, who had worked predominantly on film, asked Charles, the fm, where I was and could I direct on the set. I was out of the gallery like a greyhound (at that stage a rather rotund greyhound) and didn’t go back until recording.
The most tricky scene was in the toilet where with six minutes of recording time left Francis Matthews has to put his lit pipe in his pocket while hiding from his wife. He did it in one take and I had completed nearly twenty-five minutes of cut material. They were so professional and tolerant of a ‘wet behind the ears’ director.
At the end of the course I was offered a contract to direct a block of “EastEnders” but weighed up my long term chances against my abilities and went back to Production Management where I thrived.
I have a Umatic tape of it, I think, but no way of transferring it. Does anyone out there have the equipment?
Roger Bunce
I have both – the sig, tune of “Paul Temple” and “Dick Barton” – on CD, and I still love them – excitement and nostalgia. The “Dick Barton” Theme was memorably used by Michael Bentine when staging The Great Train Robbery on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway (which is on YouTube somewhere). I always reckoned that “It’s a Square World” was the most successful attempt to bring Goon-style comedy onto TV.
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I’ve been listening to various “Paul Temple” stories on Radio Four Extra. In the old days, when the episodes were spaced out a week apart, you didn’t notice the inconsistencies. But, now they are on consecutive days, the plot-holes and padding are all to obvious. But I still enjoy them. There’s something about the atmosphere they conjure. But the Radio drama that really terrified me as a kid, in my darkened bedroom, was “The Day of the Triffids” – all that slithering foliage and the whiplash of their stings! Eek!
Peter Neill
A snippet of trivia from “Friday Night is Music Night”:
Vivian Ellis (composer of "Coronation Scot" – The Paul Temple Theme) was inspired by a train journey – not to the North , but his commute from the West Country to London.
Dave Mundy
I worked on a drama in TVC with Noel Johnson who was the voice of “Dick Barton” many years previously. It was very strange to hear ‘Dick’ in a modern TV studio, especially coming from the elderly gentleman under my boom mic.! Gerry Williams once told me that he could go anywhere and not be recognised until he did the ‘Des and Gerry Show’ at Wimbledon!
Pat Heigham
That may have been one on which I was Grams. On rehearsal, when it came to playing in the closing music, I put on “The Devil’s Gallop” instead. Much consternation from Noel! But I think he was quite chuffed at being remembered.
Graeme Wall
Noel Johnson, and other members of the original cast, appeared on “Nationwide” to celebrate an anniversary of the show. Sound department booked out an original diamond shaped microphone and they did a little performance of part of the first ever episode. Absolutely fascinating to watch.
A couple of year’s later I moved to Southern Television and ended up working on a remake of the series on a lightweight (fsvo) two camera OB unit.
Pat Heigham
A few comments/stories about the progs mentioned here ….
I love listening to the re-runs on Radio Four-Extra of “Paul Temple”, but I cringe at Marjorie Westbury’s cut-glass Cheltenham Ladies College accent as she intones: "Oh! Paul!"
And why did Peter Coke insist that his name was pronounced ‘Cook’? Was it vanity – bit like the Spencer family that had Althorp, pronouncing it Althrop – maybe they were so in-bred that they became dyslexic!
(from Wikipedia – The name today is properly pronounced as "Awltrupp",
which is not officially recognised on paper and by the media. The current owner, Charles Spencer, noted that none of his family refer to it as Althorp, and that his father insisted on pronouncing it "Awl-trupp". When he assumed ownership in 1992, the BBC Pronunciation Department contacted him and the current "Althorp" was agreed upon.)
“It’s a Square World” – I was boom operating on the episode that was put up for the Montreux Festival (1963?), think it won the Press Prize. I was on the boom over Mike Bentine’s counter, there was a large cup of coffee in front of him. Superimposed was a telecine cartoon figure who wanders on, then dives into the cup! At that moment, the special FX man under the counter squirted a jet of liquid from underneath the cup – rather too hard, as the jet hit the mic fair and square and for the rest of the scene was dripping everywhere!
Another brilliant sketch had singer Benny Lee perching on a stool, in profile, lighting reduced to silhouette and a cartoon of little people was inserted into his head while he sang. One was looking through his eyes, with a telescope, and reading out the words, and another was working a pulley system to move his mouth!
In order to locate Benny’s head so that the telecine cartoon could be accurately superimposed, an earpiece, which carried the TK soundtrack of the song was mounted on a rod which projected up from the stool and to which Benny fitted into. A brilliant set-up and beautifully executed!
I was also Grams on a TV version of “The Day of the Triffids” and we spent an afternoon in the Sound Studio R in Lime Grove, trying to invent noises as if the plants were talking to each other. Close miking stroking a brush bristles – squeaking a balloon by rubbing a thumb over it and slowing up the tape – we extended our imagination. It might have been better if the Radiophonics Workshop had been brought in!
Geoff Fletcher
Here is a photo linking the two strands in Pat’s note – i.e. Bentine and Triffids.
I took this shot on 16 August 1964 at TC one morning – they were setting up to shoot a sequence for Square World I think.
Anyway – there you have the great man himself in the dark suit and a genuine, if somewhat wilted looking, triffid!
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