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This programme contains some strong language. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:05 | |
Ten seconds... 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... | 0:00:05 | 0:00:08 | |
Hello, good evening and welcome. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:10 | |
It is without question the greatest purpose-built studios in the world. | 0:00:13 | 0:00:16 | |
I remember just seeing the building first of all | 0:00:16 | 0:00:19 | |
and I actually couldn't believe my eyes. | 0:00:19 | 0:00:22 | |
It's an icon. It's like Big Ben, it's like the Houses of Parliament. | 0:00:22 | 0:00:26 | |
It's like St Paul's. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:28 | |
When they built the Centre this was a temple to this marvellous new medium. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:33 | |
'This particular family is called Forsyte.' | 0:00:33 | 0:00:35 | |
Word reached us that amazing things were happening out in west London. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:39 | |
'Flipping heck.' | 0:00:39 | 0:00:40 | |
A jewel box full of activity. | 0:00:40 | 0:00:43 | |
'Tottenham Hotspur 4 Sheffield United 2.' | 0:00:43 | 0:00:46 | |
'That's the end of the news. Let's join Michael Fish | 0:00:46 | 0:00:48 | |
'and take a look at tomorrow's weather.' | 0:00:48 | 0:00:50 | |
I'm actually getting quite emotional remembering it. | 0:00:50 | 0:00:53 | |
It was like being at a very exciting party, really | 0:00:53 | 0:00:55 | |
because I was having such fun here. | 0:00:55 | 0:00:58 | |
'Tony likes Demis Roussos, I like Demis Roussos and so would like to hear Demis Roussos. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:02 | |
'So please, do you think we could have Demis Roussos on?' | 0:01:02 | 0:01:07 | |
It felt like home, certainly. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:08 | |
-'Well thank you very much, Jerry.' -'I don't believe it.' | 0:01:08 | 0:01:12 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:01:12 | 0:01:14 | |
It was like Wonderland to me. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:16 | |
'Live from Television Centre...' | 0:01:16 | 0:01:19 | |
Walking into Television Centre meant sparkle time. This was show business. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:24 | |
'Now the Morecambe And Wise Show.' | 0:01:24 | 0:01:27 | |
'I'm free. I'm free. I'm free.' | 0:01:27 | 0:01:30 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:01:30 | 0:01:31 | |
'...Top of the Pops'. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:33 | |
Coming here in the taxi, I suddenly got this rush. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:36 | |
The memories that you have of this place. | 0:01:36 | 0:01:39 | |
People were bonking all over the BBC! | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
They were absolutely stoned out of their minds. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:45 | |
Please, don't smoke that stuff, you know. | 0:01:45 | 0:01:48 | |
I promise you I am not at all proud of this, but I was drunk. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:51 | |
What I'm going to do is bleach your moustache. | 0:01:51 | 0:01:54 | |
We were in the wrong set and he said, "Go on and act." | 0:01:54 | 0:01:59 | |
'Exterminate.' | 0:01:59 | 0:02:01 | |
'Whatever happens, don't have nightmares.' | 0:02:01 | 0:02:03 | |
What we now know as British television was invented here. | 0:02:03 | 0:02:06 | |
'Don't mention the war. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:08 | |
'I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it all right.' | 0:02:08 | 0:02:11 | |
My memories of Television Centre are so wonderful. | 0:02:11 | 0:02:14 | |
When this place finally goes, I will really cry buckets. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:17 | |
'And it's goodnight from me.' | 0:02:17 | 0:02:19 | |
'And it's good night from him.' | 0:02:19 | 0:02:21 | |
This will always be the building that will be British television at its best. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:24 | |
Tales of Television Centre. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:30 | |
'Nearby is a model of the White City Project, future home of the BBC. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:45 | |
'Here many different departments now scattered all over London, | 0:02:45 | 0:02:49 | |
'may one day become centralised under one roof.' | 0:02:49 | 0:02:52 | |
Nice motor. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:00 | |
I always love coming here, actually, even to this day. I get a twinge of excitement. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:05 | |
There's something about this building. | 0:03:05 | 0:03:08 | |
From an early age I was aware of Television Centre. | 0:03:08 | 0:03:10 | |
If you've ever watched Swap Shop or Superstore... | 0:03:10 | 0:03:13 | |
I knew all about TV Centre because I used to watch Blue Peter as a child. | 0:03:13 | 0:03:17 | |
The building had a resonance. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
It was awesome to step inside it for the very first time. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:22 | |
I remember getting to Television Centre | 0:03:22 | 0:03:24 | |
and then having my name on the gates, and it was literally a religious experience. | 0:03:24 | 0:03:29 | |
I came here with my father who was a television director, John Glenister. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:33 | |
It was very exciting for a nine-year-old. | 0:03:33 | 0:03:37 | |
I visited the Doctor Who set. It was the TARDIS. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:40 | |
My abiding memory of that was, "My God, this is cheap". | 0:03:40 | 0:03:45 | |
Basically, it was made out of plywood and polystyrene. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:47 | |
This building in many respects acted as a catalyst for me | 0:03:49 | 0:03:53 | |
to go into the industry. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:55 | |
I'd grown up seeing BBC programmes in Australia | 0:03:55 | 0:03:58 | |
and this was the motherlode. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:00 | |
This was Television Centre, where all of those programmes | 0:04:00 | 0:04:04 | |
that I grew up with had emanated from. | 0:04:04 | 0:04:06 | |
'I can remember walking around the corridor for the first time' | 0:04:06 | 0:04:10 | |
looking for my first dressing room and thinking, | 0:04:10 | 0:04:13 | |
"I'm at the BBC, working as an actor." | 0:04:13 | 0:04:14 | |
Can you move from the monitor, please? | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
Good evening and welcome to Top Of The Pops. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:21 | |
'A friend of mine got tickets to go and see Top Of The Pops. I was about 15.' | 0:04:21 | 0:04:24 | |
I think you had to be 16 to get in, but we thought we would lie about our age. | 0:04:24 | 0:04:29 | |
'We were motorbike fanatics and we had leather jackets with studs | 0:04:29 | 0:04:32 | |
'and great boots and gloves. We looked - we felt,' | 0:04:32 | 0:04:35 | |
like Marlon Brando out of The Wild One or something. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:37 | |
They said, "Tony Orlando and Dawn are at number one | 0:04:37 | 0:04:39 | |
"with Tie A Yellow Ribbon, so we're going to give a yellow ribbon to everybody | 0:04:39 | 0:04:43 | |
"and we want you all to skip around dancing." | 0:04:43 | 0:04:45 | |
# Tie a ribbon round the old oak tree | 0:04:45 | 0:04:47 | |
# Tie a ribbon round the old oak tree. # | 0:04:47 | 0:04:49 | |
That was my first humiliation on British television. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:53 | |
'Incident Reported is the title of this week's story in the popular Z Cars series | 0:04:53 | 0:04:57 | |
'tomorrow night at 8.25.' | 0:04:57 | 0:04:58 | |
Z CARS THEME MUSIC PLAYS | 0:04:58 | 0:05:01 | |
My mum was in some of the live episodes of Z Cars. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:08 | |
-It's a nice friendly shop. -Yes, that's the way we like it. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:13 | |
'My dad and I would see the start of the programme, | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
'get in the car and come to Television Centre' | 0:05:16 | 0:05:19 | |
and wait for Mum to emerge. | 0:05:19 | 0:05:21 | |
-I just can't breathe. -You're all right. Come on. -What do you think you're doing? | 0:05:21 | 0:05:27 | |
I hasten to add I was tiny, so everything was fabulously huge | 0:05:27 | 0:05:32 | |
and modern and shiny and so exciting. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:36 | |
-They are waiting for me. -Keep still, lad. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:39 | |
'I did this live Z Cars.' | 0:05:39 | 0:05:40 | |
I didn't have a big part in it, | 0:05:40 | 0:05:43 | |
but I was terribly excited and quite nervous. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:45 | |
-Mr Rawlings says he's like to speak to you, sir. -Mr Rawlings? Inspector Rawlings? | 0:05:45 | 0:05:51 | |
I don't know. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:52 | |
'I was a teetotal girl from Wales. Hadn't ever drunk in my life.' | 0:05:52 | 0:05:56 | |
Signed the pledge at 11. And at the end of it Jimmy, or Brian Blessed, | 0:05:56 | 0:06:00 | |
one of them said, "Come on, we're going to the club for a drink", | 0:06:00 | 0:06:03 | |
and I had my first drink ever in the BBC bar. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:06 | |
-Thank you very much. -Thank you, Mavis. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:09 | |
At school, when I was 13, | 0:06:09 | 0:06:10 | |
I think I did rather well in a science project | 0:06:10 | 0:06:13 | |
which was about the only time I ever did well in a science project | 0:06:13 | 0:06:16 | |
and the reward was a trip to Television Centre. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:19 | |
'I visited the Z Cars studio and it was the most magical thing.' | 0:06:19 | 0:06:24 | |
'I had watched Z Cars on the TV' | 0:06:24 | 0:06:26 | |
and thought, "They're sitting in their car in a street", | 0:06:26 | 0:06:29 | |
and there was the car, half a car cut out, | 0:06:29 | 0:06:31 | |
and just the seats were there and then a backdrop of a northern street. | 0:06:31 | 0:06:37 | |
It was like a revelation to me. | 0:06:37 | 0:06:39 | |
I remember thinking, "It would be fantastic to work in a place like this", | 0:06:39 | 0:06:43 | |
never thinking I ever would. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:44 | |
Add on film for 32 seconds. | 0:06:44 | 0:06:47 | |
'Everybody who was anybody came here.' | 0:06:47 | 0:06:50 | |
Prime ministers, great actors, heroes, they all came. | 0:06:50 | 0:06:54 | |
SHOUTING | 0:06:55 | 0:06:57 | |
-One at a time, please. -No, no, no! | 0:06:57 | 0:07:01 | |
The Prime Minister took time off from Westminster to come | 0:07:01 | 0:07:04 | |
to Television Centre to see how the BBC makes its programmes. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:07 | |
-Have you never watched the news from there? -I haven't. | 0:07:07 | 0:07:09 | |
-Hello. -Hello. -Hello, I'm Elton John. | 0:07:27 | 0:07:30 | |
Who's that fat bastard? | 0:07:31 | 0:07:34 | |
DRUM ROLL | 0:07:36 | 0:07:38 | |
'This is BBC Television...' | 0:07:38 | 0:07:40 | |
DRUM ROLL | 0:07:40 | 0:07:42 | |
'..broadcasting from the Television Centre.' | 0:07:42 | 0:07:45 | |
The very first show that went out from Television Centre | 0:07:48 | 0:07:51 | |
was called First Night. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:53 | |
It was quite a challenge, but it was very rewarding | 0:07:53 | 0:07:55 | |
because it meant we were using all these new facilities | 0:07:55 | 0:07:58 | |
for the very first time | 0:07:58 | 0:08:01 | |
and it really was very exciting. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:03 | |
A lot of big names in it. | 0:08:03 | 0:08:05 | |
# Tonight I'm on a proper buster | 0:08:05 | 0:08:06 | |
# And my head is just a little light | 0:08:06 | 0:08:09 | |
# And with tomorrow's sorrow ready to drown | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
# I'm going to beat up the town tonight | 0:08:12 | 0:08:15 | |
# Tonight I'm on a celebration | 0:08:15 | 0:08:18 | |
# That will shake the nation to the core | 0:08:18 | 0:08:20 | |
# I'm going to beat, beat, beat, beat up the town | 0:08:20 | 0:08:23 | |
# The way it's never been done before. # | 0:08:23 | 0:08:26 | |
It was the biggest tailor-made television centre in the world. | 0:08:26 | 0:08:29 | |
My father had been a very senior engineer working for the BBC. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:39 | |
They sent him a model of the Centre and I remember it on my carpet. | 0:08:39 | 0:08:45 | |
I was 11. | 0:08:45 | 0:08:46 | |
'We have already started on the foundations and then later on, | 0:08:46 | 0:08:49 | |
'we shall build another part in the front here with three more studios. | 0:08:49 | 0:08:53 | |
I remember that circle that turned into a question mark. I remember it well. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:58 | |
To me, Television Centre was a work of art. | 0:08:58 | 0:09:01 | |
It belonged to that period in the late '50s | 0:09:01 | 0:09:03 | |
when everything was futuristic, | 0:09:03 | 0:09:05 | |
everything was space age. There's that same sense of design here. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:08 | |
The mosaic with the light coming in, | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
the honeycomb ceiling above it - it's wonderful. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:15 | |
There are echoes of that mosaic all around the central circle | 0:09:15 | 0:09:17 | |
and in the columns of the colonnade | 0:09:17 | 0:09:19 | |
and if you go to the staircase of the south hall, it's unsupported. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:24 | |
There's nothing holding you up, | 0:09:24 | 0:09:26 | |
so you get this wonderful feeling of precarious altitude | 0:09:26 | 0:09:29 | |
although it's perfectly safe standing there. | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
And the big basin at the fountains, | 0:09:32 | 0:09:33 | |
it's exactly like the flying saucer from Forbidden Planet. | 0:09:33 | 0:09:36 | |
But there's also a hint of Tracy Island about it - | 0:09:36 | 0:09:39 | |
that central circle, I can't really imagine it | 0:09:39 | 0:09:41 | |
without Thunderbird 3 coming up out of the middle. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:44 | |
THUNDERBIRDS THEME MUSIC | 0:09:44 | 0:09:45 | |
Everything here is solid. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:50 | |
With television now, everything has a life of about five years, really, | 0:09:50 | 0:09:54 | |
but this place was built to last. | 0:09:54 | 0:09:56 | |
The design of it is brilliant. | 0:09:56 | 0:09:58 | |
I love the fact that it's like a cross between show business | 0:09:58 | 0:10:02 | |
and a KGB interrogation centre. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:04 | |
-That's a good description. Quite good. -I like that. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:08 | |
It's almost as if it was designed | 0:10:08 | 0:10:10 | |
with a sort of Stalinist point of view | 0:10:10 | 0:10:12 | |
for bigwigs to look down and check whether the members of staff were actually working. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:16 | |
A revolutionary building in its time, a building | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
that was copied all over the world, as far as I'm aware. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:22 | |
I remember going to one place, I think it was in Zimbabwe, | 0:10:22 | 0:10:25 | |
or somewhere, which was virtually a carbon copy. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:27 | |
The dynamics work. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:32 | |
The two ring roads to bring the scenery and the technical equipment, | 0:10:32 | 0:10:35 | |
the inner corridor that funnels the artists from the dressing rooms | 0:10:35 | 0:10:38 | |
through the assembly areas into the studios via make up and wardrobe. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:42 | |
Everything arrives at the right place at the right time. | 0:10:42 | 0:10:44 | |
The production people, who of course were the brains, | 0:10:46 | 0:10:48 | |
would come in on the first floor | 0:10:48 | 0:10:50 | |
and hoi polloi, the actual horny-handed sons of toil, | 0:10:50 | 0:10:54 | |
the crews and technicians, | 0:10:54 | 0:10:56 | |
would come in from the back on the ground floor, | 0:10:56 | 0:10:59 | |
so they never, ever would meet. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:01 | |
The logic there was the proles didn't have to meet the important people, you know! | 0:11:02 | 0:11:06 | |
Dividing and ruling. Keep them all separate. | 0:11:06 | 0:11:09 | |
BBC Television, nine o'clock. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:11 | |
'Because it was live and there was always live things going on,' | 0:11:11 | 0:11:15 | |
it gave the place a fizz. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:17 | |
Good evening, this is David Jacobs | 0:11:18 | 0:11:20 | |
speaking from the BBC's Television Centre in London. | 0:11:20 | 0:11:23 | |
Viewers in the United Kingdom will recognise this building, | 0:11:23 | 0:11:26 | |
but it will be less familiar to the 75 million viewers | 0:11:26 | 0:11:29 | |
from 17 other European countries, who are joining us tonight | 0:11:29 | 0:11:34 | |
to watch the Eurovision Song Contest Grand Prix of 1963. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
Everywhere that you looked, you got the feeling | 0:11:38 | 0:11:40 | |
that you were in the middle of this extraordinary fun factory. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:45 | |
'The difference between it and the factory was that every bit of artwork was different.' | 0:11:45 | 0:11:49 | |
The range of programmes that came out was extraordinary. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:52 | |
I mean, In TC1, you could have a full-scale opera going on. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:57 | |
HE SINGS | 0:11:57 | 0:12:00 | |
And then there would be the daily dramas that were going on. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:03 | |
Yes, madam. Yes it is on sale today. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:05 | |
Comedy shows, audiences coming in. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:07 | |
Scouse git. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:09 | |
And it really throbbed. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:11 | |
You could drop in and see the ferment of creativity | 0:12:11 | 0:12:14 | |
that existed all at the same time in this amazing building. | 0:12:14 | 0:12:18 | |
It was magic, it was, "Oh, this door, it's Eric and Ernie | 0:12:18 | 0:12:22 | |
"doing their programme." | 0:12:22 | 0:12:23 | |
HE COUGHS Arsenal. | 0:12:23 | 0:12:25 | |
You walked along the corridor, another door opened it, | 0:12:25 | 0:12:28 | |
"Oh, there's a drama going on." | 0:12:28 | 0:12:29 | |
And further around still, "Oh, a quiz is happening." | 0:12:29 | 0:12:33 | |
It was very vigorous at the time. | 0:12:33 | 0:12:36 | |
Things going on in every studio at the same time. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:38 | |
Would you mind going back, please? | 0:12:38 | 0:12:39 | |
There's just one tiny thing... | 0:12:39 | 0:12:43 | |
Television was on the rise, you see. In its power, its scope, | 0:12:43 | 0:12:46 | |
its creative possibilities were just exploding. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:50 | |
And this building reflected that. | 0:12:50 | 0:12:52 | |
The place reeks of history, of television history. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:56 | |
TV JINGLE | 0:12:56 | 0:12:58 | |
'The man who steers this vehicle of television communication | 0:12:58 | 0:13:02 | |
'is Bryan Cowgill, World Cup Grandstand's Executive Producer. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:05 | |
Can we do a... Bill, can you lower the scores again for me, please? | 0:13:05 | 0:13:10 | |
'Television Centre was the only place in which to work.' | 0:13:10 | 0:13:14 | |
This was the place where the big decisions were made. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:16 | |
BBC2 arrived, of course, then satellite television arrived, | 0:13:16 | 0:13:20 | |
the moon landing was done from here. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:22 | |
'It's one small step for man, | 0:13:22 | 0:13:25 | |
'one giant leap for mankind'. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:28 | |
-Oh, good God! -Straight back, we've got a boom in shot this time. | 0:13:28 | 0:13:32 | |
'The arrival of colour was a main event here.' | 0:13:32 | 0:13:34 | |
'And we were going so fast that the colour cameras' | 0:13:34 | 0:13:37 | |
were still under development. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:39 | |
'I was in the very first colour drama', | 0:13:39 | 0:13:43 | |
which was Vanity Fair. | 0:13:43 | 0:13:45 | |
And it was very stressful for everybody because nobody knew how it was going to work out. | 0:13:45 | 0:13:49 | |
What's the matter with props? They're all in the wrong place. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:52 | |
'We actually took a decision that we would risk it.' | 0:13:52 | 0:13:55 | |
And it worked, yes. | 0:13:55 | 0:13:56 | |
'First on BBC1, John Craven's Newsround.' | 0:13:56 | 0:14:00 | |
'No school today for thousands of children, | 0:14:00 | 0:14:03 | |
'as the nation goes to the polls. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:05 | |
'It's going to be a busy night' | 0:14:05 | 0:14:07 | |
of incredible complications for the people here at BBC Television, | 0:14:07 | 0:14:11 | |
who will be giving the viewers the situation, minute by minute. | 0:14:11 | 0:14:14 | |
TC1, this is the BBC's biggest television studio in London | 0:14:14 | 0:14:17 | |
and it's going to be the nerve centre for the election coverage. | 0:14:17 | 0:14:22 | |
And the BBC canteen has been preparing for the big night as well. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:26 | |
In its biggest ever operation, | 0:14:26 | 0:14:28 | |
it will provide the studio with 6,000 sandwiches, | 0:14:28 | 0:14:30 | |
20 gallons of tomato soup, 100 gallons of fruit squash, | 0:14:30 | 0:14:35 | |
3,500 cups of coffee | 0:14:35 | 0:14:37 | |
and hundreds and hundreds of sausage rolls. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
Yes, Frank and Norman are clear, thank you. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:43 | |
Every studio was full, and it was a miracle of planning. | 0:14:43 | 0:14:47 | |
If someone rushed into my office, bashed on the door | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
and said, "Frank Sinatra's going to come in to town in two days | 0:14:50 | 0:14:53 | |
"and we reckon we can get him, have we got a studio?" | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
You could go across the corridor to all these lovely girls sitting there with their pencils | 0:14:56 | 0:15:01 | |
and say, "Quick! Can we have TC2 studio or something?" | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
And they would do it. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:05 | |
'Well, it was a self-contained city.' | 0:15:05 | 0:15:09 | |
It was like a mini studio. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:10 | |
It reminded me of what Hollywood must have been like. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
-You did say Hollywood? -Yes. -Not Cricklewood? -No, Hollywood. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
I played Roxanne to Eric's Cyrano De Bergerac, as one would. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:21 | |
He said, "I want a dream sequence in the middle of this." | 0:15:21 | 0:15:24 | |
We took over TC1 and there were Eric and Ernie | 0:15:24 | 0:15:28 | |
in top hat, white tie and tails and me in a blue floaty dress, | 0:15:28 | 0:15:32 | |
just prancing around the studio for about, I suppose a minute? | 0:15:32 | 0:15:37 | |
That wouldn't happen now. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:40 | |
'In my heyday, I was doing Morecambe and Wise and The Two Ronnies', | 0:15:40 | 0:15:44 | |
we didn't really have things called budgets, | 0:15:44 | 0:15:46 | |
whereas now, they nitpick over 50 quid. | 0:15:46 | 0:15:49 | |
'It was full of hurrying people. | 0:15:49 | 0:15:52 | |
'directors, producers, actors, | 0:15:52 | 0:15:54 | |
'dressers, it was a hubbub.' | 0:15:54 | 0:15:57 | |
We made programmes like shelling peas. Excellence came as standard. | 0:15:57 | 0:16:02 | |
The beauty of working at Television Centre | 0:16:02 | 0:16:05 | |
was that everything was on tap. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:07 | |
Lighting, design, make up. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:10 | |
If you were short of anything during rehearsal, | 0:16:10 | 0:16:13 | |
you could whiz round to small props and bring something in, | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
or whiz round to make up. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:19 | |
It all facilitated getting the shows on the air. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:22 | |
'You'd got whole wardrobes full of period stock, | 0:16:22 | 0:16:26 | |
modern stock, science fiction. | 0:16:26 | 0:16:29 | |
I mean, you could do a show from stock | 0:16:29 | 0:16:31 | |
and it wouldn't cost the programme anything for the costumes. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:35 | |
There's an awful lot of scenery kept in this place. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:38 | |
There's stacks and stacks of it. | 0:16:38 | 0:16:39 | |
Whole houses get built here | 0:16:39 | 0:16:41 | |
and they get made into small sections so they can be assembled here, | 0:16:41 | 0:16:46 | |
then painted, decorated, whatever has to happen to them. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:49 | |
'When I was writing my programmes,' | 0:16:49 | 0:16:51 | |
I would walk through the scene dock with my designer | 0:16:51 | 0:16:54 | |
and I'd see a Dickensian shop window with mullions. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:58 | |
And I'd then write a sketch | 0:16:58 | 0:17:00 | |
and it cost nothing because we could get it out the scene dock for free. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:04 | |
'It is the most incredibly exciting place, | 0:17:04 | 0:17:06 | |
'with these huge studio spaces,' | 0:17:06 | 0:17:09 | |
where you can create worlds in pools of darkness. | 0:17:09 | 0:17:13 | |
Can you clear for a moment? | 0:17:13 | 0:17:15 | |
We created the most wonderful worlds. The most intricate sets. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:19 | |
This would be turned into an 18th century house, | 0:17:19 | 0:17:21 | |
or a garden, and overnight, | 0:17:21 | 0:17:24 | |
everything would be carted out, deconstructed, | 0:17:24 | 0:17:30 | |
the floor would be repainted. | 0:17:30 | 0:17:32 | |
We'd literally say goodbye and you'd hear clanking | 0:17:32 | 0:17:35 | |
and think, "They're taking the set down already!" | 0:17:35 | 0:17:37 | |
and by the time you'd gone back into wardrobe, | 0:17:37 | 0:17:39 | |
taken your clothes off, you'd be out, half the set would be gone. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:44 | |
You were like, "How can that be?" | 0:17:44 | 0:17:46 | |
The little bloke would come on his machine and he'd go up and down, | 0:17:46 | 0:17:49 | |
up and down and all the lovely graphics that had been created | 0:17:49 | 0:17:53 | |
on the floor would be wiped away and then the next set would be put in. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:56 | |
Dawn French. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:03 | |
Dawn French. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:05 | |
I'm allowed to park in there, please. | 0:18:07 | 0:18:09 | |
They'd look at you and go "Hi, Andi, how are you?" "Fine." | 0:18:12 | 0:18:15 | |
"Can I see your pass, please?" "But you've already identified that you know me. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:19 | |
"Surely you can let me in?" "I need to see your pass." | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
I work here! This is a BBC pass. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:29 | |
You're a jerk! You know that? | 0:18:30 | 0:18:32 | |
This is a career decision you're making here, buddy! | 0:18:32 | 0:18:35 | |
Look at the camera. Look at the camera! | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
OK, I have to go home. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:40 | |
'There was a day when a man wouldn't let me in | 0:18:40 | 0:18:43 | |
'because I didn't have a car park ticket. So I took the key out, left my car and ran into the building. | 0:18:43 | 0:18:48 | |
OK, man, yeah? You happy with that? | 0:18:48 | 0:18:51 | |
Can you see my fingers? | 0:18:51 | 0:18:53 | |
Count 'em, Stan, you fuck! | 0:18:53 | 0:18:55 | |
OK? OK! I showed him. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:57 | |
'From this place there is no escape! | 0:18:57 | 0:18:59 | |
'Not only can you not get out of this place, but you can't get in! | 0:18:59 | 0:19:06 | |
At the front of the building they had this thing called the Horseshoe car park, very exclusive, | 0:19:06 | 0:19:10 | |
I think just meant for the bigwigs on the sixth floor. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:14 | |
My greatest achievement at Television Centre | 0:19:14 | 0:19:17 | |
was when I was editor of Newsround | 0:19:17 | 0:19:19 | |
and I was actually given a permanent pass. | 0:19:19 | 0:19:21 | |
There was a very valuable form of currency | 0:19:21 | 0:19:23 | |
when it came to car parking spaces, which were these. | 0:19:23 | 0:19:26 | |
That this could get you a space anywhere, | 0:19:26 | 0:19:28 | |
even in the Horseshoe car park. | 0:19:28 | 0:19:30 | |
The internal bureaucracy was an absolute nightmare. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:35 | |
I had to get permission to have a helicopter land at the front | 0:19:35 | 0:19:40 | |
of Television Centre, actually in the bosses' car-park. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:42 | |
This was the first time a chopper had landed at the VIP car-park | 0:19:42 | 0:19:45 | |
at the front of Television Centre and, as you can imagine, it caused quite a stir. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:51 | |
I was given a complete brush-off and I was told, | 0:19:51 | 0:19:56 | |
"You're treating this as if it was a place for entertainment." | 0:19:56 | 0:19:59 | |
-Sorry, we haven't got a meter. -You're terribly privileged. | 0:19:59 | 0:20:02 | |
Only the very best people park in this spot, you know. | 0:20:02 | 0:20:04 | |
I gather the Rolls-Royces have had to leave. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:06 | |
We had our own security force, we had our own commissionaires. | 0:20:06 | 0:20:10 | |
My great-uncle was a commissionaire for the BBC | 0:20:10 | 0:20:13 | |
so he worked a lot of the time here. | 0:20:13 | 0:20:15 | |
So when I got the job as Director-General, I always laughed, | 0:20:15 | 0:20:19 | |
we've gone from commissionaire to Director- General | 0:20:19 | 0:20:22 | |
in only two generations. Not bad! | 0:20:22 | 0:20:24 | |
I'd be away at Yorkshire Television, what, 15 years, | 0:20:24 | 0:20:28 | |
and I came back, and on the morning I arrived, | 0:20:28 | 0:20:31 | |
the commissionaire said "Good morning, sir. Been on leave?" | 0:20:31 | 0:20:34 | |
They were fantastic. Like the guys at the front of Harrods, | 0:20:34 | 0:20:37 | |
all dressed up. "Morning, Mr Nigel." | 0:20:37 | 0:20:39 | |
-"Morning, Miss Rippon." -"Good morning, Mr Daniels." | 0:20:39 | 0:20:41 | |
They were their own men and they weren't in any way obsequious. | 0:20:41 | 0:20:45 | |
It was Vic, always Vic. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:47 | |
That was it, Vic, and he was on the main gate for years. | 0:20:47 | 0:20:50 | |
And Vic had lost an arm during the Second World War. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
And he always wore his uniform and the ribbons of his medals. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:57 | |
He had quite a few altercations with people who thought | 0:20:57 | 0:21:00 | |
they had a right to get in in their vehicles and he thought they didn't. | 0:21:00 | 0:21:03 | |
You could get through Vic. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:05 | |
I'd lift him up and put him on top of a car! | 0:21:05 | 0:21:08 | |
If he liked you, he'd park your car. | 0:21:08 | 0:21:10 | |
"Well, you can go over there, mate, or you can go over there." | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
Eric Sykes, the comedian, was coming in, chatting away, | 0:21:14 | 0:21:18 | |
and I said, "I didn't know you knew the commissionaire there?" | 0:21:18 | 0:21:22 | |
He said, "Oh, yes, he's a great pal. I always invite him to my shows. | 0:21:22 | 0:21:25 | |
"I can't imagine why, cos it halves the applause!" | 0:21:25 | 0:21:28 | |
It had such a status, that reception. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:33 | |
You felt a little bit swingy walking into reception. | 0:21:33 | 0:21:38 | |
Kings and Queens and Prime Ministers walked through there | 0:21:38 | 0:21:41 | |
and were met by dragon ladies. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:44 | |
Quite a stern-looking lot but really old-school, | 0:21:44 | 0:21:47 | |
all dressed up in their Chanel suits. | 0:21:47 | 0:21:50 | |
I was walking across reception and a lady came up and said, | 0:21:50 | 0:21:54 | |
"Excuse me, Miss Hughes, but I've often wondered, | 0:21:54 | 0:21:57 | |
"do you pronounce your name 'Nervous' or 'Nerees?'" | 0:21:57 | 0:22:01 | |
And I was Nervous Hughes from then on! | 0:22:01 | 0:22:05 | |
No, it's not Pebble Mill at Seven, it's Wogan. | 0:22:05 | 0:22:09 | |
Tonight, as you can see, we come to you from the main reception. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:12 | |
'One of my guests was the Dalai Lama. | 0:22:12 | 0:22:14 | |
'And when we'd finished, we were out in the main reception area | 0:22:14 | 0:22:18 | |
'and I heard this formidable blonde woman make an announcement. | 0:22:18 | 0:22:22 | |
"Taxi for the Lama. Taxi for the Lama!" | 0:22:23 | 0:22:28 | |
-Those ladies on reception really ran the place. -They did. | 0:22:28 | 0:22:31 | |
Knew more than anybody in the building | 0:22:31 | 0:22:33 | |
about what went on. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:35 | |
There were three ladies who took it in turn on rotation | 0:22:35 | 0:22:39 | |
to woman main reception. | 0:22:39 | 0:22:41 | |
And one of them was scariest of all. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:44 | |
She had the glasses that went up like this | 0:22:44 | 0:22:47 | |
and the hair piled high on her head. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:49 | |
Blonde hair going up like this, | 0:22:49 | 0:22:52 | |
sprayed to within an inch of its life. | 0:22:52 | 0:22:54 | |
And she would go, "Maaaain Receptionnnnnnnn." | 0:22:54 | 0:22:58 | |
Well, the thing that I find rather ironic is the fact that what | 0:23:00 | 0:23:04 | |
used to be main reception, where one arrived, | 0:23:04 | 0:23:07 | |
was given one's dressing room key and told where to go, | 0:23:07 | 0:23:10 | |
and there were always actors buzzing around. | 0:23:10 | 0:23:14 | |
Now actors are as rare as a snowball on the equator, | 0:23:14 | 0:23:18 | |
and yet they have changed the name to 'Stage Door'. | 0:23:18 | 0:23:21 | |
The blokes just aren't the same. The blokes they have now, not the same. | 0:23:21 | 0:23:26 | |
When I arrived, they said, "Yes? Name?" "Angela Rippon." | 0:23:26 | 0:23:29 | |
"Why are you here?" "I've come to be interviewed for a job | 0:23:29 | 0:23:32 | |
"for television news." And one of the girls looked up and said, | 0:23:32 | 0:23:35 | |
"Oh, are we going to have a woman on the news? Oh, that'll be nice." | 0:23:35 | 0:23:39 | |
Ready, Jack? | 0:23:39 | 0:23:40 | |
This is take two of the closing. | 0:23:40 | 0:23:42 | |
-Good evening, all. -I was doing a Dixon of Dock Green. | 0:23:42 | 0:23:45 | |
For Collins and Skinner... Oh, sorry. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:50 | |
And I can remember being terribly, | 0:23:50 | 0:23:52 | |
terribly nervous walking in this wonderful building. | 0:23:52 | 0:23:56 | |
I said my name and they had a long list, | 0:23:56 | 0:24:00 | |
and she started looking from the bottom. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:02 | |
I remember mine was the very bottom word! And she said, | 0:24:02 | 0:24:06 | |
"Oh, yes, dressing room 359." And she handed me a key and said, | 0:24:06 | 0:24:10 | |
"Do you know where to go?" I said, "Yes," cos I was so nervous, | 0:24:10 | 0:24:13 | |
I thought, I can't ask this terribly frightening lady where to go. | 0:24:13 | 0:24:17 | |
And I think I wandered round for about half an hour before I found my dressing room. | 0:24:17 | 0:24:22 | |
'Standby, please, we're going on.' | 0:24:27 | 0:24:28 | |
I did know the difference was in Thames Television, | 0:24:28 | 0:24:31 | |
you got a star on your dressing room. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:33 | |
When you come to the BBC, you didn't. | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
'Depending on where you were, I mean, if you're in the basement, | 0:24:38 | 0:24:41 | |
you'd sometimes get a dressing room that was made for 50 people | 0:24:41 | 0:24:44 | |
so you could do a lap of the room while you were waiting. | 0:24:44 | 0:24:47 | |
Good luck, Barry, darling, I'll be with you every inch of the way. | 0:24:47 | 0:24:52 | |
Poor brave boy. | 0:24:55 | 0:24:58 | |
It was like a small cell. | 0:24:58 | 0:25:00 | |
'Jeremy Kemp on the set, please.' | 0:25:00 | 0:25:03 | |
You never had a telephone or anything like that, or a loo. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:06 | |
One day in the corridor, this Blue Peter presenter came up to me | 0:25:06 | 0:25:09 | |
and said, "Have you got a star dressing room?" | 0:25:09 | 0:25:11 | |
And I thought, "Oh dear, they're obviously jealous" | 0:25:11 | 0:25:14 | |
because I had this lovely bath, and I said, "Yes, I have." | 0:25:14 | 0:25:17 | |
He said, "Would you mind sharing it with the otter that's on our programme?" | 0:25:17 | 0:25:21 | |
Shall I see if she can jump in from there? There. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:24 | |
Let's run a bit of water for swimming. Oh, come back! | 0:25:24 | 0:25:28 | |
You did sometimes get very noisy, | 0:25:28 | 0:25:31 | |
or very egocentric neighbours, | 0:25:31 | 0:25:34 | |
Who made it very hard for you to think. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:36 | |
Attention, attention, Joanna Lumley is back. | 0:25:36 | 0:25:41 | |
To all BBC producers, she's a size eight, | 0:25:41 | 0:25:46 | |
she's had her eyes done and she's feeling good. | 0:25:46 | 0:25:48 | |
Joanna, quick, get up, there's Michael Winner. | 0:25:48 | 0:25:51 | |
Mr Winner, remember Joanna Lumley? | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
She was a Bond girl... uh, a month ago | 0:25:54 | 0:25:56 | |
and she was the original Purdey... | 0:25:56 | 0:25:58 | |
-Who? -Purdey in the Avengers. Joanna, like we rehearsed. | 0:25:58 | 0:26:02 | |
2, 3, 4, cue. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:03 | |
AVENGERS THEME MUSIC | 0:26:03 | 0:26:06 | |
Go, Joanna, go! | 0:26:16 | 0:26:18 | |
There was a series called Adam Adamant where one of the actors | 0:26:22 | 0:26:26 | |
was well-known for, um, hitting the bottle. | 0:26:26 | 0:26:29 | |
'All right, darling? Yes, we're ready on the floor.' | 0:26:29 | 0:26:31 | |
His dressing room was fleeced | 0:26:31 | 0:26:33 | |
to see that there weren't alcoholic substances there. | 0:26:33 | 0:26:37 | |
He was brought his evening meal, but actually incarcerated | 0:26:37 | 0:26:41 | |
in his dressing room until he was needed on the set. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:44 | |
These are men who have been caught acting in Colditz, | 0:26:44 | 0:26:48 | |
being escorted to their cell by sadistic floor managers. | 0:26:48 | 0:26:52 | |
Whoops! | 0:26:52 | 0:26:55 | |
'I remember it was a dressing room' | 0:26:58 | 0:27:00 | |
just over there, actually, where I met Stevie Wonder for the first time. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:04 | |
He always had the electronic organ there. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:06 | |
He was always thinking up songs and I remember one particular one, | 0:27:06 | 0:27:09 | |
he said "Tony, what you think of this?" Dang-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding. | 0:27:09 | 0:27:13 | |
And I heard it a little later and thought, "Where have I heard that?" | 0:27:13 | 0:27:16 | |
And it was 'Uptight (Everything's Alright)'. | 0:27:16 | 0:27:18 | |
Well, I heard it for the first time in a dressing room down there. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:22 | |
They were convinced that the dressing rooms were being used | 0:27:22 | 0:27:27 | |
for naughty purposes. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:29 | |
Yeah, slightly sordid. | 0:27:29 | 0:27:31 | |
I think a lot went on in them just the same. | 0:27:31 | 0:27:34 | |
Oh, no, everybody was doing it on the premises. | 0:27:34 | 0:27:36 | |
They minded you being drunk and they minded you being late. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:39 | |
-Yes. -Drunk and late, but not sex. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:41 | |
Nobody cared whether you had sex in your dressing room. | 0:27:41 | 0:27:43 | |
No, people were bonking all over the BBC, haha! | 0:27:43 | 0:27:46 | |
Yeah, what do you think those 'B's stand for? | 0:27:46 | 0:27:51 | |
THEY LAUGH | 0:27:51 | 0:27:53 | |
I was not seeing very much of my boyfriend at the time, | 0:27:53 | 0:27:57 | |
who I hasten to add is now my husband, Mike Smith. | 0:27:57 | 0:28:00 | |
But we were like ships in the night. | 0:28:00 | 0:28:03 | |
I had dressing room number two, | 0:28:03 | 0:28:06 | |
so on the occasions where we did see each other, we had to take | 0:28:06 | 0:28:09 | |
full advantage of that time, of that blissful however long it was. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:14 | |
And I have kept a souvenir which I've brought with me rather cheekily | 0:28:14 | 0:28:17 | |
because I didn't know whether I should hand it in. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:20 | |
But it's my dressing room key. Number two. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:23 | |
I think Terry Wogan was in dressing room 1 that day. | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
I wouldn't say that people actually died in these dressing rooms | 0:28:26 | 0:28:30 | |
but they looked as if somebody had. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:32 | |
What they were known for were the soup stains and coffee stains | 0:28:32 | 0:28:35 | |
and indeed the bloodstains on the carpets. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:38 | |
Some of them have become really glam. | 0:28:38 | 0:28:41 | |
They're a set, what I might call the Bruce Forsyth dressing rooms, | 0:28:41 | 0:28:46 | |
stripy wallpaper and very, very dark lighting, and very glamorous. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:50 | |
I was in my sketch show, | 0:28:50 | 0:28:52 | |
and the first day of recording I was in the glamour dressing room | 0:28:52 | 0:28:56 | |
and when I came back the second day, I'd been moved. | 0:28:56 | 0:28:59 | |
I'd been moved into one of the old, sort of former dressing rooms, | 0:28:59 | 0:29:04 | |
recognisably just hutches, | 0:29:04 | 0:29:06 | |
with those very high windows like you see in police cells, | 0:29:06 | 0:29:09 | |
where you can hear the technical staff discussing | 0:29:09 | 0:29:11 | |
the programme they're working on. | 0:29:11 | 0:29:14 | |
"Yeah, I'm on that Smith and Jones thing. It's all right, I suppose." | 0:29:14 | 0:29:18 | |
I was very lucky to work with Joan Rivers | 0:29:18 | 0:29:20 | |
and she came over to this country to do her chat show, | 0:29:20 | 0:29:23 | |
so I got the job of tarting up Ms Rivers' dressing room, | 0:29:23 | 0:29:26 | |
and tart it up we did. It looked fantastic. | 0:29:26 | 0:29:29 | |
We had people knock on the door from around the building, saying, | 0:29:29 | 0:29:32 | |
"Can we come and have a look at the dressing room?" | 0:29:32 | 0:29:34 | |
And she was here for a fortnight, and how funny is this, | 0:29:34 | 0:29:37 | |
the minute she left the building, | 0:29:37 | 0:29:39 | |
we stripped it all out and put it back to as it was! | 0:29:39 | 0:29:42 | |
I want you to meet Damon Beesley. | 0:29:44 | 0:29:46 | |
He's a producer here but he's also a great writer. He's a script editor. | 0:29:46 | 0:29:50 | |
HIGH-PITCHED LAUGHTER | 0:29:50 | 0:29:52 | |
Room for a small one? Cheeky. | 0:29:54 | 0:29:55 | |
You started without me, and not for the first time. | 0:29:55 | 0:29:58 | |
What's he been saying? It's all lies. | 0:29:58 | 0:30:01 | |
The BBC's always had its strange hierarchy. | 0:30:01 | 0:30:04 | |
Some real talent at the BBC. | 0:30:04 | 0:30:06 | |
-Cheers. -He's lovely. | 0:30:06 | 0:30:08 | |
There were rules about what you could have in your office. | 0:30:08 | 0:30:11 | |
You could have curtains that drew, or, if you weren't senior enough, | 0:30:11 | 0:30:14 | |
they had to be just strips at the side. | 0:30:14 | 0:30:17 | |
You had to be on a certain grade to get a carpet. | 0:30:17 | 0:30:19 | |
You could have a drinks cabinet, you could not have a drinks cabinet. | 0:30:19 | 0:30:22 | |
But you knew that you were upwardly mobile when you were issued | 0:30:22 | 0:30:26 | |
with a rather grander desk and a coat and hat rack. | 0:30:26 | 0:30:32 | |
They put me into a little segmented room, like being part of an orange. | 0:30:32 | 0:30:37 | |
You were stuck with one wall narrower than the other | 0:30:37 | 0:30:40 | |
and peg boards, | 0:30:40 | 0:30:42 | |
and the whole thing was simply not conducive to writing comedy. | 0:30:42 | 0:30:45 | |
When I first arrived, somebody told me that it was built in a circle | 0:30:45 | 0:30:49 | |
so the buck couldn't stop. | 0:30:49 | 0:30:51 | |
'After a short drive, I arrived at BBC Television Centre. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:58 | |
'Unfortunately, this is the most complicated building in the world.' | 0:31:01 | 0:31:05 | |
Because it is a circle, it does encourage people to get to know one another. | 0:31:05 | 0:31:10 | |
Jim Cellan Jones was Head of Drama and I knew he was on the 5th floor | 0:31:10 | 0:31:14 | |
and I'd pretend I was going somewhere | 0:31:14 | 0:31:16 | |
and I'd just walk round the offices | 0:31:16 | 0:31:18 | |
and he'd say, "Nige, hey, come in, what are you up to?" | 0:31:18 | 0:31:21 | |
I'd said, "I'm just... Not a lot." And I'd get cast. I'd get a job! | 0:31:21 | 0:31:24 | |
Now I found this a very easy building to get to grips with. | 0:31:24 | 0:31:28 | |
Once you've mastered the fact that | 0:31:28 | 0:31:30 | |
it's all built round this circular quad. | 0:31:30 | 0:31:33 | |
I loved the shape of it because it's so organic, isn't it? | 0:31:33 | 0:31:37 | |
Easy to get lost, | 0:31:37 | 0:31:39 | |
but wonderful that it just goes round in a circle. | 0:31:39 | 0:31:41 | |
My wig was tight, my corsets were tight, | 0:31:41 | 0:31:45 | |
my shoes were hurting me, and there's no oxygen | 0:31:45 | 0:31:47 | |
in those big studios because there's so many of us there. | 0:31:47 | 0:31:50 | |
I would always have a cup of tea and then I would go and walk | 0:31:50 | 0:31:54 | |
around the doughnut maybe two or three times, in my costume usually. | 0:31:54 | 0:31:58 | |
And then you work out that all the studios are off it like that. | 0:31:58 | 0:32:02 | |
Make-up was sort of over there and below the studios there's more make-up and dressing rooms. | 0:32:02 | 0:32:06 | |
It actually worked really well. I think it was a brilliant design. | 0:32:06 | 0:32:09 | |
'A series of endless corridors. | 0:32:09 | 0:32:13 | |
'I have spent most of my formative years walking endlessly round in circles, | 0:32:13 | 0:32:19 | |
finding myself back where I started, unable to find a studio | 0:32:19 | 0:32:22 | |
or anybody to show me the way! | 0:32:22 | 0:32:25 | |
I could be wandering round there now. | 0:32:25 | 0:32:26 | |
It's a round building and I remember, very early on, | 0:32:28 | 0:32:32 | |
somebody said, "Do you want a cup of tea?" And I said, "Yeah." | 0:32:32 | 0:32:35 | |
They said, "Just pop up and you'll find a little tea bar." | 0:32:35 | 0:32:37 | |
I started walking. I could not find this tea bar. | 0:32:37 | 0:32:42 | |
What I was doing was walking round and round! | 0:32:42 | 0:32:45 | |
You wouldn't think you could get lost in a circular building, | 0:32:45 | 0:32:48 | |
because you'd just walk back to where you started, | 0:32:48 | 0:32:51 | |
but it's actually very easy to get lost. | 0:32:51 | 0:32:54 | |
It's such a big circle that you don't actually realise that | 0:32:54 | 0:32:56 | |
you've passed the point where you entered the circle, | 0:32:56 | 0:32:59 | |
and so just to find this cup of tea, I was gone for about an hour, | 0:32:59 | 0:33:03 | |
and I just carried on walking for a great deal of time, | 0:33:03 | 0:33:06 | |
round and round in circles. | 0:33:06 | 0:33:07 | |
When I was appointed Controller, | 0:33:07 | 0:33:10 | |
and I had to go to the first important meeting, I got lost. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
I mean, I was going round and round the circle | 0:33:13 | 0:33:15 | |
and I suddenly realised I was recognising the same fire extinguisher. Where was I? | 0:33:15 | 0:33:21 | |
A myriad of corridors. I remember having quite an important meeting | 0:33:21 | 0:33:26 | |
downstairs and saying, "I've got to go. I'm going for a pee", | 0:33:26 | 0:33:29 | |
and going off for a pee, and I couldn't find my way back. | 0:33:29 | 0:33:32 | |
So in the end I had to ring up my secretary and say, | 0:33:32 | 0:33:36 | |
"I'm wandering around this place but I've no idea where the meeting is," | 0:33:36 | 0:33:39 | |
-because it all looks the same, doesn't it? -'Going down.' | 0:33:39 | 0:33:42 | |
In the sub basement, which is a level below the basement floor, | 0:33:42 | 0:33:45 | |
there are service corridors which connect all the blocks on the site, | 0:33:45 | 0:33:49 | |
so a corridor that's probably not much wider than a human being. | 0:33:49 | 0:33:53 | |
Extremely creepy because there are so many twists | 0:33:53 | 0:33:56 | |
and turns down there and it's very dimly lit. | 0:33:56 | 0:33:58 | |
I got a pink chalk and I just used to quietly put a chalk arrow. | 0:33:58 | 0:34:04 | |
On the very first edition of Newsround, | 0:34:04 | 0:34:06 | |
I nearly didn't make it because I was down in the basement | 0:34:06 | 0:34:09 | |
at about quarter to five and I had to get up to the studio | 0:34:09 | 0:34:12 | |
on the 6th floor. And I went the wrong way around. | 0:34:12 | 0:34:14 | |
And I got to the studio about six or seven minutes before air, | 0:34:14 | 0:34:18 | |
palpitating like mad. | 0:34:18 | 0:34:20 | |
You just follow the bum, and when we got to the bum, | 0:34:22 | 0:34:24 | |
we knew we were in the right part. | 0:34:24 | 0:34:26 | |
In the summer, the sun hits it in a certain way | 0:34:26 | 0:34:30 | |
and it really glows, that bum. | 0:34:30 | 0:34:31 | |
'Hugh Weldon, who was the boss, was on the other side of the ring, | 0:34:33 | 0:34:38 | |
so I could look out of my office and see whether he was in his office, whether it was worth going round. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:42 | |
"Come on then, Brian", said Huw Wheldon. | 0:34:42 | 0:34:45 | |
"You're a climber. Climb up this column, right up to the top, | 0:34:45 | 0:34:49 | |
"then get on to that statue down there." | 0:34:49 | 0:34:52 | |
Took me about 20 minutes, shimmied up, it's quite hard at the base. | 0:34:52 | 0:34:56 | |
But gradually wrapped myself round, got myself there, got to the top, | 0:34:56 | 0:35:00 | |
and I, "Pfffft" - blew up this great big French letter, | 0:35:00 | 0:35:05 | |
tied it onto its cock, and Huw Wheldon said, | 0:35:05 | 0:35:10 | |
"Now we hope people look at the bloody thing!" | 0:35:10 | 0:35:12 | |
Next day, when everyone came into their offices, | 0:35:12 | 0:35:15 | |
there was a French letter, a condom, tied over its cock. | 0:35:15 | 0:35:19 | |
That's why it's called Golden Bollocks. | 0:35:19 | 0:35:22 | |
The bowl which caught the water | 0:35:30 | 0:35:32 | |
was directly above where all the telecine apparatus was. | 0:35:32 | 0:35:37 | |
And it started to leak, | 0:35:37 | 0:35:40 | |
and this crucial element of the system was in danger of blowing up, | 0:35:40 | 0:35:44 | |
short-circuiting with water cascading down. | 0:35:44 | 0:35:46 | |
I think it was exaggerated but that was one of the problems. | 0:35:46 | 0:35:50 | |
The videotape recording department used to be in the basement. | 0:35:50 | 0:35:53 | |
One day the Queen was coming to something at Television Centre. | 0:35:53 | 0:35:56 | |
She was coming up Wood Lane in a limousine and they said, | 0:35:56 | 0:35:58 | |
"Quick, turn on the fountain, it's going to look smashing." | 0:35:58 | 0:36:01 | |
They turned on the fountain, it was lovely. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:03 | |
The Queen came in and said, "What a lovely fountain", and went through the door. | 0:36:03 | 0:36:07 | |
And then they said, "Turn it off, quick!" And turned it off. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:09 | |
But then they said, "Turn it on again, | 0:36:09 | 0:36:11 | |
"the Duke's coming behind in a Land Rover!" | 0:36:11 | 0:36:13 | |
So they turned it on again and the entire VT was flooded, I believe. | 0:36:13 | 0:36:17 | |
When it turned on, it made a heck of a noise. | 0:36:17 | 0:36:20 | |
Because the sound of the water | 0:36:20 | 0:36:21 | |
on the fountain was echoing around this ring. | 0:36:21 | 0:36:25 | |
I'm told that the more sensitive of the lady secretaries | 0:36:25 | 0:36:27 | |
found this really unendurable and had to keep going to the ladies' room | 0:36:27 | 0:36:31 | |
once every three quarters of an hour! | 0:36:31 | 0:36:33 | |
I'll never forget, one day the water tanks burst in the building. | 0:36:33 | 0:36:37 | |
And the water was coming flooding down. I don't know how many floors. | 0:36:37 | 0:36:40 | |
These days, of course, the building would be evacuated, | 0:36:40 | 0:36:44 | |
nobody would be allowed to go anywhere near it. | 0:36:44 | 0:36:48 | |
No, on Blue Peter, the idea was to get a sequence actually dancing, | 0:36:48 | 0:36:52 | |
barefoot, with umbrellas up, in the water, | 0:36:52 | 0:36:56 | |
coming right through the light fittings. Can you imagine? | 0:36:56 | 0:36:59 | |
There are a lot of obstacles in this building that you have to overcome. | 0:37:02 | 0:37:06 | |
God forbid you want to film anything outside the confines of a studio, | 0:37:06 | 0:37:10 | |
then I wish you luck. | 0:37:10 | 0:37:11 | |
Once you'd started to use the television centre as a location, | 0:37:11 | 0:37:15 | |
then you were in real trouble. | 0:37:15 | 0:37:17 | |
Prem ops, fire safety people, health and safety people, the list goes on. | 0:37:17 | 0:37:23 | |
What about the height? What would you say this is? About 60? | 0:37:23 | 0:37:27 | |
-About 60 feet. -What does it look like from down there? | 0:37:27 | 0:37:30 | |
Very high! | 0:37:30 | 0:37:32 | |
'Karl Wallenda was a world famous tightrope walker. | 0:37:32 | 0:37:36 | |
He'd done the most amazing tightrope walks, | 0:37:36 | 0:37:39 | |
and the great thing was that he never used a safety net. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:44 | |
There was the most almighty battle about that. | 0:37:44 | 0:37:47 | |
We got our own way, because we were such a pain in the neck. | 0:37:47 | 0:37:50 | |
There wasn't the Health and Safety around that there is today. | 0:37:50 | 0:37:54 | |
You are taking, not a chance, but a calculated risk. | 0:37:54 | 0:37:57 | |
-You want me to stand on my neck? -Can you? -Well, I'll try. | 0:37:57 | 0:38:03 | |
Obviously, we couldn't do it live, just in case he did go off. | 0:38:03 | 0:38:06 | |
'I suddenly thought, what happens if he does fall? | 0:38:08 | 0:38:12 | |
'And I said to camera two, if he falls, pan with him.' | 0:38:12 | 0:38:17 | |
I was worrying about that. Can you walk right to the end now? | 0:38:17 | 0:38:22 | |
Karl said to me, "When it's time for me to go, | 0:38:22 | 0:38:25 | |
"I will either get run over by a bus, have a heart attack | 0:38:25 | 0:38:28 | |
"or fall off a wire. God above is going to make those decisions." | 0:38:28 | 0:38:32 | |
And three years after he told me that, | 0:38:32 | 0:38:34 | |
he did actually fall off a wire and kill himself. | 0:38:34 | 0:38:38 | |
On shorter programmes than yours, | 0:38:38 | 0:38:39 | |
I'd rehearse what we're doing next but on this occasion, | 0:38:39 | 0:38:42 | |
I can sit back and enjoy nearly three hours of your multi-coloured programme. | 0:38:42 | 0:38:45 | |
Marvellous. Well, thank you, Richard. Let's have the titles. | 0:38:45 | 0:38:49 | |
It was going to be totally live and absolutely unrehearsed. | 0:38:49 | 0:38:53 | |
The people in charge said "You're going to run about in unlit areas." | 0:38:59 | 0:39:04 | |
Well, we've come now this morning to one of the most important areas | 0:39:04 | 0:39:08 | |
of the Television Centre. We're one floor below ground | 0:39:08 | 0:39:10 | |
and this is known as the videotape area. | 0:39:10 | 0:39:13 | |
"We don't know where the sound's coming from. It's going to look and sound awful." | 0:39:13 | 0:39:16 | |
So in the half-hour between now and when we follow you on air, | 0:39:16 | 0:39:19 | |
we'll be tidying up the things that didn't work | 0:39:19 | 0:39:21 | |
and getting everything just right for transmission. | 0:39:21 | 0:39:24 | |
OK, I'll leave you to do that, Jim. Thank you very much indeed. | 0:39:24 | 0:39:27 | |
Thanks a lot. Grandstand later on BBC1. | 0:39:27 | 0:39:30 | |
I then said, "I tell you what, we'll just have one lit area | 0:39:30 | 0:39:33 | |
"and we won't deviate from that", which was a complete lie. | 0:39:33 | 0:39:38 | |
Haha! Silly! | 0:39:38 | 0:39:41 | |
'We just pushed it as far as we could.' | 0:39:41 | 0:39:43 | |
At the Television Centre here, | 0:39:43 | 0:39:45 | |
we do have many other things going on. | 0:39:45 | 0:39:47 | |
I mean, this is the only programme actually going out live. | 0:39:47 | 0:39:50 | |
But we've got people doing rehearsals for programmes, setting up studios. | 0:39:50 | 0:39:55 | |
-Look at the mess here. -'The crews, of course, were wonderful. | 0:39:55 | 0:39:58 | |
'They thought this was a marvellous challenge,' | 0:39:58 | 0:40:00 | |
so we just upped and went. | 0:40:00 | 0:40:02 | |
They followed us, out of the door, into the corridor | 0:40:02 | 0:40:05 | |
and into the next studio. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:07 | |
Morning! Morning! Morning! | 0:40:07 | 0:40:09 | |
-That's Noel Edmonds! -Hello! | 0:40:09 | 0:40:12 | |
I've just taken a break from next door. Morning, chaps. How are you? | 0:40:12 | 0:40:17 | |
No one was foolish enough to try and do it before, but it worked. | 0:40:17 | 0:40:20 | |
-Is it Dad's Army? -No, it's not! | 0:40:20 | 0:40:22 | |
Because of this group of studios, all with different things going on, | 0:40:22 | 0:40:26 | |
we were able to show this is where it all happens. | 0:40:26 | 0:40:30 | |
'The idea of the tap dancing record came out of the fact that Roy Castle was in fact a tap dancer. | 0:40:32 | 0:40:39 | |
That took me into this spectacular thing here. | 0:40:39 | 0:40:43 | |
Are you part of the biggest tap-dancing troupe in the world? | 0:40:43 | 0:40:45 | |
-Yes, I am. -What's your name? -Julie. | 0:40:45 | 0:40:50 | |
I looked up the record and it wasn't very big, to be honest. I thought, 500 will do. | 0:40:50 | 0:40:54 | |
Pardon me asking, but where are the other 499? | 0:40:54 | 0:40:59 | |
Right here. | 0:41:03 | 0:41:04 | |
We had absolutely no choice. If we wanted to do it, | 0:41:09 | 0:41:11 | |
we had to do it in December. It was cold and I wanted another take, | 0:41:11 | 0:41:15 | |
because there was a camera shadow, but my head of the department said, | 0:41:15 | 0:41:18 | |
"Get the children in the warm." We had a mini camera in those days, | 0:41:18 | 0:41:21 | |
which was that size, you know, quite big. | 0:41:21 | 0:41:24 | |
I said, "I want the Busby Berkeley shot, put it right over the middle," | 0:41:24 | 0:41:28 | |
and they pulled it out on a wire. | 0:41:28 | 0:41:30 | |
To have the fountain going was the climax of the whole piece | 0:41:30 | 0:41:33 | |
and that was difficult to do but it's just getting the right people on your side, to be honest. | 0:41:33 | 0:41:38 | |
And there was a lady who was the powerhouse | 0:41:38 | 0:41:40 | |
behind what you could do on the building site | 0:41:40 | 0:41:43 | |
if you stepped outside the studio. | 0:41:43 | 0:41:46 | |
And I went up to her and she was knitting in her office. | 0:41:46 | 0:41:49 | |
And so I said, "Maureen, what are you knitting?" | 0:41:49 | 0:41:52 | |
She said "I'm being sponsored to do this knit." | 0:41:52 | 0:41:55 | |
So I said, "I'll help you, I'll sponsor you." | 0:41:55 | 0:41:57 | |
I gave her a couple of quid and she said, "Now what I do for you?" | 0:41:57 | 0:42:01 | |
I said, "Well, how about switching the fountain on for starters?" | 0:42:01 | 0:42:04 | |
And they did it. | 0:42:04 | 0:42:07 | |
That's how it used to operate in those days, bribery! | 0:42:07 | 0:42:11 | |
There was always some bugger out there, Doctor Who or somebody, | 0:42:15 | 0:42:18 | |
Dixon of Dock Green. They're always doing little shots. | 0:42:18 | 0:42:21 | |
And of course you had Michael Bentine's World out here. | 0:42:21 | 0:42:24 | |
Hello, and a very, very warm welcome back to the very last | 0:42:24 | 0:42:28 | |
in our present series of It's A Square World. | 0:42:28 | 0:42:31 | |
Michael Bentine loved Television Centre so much | 0:42:31 | 0:42:33 | |
that at the end of every series he destroyed it catastrophically. | 0:42:33 | 0:42:37 | |
It was sunk by a German U-boat, it was besieged by Red Indians. | 0:42:37 | 0:42:41 | |
It got blasted into space in one of them. | 0:42:43 | 0:42:46 | |
With the aid of some special effects, obviously. | 0:42:46 | 0:42:49 | |
-Now what's wrong?! -We are weightless! | 0:43:06 | 0:43:10 | |
Now easily observable is the BBC Television Centre. | 0:43:12 | 0:43:14 | |
You'll be able to see its form together with the many lights | 0:43:14 | 0:43:18 | |
associated with it. | 0:43:18 | 0:43:19 | |
Whenever surreal mayhem broke out around the grounds | 0:43:19 | 0:43:22 | |
of Television Centre, everyone assumed, "It's Michael Bentine. | 0:43:22 | 0:43:25 | |
"He's up to something again." | 0:43:25 | 0:43:26 | |
Until one day there was a real raid on the cashiers. | 0:43:26 | 0:43:30 | |
You've done more to confuse BBC Commissionaires | 0:43:30 | 0:43:32 | |
than any man in the history of broadcasting. | 0:43:32 | 0:43:34 | |
The robbers attacked, and they thought it was you. | 0:43:34 | 0:43:36 | |
-Yes, they did. That was a shocking business. -They were real. | 0:43:36 | 0:43:39 | |
The week's wages, £20,000 in cash, | 0:43:39 | 0:43:42 | |
had just been delivered by a security firm. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:44 | |
And a getaway car, full of people with stockings over their faces | 0:43:44 | 0:43:48 | |
and looking for all the world like pantomime bank robbers, | 0:43:48 | 0:43:51 | |
pulled up at the main gate. | 0:43:51 | 0:43:52 | |
I just said, "What's going on?" And he said, "It's all right, mate." | 0:43:52 | 0:43:56 | |
And then I presumed it was filming. | 0:43:56 | 0:43:58 | |
These guys went in with stockings over their faces, beat everybody up, | 0:43:58 | 0:44:02 | |
smashed them on top of their heads, | 0:44:02 | 0:44:04 | |
knocked them all out, and pinched £16,000. I was there! | 0:44:04 | 0:44:07 | |
I thought it was something like Z Cars. | 0:44:07 | 0:44:08 | |
You know, they nipped in here. | 0:44:08 | 0:44:11 | |
Ran in with guns, and said, "Everybody on the floor," | 0:44:11 | 0:44:13 | |
and broke down the bars and got through the grille, you see. | 0:44:13 | 0:44:16 | |
They got in their car and they drove round the circle | 0:44:16 | 0:44:19 | |
and simply went out the back gate. | 0:44:19 | 0:44:21 | |
The commissioner appears and says, "Nice to see you, Mr Bentine," | 0:44:21 | 0:44:24 | |
and opens the gate and lets them out. | 0:44:24 | 0:44:25 | |
"Hello. Hello, Mr Bentine. nice to see you back again." | 0:44:25 | 0:44:28 | |
And it really was five men in a Jaguar car | 0:44:28 | 0:44:31 | |
-came up and robbed the place. -Yes. Thanks to you. | 0:44:31 | 0:44:34 | |
There seemed to be no limit to the items | 0:44:34 | 0:44:36 | |
that people would take from the building. | 0:44:36 | 0:44:39 | |
Everything would go. | 0:44:39 | 0:44:41 | |
We would have a cage full of 100 footballs, | 0:44:41 | 0:44:46 | |
and by the end of the week, there were three. | 0:44:46 | 0:44:49 | |
They had a banqueting hall with a dozen place settings | 0:44:49 | 0:44:54 | |
and silver period cutlery had been hired | 0:44:54 | 0:44:57 | |
and very carefully laid out on the table. | 0:44:57 | 0:45:00 | |
And when people came back into the studio, | 0:45:00 | 0:45:02 | |
every piece of cutlery had gone. | 0:45:02 | 0:45:04 | |
But it hadn't just been stolen. | 0:45:04 | 0:45:05 | |
Somebody had actually gone to the restaurant block | 0:45:05 | 0:45:08 | |
and collected enough BBC canteen cutlery to replace it. | 0:45:08 | 0:45:12 | |
Oh, don't use that one! It's discoloured! Here, find another. | 0:45:12 | 0:45:16 | |
There were three canteens, all on top of each other. | 0:45:18 | 0:45:21 | |
So you had the first floor canteen, | 0:45:21 | 0:45:23 | |
waitress service on the second floor, and the third floor canteen. | 0:45:23 | 0:45:26 | |
And there was kind of an unwritten rule between, you know, | 0:45:26 | 0:45:29 | |
production go to the third floor, | 0:45:29 | 0:45:30 | |
and anyone that might have a high-visibility jacket | 0:45:30 | 0:45:33 | |
would go to the first floor. | 0:45:33 | 0:45:34 | |
Yeah, I think there was a sort of class system | 0:45:34 | 0:45:37 | |
of restaurants at one point. | 0:45:37 | 0:45:38 | |
The ordinary people ate baked beans on the ground floor, | 0:45:38 | 0:45:43 | |
and then there was a bit where slightly smarter people ate lasagne or something. | 0:45:43 | 0:45:46 | |
We're up here. You stay in that one. | 0:45:46 | 0:45:49 | |
That one's got sausages, beans, and mash. Ours has got chicken kiev. | 0:45:49 | 0:45:52 | |
I remember The Two Ronnies queuing up with everyone else, | 0:45:52 | 0:45:56 | |
and they got two little stools, | 0:45:56 | 0:45:59 | |
and they were sitting on these stools, | 0:45:59 | 0:46:01 | |
dragging the stools along as the queue shortened. | 0:46:01 | 0:46:03 | |
Wild horses would never have dragged me there. But I would hear tales. | 0:46:05 | 0:46:09 | |
The soggy bacon, left overnight. | 0:46:09 | 0:46:11 | |
Because there was no wastage. Good husbandry was the watchword. | 0:46:11 | 0:46:14 | |
People used to talk about having been taken | 0:46:14 | 0:46:17 | |
to the waitress service bit of the canteen. | 0:46:17 | 0:46:20 | |
-Yes! -Lots of times! | 0:46:20 | 0:46:21 | |
-Lots of times? -Yes! | 0:46:21 | 0:46:23 | |
There we go again. | 0:46:23 | 0:46:24 | |
I was so impressed, because it had white tablecloths | 0:46:24 | 0:46:27 | |
and there was the waitresses there going round. | 0:46:27 | 0:46:30 | |
-So you felt you'd arrived. -SHE LAUGHS | 0:46:30 | 0:46:32 | |
I don't think it was that glamorous. | 0:46:32 | 0:46:34 | |
There was some hairstyles amongst those waitresses. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:37 | |
And I used to look at John and say, | 0:46:37 | 0:46:38 | |
"I really want my hair to look like that." | 0:46:38 | 0:46:40 | |
You know, these beautiful beehives. Oh, it was brilliant! | 0:46:40 | 0:46:43 | |
I remember there was one lady, she had this enormous hairdo, | 0:46:43 | 0:46:47 | |
and the longest nails that were painted green. | 0:46:47 | 0:46:49 | |
And you think, how can you...anyway. | 0:46:49 | 0:46:51 | |
Did you ever have that waitress who was rather eccentric, | 0:46:51 | 0:46:54 | |
and she had a really, really, long fingernail, but it twisted round? | 0:46:54 | 0:46:58 | |
I never wanted to be served by her! | 0:46:58 | 0:47:00 | |
That would have put me off my lunch, I think, really! | 0:47:00 | 0:47:03 | |
I remember one day, Joan Collins walked in. | 0:47:03 | 0:47:05 | |
She sat down and just took out her little Tupperware box | 0:47:05 | 0:47:08 | |
and had her own salad. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:09 | |
I thought, "How chic is that, in the waitress service?!" | 0:47:09 | 0:47:12 | |
It was where most of the producers went to have their lunch, in fact. | 0:47:12 | 0:47:17 | |
And we used to eat lunch in those days. | 0:47:17 | 0:47:21 | |
It was sort of meat and two veg and a glass of wine. | 0:47:21 | 0:47:24 | |
I mean, it was none of this grabbing a sandwich by the... | 0:47:24 | 0:47:26 | |
-HE LAUGHS -..by the typewriter! | 0:47:26 | 0:47:28 | |
When the controllers had a guest, | 0:47:28 | 0:47:30 | |
they would take them to waitress service. | 0:47:30 | 0:47:32 | |
And you could also book a table at waitress service, | 0:47:32 | 0:47:35 | |
and see them with their guests. | 0:47:35 | 0:47:37 | |
It was very useful to be able to nobble the bosses | 0:47:37 | 0:47:39 | |
whilst they were preoccupied with their meal. | 0:47:39 | 0:47:42 | |
The wonderful thing about the second floor was there was a balcony | 0:47:42 | 0:47:45 | |
overlooking the first floor. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:46 | |
So they could actually look down their noses at the proles below. | 0:47:46 | 0:47:49 | |
We used to imagine it was so they could do a Henry VIII | 0:47:49 | 0:47:52 | |
with their chicken bones. Toss it over. | 0:47:52 | 0:47:53 | |
"Look, there's peasants scrabbling for my leftovers!" | 0:47:53 | 0:47:56 | |
I was doing the Jackanory programme with Kenneth Williams. | 0:47:56 | 0:47:59 | |
So we went into the canteen | 0:47:59 | 0:48:01 | |
where some lady was behind the counter, | 0:48:01 | 0:48:03 | |
and we said, "What's nice for lunch today?" | 0:48:03 | 0:48:05 | |
And she said, "Oh, we've got a very nice chicken curry." | 0:48:05 | 0:48:08 | |
I said, "That's good. I'll have the chicken curry." | 0:48:08 | 0:48:10 | |
And Kenneth said, "Sounds rather lovely. | 0:48:10 | 0:48:12 | |
"I think I'll have the chicken curry as well." | 0:48:12 | 0:48:15 | |
And the woman dashes over to a hatch and yells down, | 0:48:15 | 0:48:17 | |
"There's a big rush on the chicken curry! | 0:48:17 | 0:48:19 | |
-"Send some more up!" -HE LAUGHS | 0:48:19 | 0:48:22 | |
I remember vividly it was a very nice steak and chips | 0:48:22 | 0:48:25 | |
with a bottle of what the BBC called, 'Good Ordinary Claret.' | 0:48:25 | 0:48:28 | |
I sometimes sat at the table and amused myself | 0:48:28 | 0:48:31 | |
by crossing out 'Good' and writing 'Very', Ordinary Claret. | 0:48:31 | 0:48:35 | |
You'd go in at 12 o'clock and you'd roll out at half past two. | 0:48:35 | 0:48:40 | |
FILM NIGHT THEME TUNE | 0:48:40 | 0:48:43 | |
Yeah, there was an occasion that could have proved disastrous. | 0:48:43 | 0:48:47 | |
And I promise you, I'm not at all proud of this, but I was drunk. | 0:48:47 | 0:48:51 | |
We all used to have lunch in the restaurant | 0:48:51 | 0:48:53 | |
before going into the studio, and on this particular Friday, | 0:48:53 | 0:48:56 | |
a lad who'd been attached to us was leaving. | 0:48:56 | 0:48:59 | |
He was going round the table with bottles of wine the whole time. | 0:48:59 | 0:49:02 | |
And in those circumstances, you lose track of how much you've drunk. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:05 | |
We walked down the corridor to the studio, Pres B. | 0:49:05 | 0:49:09 | |
But when I got inside and the lights came on | 0:49:09 | 0:49:12 | |
and I had to do my first link to camera, | 0:49:12 | 0:49:14 | |
everything fell apart. And I burbled and stuttered. | 0:49:14 | 0:49:17 | |
Oh, I was fluffing my lines. | 0:49:17 | 0:49:18 | |
And at the end of this, there was total embarrassed silence. | 0:49:18 | 0:49:22 | |
And I got up and said, "OK, this is what I'm going to do. | 0:49:22 | 0:49:25 | |
"I'm going to walk round and round this circular building, | 0:49:25 | 0:49:28 | |
"and every time I pass this door, I want someone to give me | 0:49:28 | 0:49:30 | |
"a cup of strong black coffee." | 0:49:30 | 0:49:32 | |
And I did this for about half an hour, | 0:49:32 | 0:49:34 | |
went to my dressing room, plunged my face repeatedly into cold water, | 0:49:34 | 0:49:39 | |
and went in and recorded the programme. | 0:49:39 | 0:49:41 | |
DIRECTOR: Just under 30 seconds. | 0:49:41 | 0:49:43 | |
It turned out it was the most sober programme I have ever done. | 0:49:43 | 0:49:47 | |
It also happened to be about the dullest programme I've ever done. | 0:49:47 | 0:49:50 | |
But the thing is, I got away with it, but I learned a salutary lesson. | 0:49:50 | 0:49:54 | |
I never drank again before working. | 0:49:54 | 0:49:56 | |
There are pop groups in to record in the afternoon | 0:49:56 | 0:50:00 | |
and of course, they smoked. | 0:50:00 | 0:50:02 | |
And they didn't smoke ordinary cigarettes. | 0:50:02 | 0:50:03 | |
David Attenborough was a very tolerant controller. | 0:50:08 | 0:50:10 | |
But he did pass a message to the editor, which was, | 0:50:10 | 0:50:13 | |
"There is a herbal smell | 0:50:13 | 0:50:14 | |
"drifting along that corridor from your studio. | 0:50:14 | 0:50:17 | |
"If it becomes any stronger, you'll be in trouble." | 0:50:17 | 0:50:22 | |
Look, please don't smoke that stuff, you know, | 0:50:22 | 0:50:25 | |
openly, and so that we can all smell it. I mean, just be sensible. | 0:50:25 | 0:50:28 | |
That was all he said. And so we were told to control it. | 0:50:32 | 0:50:36 | |
I remember you telling me a tale of you doing something on Play Away. | 0:50:36 | 0:50:39 | |
I think it involved silhouettes. And everybody had had... | 0:50:39 | 0:50:43 | |
Playschool, and it was the Nativity. | 0:50:43 | 0:50:45 | |
And there was Rick Jones, Lionel Morton, myself. | 0:50:45 | 0:50:50 | |
They got stoned on the biggest joint you've ever seen, in the studio. | 0:50:50 | 0:50:54 | |
And we were in silhouette, as the three shepherds with our crooks. | 0:50:54 | 0:50:58 | |
And Lionel purposely held his crook so the crook didn't show. | 0:50:58 | 0:51:02 | |
Like with the cameras, instead of that way! | 0:51:02 | 0:51:05 | |
They were absolutely stoned out of their minds. | 0:51:05 | 0:51:08 | |
So when we recorded, who cocked his lines up? Me. | 0:51:08 | 0:51:12 | |
I couldn't work with it, I really couldn't! | 0:51:12 | 0:51:15 | |
-I like that you weren't stoned. -I wasn't! | 0:51:15 | 0:51:18 | |
Such a professional. | 0:51:18 | 0:51:19 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:51:19 | 0:51:21 | |
You would come from the screaming mayhem of the studios | 0:51:22 | 0:51:25 | |
and the Light Entertainment department or the drama department, | 0:51:25 | 0:51:28 | |
where basically everybody shouted to each other all the time, | 0:51:28 | 0:51:32 | |
and then you'd open up on the 6th floor. | 0:51:32 | 0:51:34 | |
There would be this swish, and then there was silence. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:37 | |
LIFT ANNOUNCEMENT: 6th Floor. | 0:51:37 | 0:51:40 | |
You couldn't hear yourself walk. People spoke in whispers. | 0:51:40 | 0:51:43 | |
It was like you'd sort of gone to heaven or something. | 0:51:43 | 0:51:46 | |
ANGELIC MUSIC | 0:51:46 | 0:51:51 | |
Ooh, the hierarchy! And you never really went onto that floor. | 0:51:51 | 0:51:54 | |
It was the posh floor, you know. | 0:51:54 | 0:51:55 | |
Where the head of BBC One, BBC Two, and the DG were. | 0:51:55 | 0:51:59 | |
You had to be fantastically well-behaved. | 0:51:59 | 0:52:02 | |
PRESENTER: Here, the drama department meets the controller of BBC One. | 0:52:02 | 0:52:06 | |
Well, let's move on to Dr Who, | 0:52:06 | 0:52:08 | |
because that's an even bigger problem. | 0:52:08 | 0:52:09 | |
Because you're asking for around 2,500 extra programmes. | 0:52:09 | 0:52:13 | |
Avoid the 6th floor. | 0:52:13 | 0:52:15 | |
It's just nothing but trouble. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:16 | |
If you're summoned to the 6th floor, you've put your foot in it. | 0:52:16 | 0:52:19 | |
You're going to get a bollocking. | 0:52:19 | 0:52:21 | |
Having a young baby and trying to do a live show really is a nightmare. | 0:52:21 | 0:52:26 | |
You know, I'd be trying to breastfeed her, | 0:52:26 | 0:52:28 | |
then I'd come in to rehearse a bit. Rose would be screaming. | 0:52:28 | 0:52:31 | |
How's your hair? All right? | 0:52:31 | 0:52:32 | |
So the girl who used to help me said, "I've done it. | 0:52:32 | 0:52:35 | |
"I've got this great corridor. It's just marvellous. | 0:52:35 | 0:52:37 | |
"There's no one around there. It's really quiet. | 0:52:37 | 0:52:39 | |
"And no matter how much noise Rose makes, in the end she calms down." | 0:52:39 | 0:52:43 | |
And I went, "Oh, great. Well done. Where is it?" | 0:52:43 | 0:52:46 | |
And she said, "Oh, it's the 6th floor." | 0:52:46 | 0:52:48 | |
SHE LAUGHS | 0:52:48 | 0:52:50 | |
Anybody who's anybody is here. | 0:52:50 | 0:52:51 | |
And they've got their names on all the doors. | 0:52:51 | 0:52:53 | |
Like, DG. | 0:52:53 | 0:52:55 | |
That means it's the Director General's office. | 0:52:55 | 0:52:58 | |
He's the head of everything. Oh, so exciting! | 0:52:58 | 0:53:00 | |
Let's have a look, shall we? | 0:53:00 | 0:53:02 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:53:02 | 0:53:05 | |
Oh, good morning, Mr Everett. Welcome to the BBC. | 0:53:05 | 0:53:07 | |
Naughty DG! | 0:53:07 | 0:53:09 | |
This building embodies the paradox in the BBC. | 0:53:09 | 0:53:14 | |
Of jazz hands and the smart suit. | 0:53:14 | 0:53:18 | |
-THEY SCREAM -Ken! -You! | 0:53:18 | 0:53:22 | |
It's fun to see those two collide. | 0:53:22 | 0:53:23 | |
That's how you get the best programmes. | 0:53:23 | 0:53:25 | |
B-U-M. | 0:53:25 | 0:53:26 | |
That must be Broadcasting Under-Manager. | 0:53:26 | 0:53:29 | |
-LAUGHTER -No, it's a bum. | 0:53:31 | 0:53:34 | |
On Thursday evening, there's a rather special show of the week. | 0:53:34 | 0:53:37 | |
The other day, I spoke to one of its stars, Ernie Wise, | 0:53:37 | 0:53:40 | |
who'd brought along a friend. | 0:53:40 | 0:53:42 | |
Ernie, your Christmas show's being repeated. Why is that? | 0:53:42 | 0:53:45 | |
-By public demand. -What, particularly, has made this public demand? | 0:53:45 | 0:53:48 | |
Well, they're just clamouring to see my performance again. | 0:53:48 | 0:53:51 | |
-My Napoleon was quite superb, wasn't it? -Napoleon? -Yes. | 0:53:51 | 0:53:53 | |
I did have the pleasure of working | 0:53:53 | 0:53:56 | |
on the Morecambe and Wise shows, and I think it was back in 1977, | 0:53:56 | 0:53:59 | |
if my memory serves me right. | 0:53:59 | 0:54:00 | |
They were coming to the end of their BBC contract, | 0:54:00 | 0:54:03 | |
and the BBC wanted to woo them to come and sign another contract. | 0:54:03 | 0:54:06 | |
So they threw them a very nice party | 0:54:06 | 0:54:09 | |
in the hallowed 6th floor suite. | 0:54:09 | 0:54:11 | |
To this day, I remember Eric saying, | 0:54:11 | 0:54:14 | |
"Just enjoy yourselves tonight, boys, | 0:54:14 | 0:54:15 | |
"because we've already signed with Thames Television." | 0:54:15 | 0:54:18 | |
So we knew before the BBC bigwigs. | 0:54:18 | 0:54:22 | |
Very slippy chairs. | 0:54:22 | 0:54:23 | |
Excuse him. He's always like this. | 0:54:24 | 0:54:26 | |
The BBC had a policy whereby the senior executives | 0:54:26 | 0:54:29 | |
would all meet once a week round the boardroom table. | 0:54:29 | 0:54:33 | |
All the heads of department went to B209, | 0:54:33 | 0:54:39 | |
which was a room in the basement. | 0:54:39 | 0:54:41 | |
And in those days, full of smoke. | 0:54:41 | 0:54:43 | |
The rest of us called it The Chimps' Tea Party. | 0:54:43 | 0:54:45 | |
And we used the Radio Times as our agenda. | 0:54:45 | 0:54:49 | |
We would say, "Look at your Radio Times, please. | 0:54:49 | 0:54:51 | |
"Now, who wants to comment on what?" | 0:54:51 | 0:54:53 | |
It went on from half past nine in the morning until lunchtime. | 0:54:53 | 0:54:58 | |
At one of those Chimps' Tea Parties, Paul Fox, | 0:54:58 | 0:55:01 | |
who was then controller of BBC One, | 0:55:01 | 0:55:03 | |
flew into a sudden rage | 0:55:03 | 0:55:04 | |
and slammed his fist on the table, and said, | 0:55:04 | 0:55:07 | |
"That bloke reviewing films on Film '72 last night was wearing a wig! | 0:55:07 | 0:55:10 | |
"I will not have wigs on my channel. Get rid of him!" | 0:55:10 | 0:55:13 | |
I really cannot believe that I said that. | 0:55:13 | 0:55:16 | |
I wasn't actually wearing a wig. I was just having a bad hair day. | 0:55:16 | 0:55:19 | |
Good evening. | 0:55:19 | 0:55:20 | |
Tonight, Joseph Losey talks about The Assassination of Trotsky. | 0:55:20 | 0:55:23 | |
There are some horrible places in this building. | 0:55:25 | 0:55:28 | |
Horrible offices. You would go to parts of it | 0:55:28 | 0:55:30 | |
and you couldn't believe that people were working there. | 0:55:30 | 0:55:34 | |
And there was a tower block over the back there | 0:55:34 | 0:55:36 | |
that Children's was in at one point. | 0:55:36 | 0:55:39 | |
Just a truly terrible place to work. | 0:55:39 | 0:55:41 | |
It is the grimmest office block you could imagine. | 0:55:41 | 0:55:44 | |
This grey, drab building. | 0:55:44 | 0:55:47 | |
You look up and there's endless floors. | 0:55:47 | 0:55:51 | |
But East Tower was to be my home. | 0:55:51 | 0:55:53 | |
And because I was so homesick, I just used to spend | 0:55:53 | 0:55:56 | |
as much time as possible in East Tower, | 0:55:56 | 0:55:59 | |
looking out of the window, dreaming of the North. | 0:55:59 | 0:56:02 | |
And everybody else just wanted to go home. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:05 | |
It was just so sad! | 0:56:05 | 0:56:06 | |
You know, people shouldn't have been asked to work there. | 0:56:06 | 0:56:09 | |
And yet, people thought this was romantic. I never got it. | 0:56:09 | 0:56:12 | |
The loos in the East Tower are on alternate floors. | 0:56:12 | 0:56:15 | |
The ladies are on one floor and the gents are on the other. | 0:56:15 | 0:56:18 | |
And a very, very distinguished senior member | 0:56:18 | 0:56:21 | |
of the BBC management board was caught short. | 0:56:21 | 0:56:25 | |
So there was nothing for it but to nip into the ladies. | 0:56:25 | 0:56:28 | |
So he nipped into the first open cubicle | 0:56:28 | 0:56:31 | |
and had his tinkle, and then | 0:56:31 | 0:56:32 | |
when he was washing his hands at the sink, | 0:56:32 | 0:56:34 | |
he let rip with a huge fart. | 0:56:34 | 0:56:36 | |
And then from behind the closed cubicle door at the end of the row, | 0:56:37 | 0:56:41 | |
a voice said, "Is that you, Maureen?" | 0:56:41 | 0:56:44 | |
I mean, it was one of those places that you felt that once | 0:56:44 | 0:56:47 | |
we moved out, the dossers would move in, really. | 0:56:47 | 0:56:51 | |
Cameras in the right place at the right time. | 0:56:56 | 0:56:58 | |
Microphones within reach, but out of sight. | 0:56:58 | 0:57:00 | |
Actors knowing what to say and where to move. | 0:57:00 | 0:57:02 | |
The right setting, designed to fit the actor | 0:57:02 | 0:57:04 | |
and leave room for the cameras. | 0:57:04 | 0:57:06 | |
The lighting worked out for each scene. | 0:57:06 | 0:57:08 | |
Everyone knowing what to do and when to do it, | 0:57:08 | 0:57:11 | |
so that every part fits together to become what was at first | 0:57:11 | 0:57:14 | |
only in the mind of the director. | 0:57:14 | 0:57:16 | |
David, can we come onto this next scene? | 0:57:16 | 0:57:18 | |
Two-shot, on camera five. | 0:57:18 | 0:57:19 | |
The competition to get the best stuff was absolutely knives out. | 0:57:19 | 0:57:22 | |
I mean, you had to pull out all the stops | 0:57:22 | 0:57:24 | |
to get the studio you wanted, to get the camera crew you wanted. | 0:57:24 | 0:57:28 | |
It was very, very, very competitive. | 0:57:28 | 0:57:31 | |
I remember working with fantastic camera crews | 0:57:32 | 0:57:35 | |
when we were working here. | 0:57:35 | 0:57:36 | |
You know, they would give you everything, | 0:57:36 | 0:57:40 | |
and the kind of pride of work, and just the sheer concentration. | 0:57:40 | 0:57:44 | |
I was very young. We were doing Casanova. | 0:57:44 | 0:57:47 | |
And I was doing one of the low cameras, | 0:57:48 | 0:57:51 | |
and I had a woman in front of me, | 0:57:51 | 0:57:53 | |
who was going to be superimposed in a dream sequence | 0:57:53 | 0:57:56 | |
that Casanova was supposed to be dreaming. | 0:57:56 | 0:57:59 | |
The thing was, she was stark naked. And I'd never seen a naked woman before. | 0:57:59 | 0:58:04 | |
We'll have to see what we can do, won't we? | 0:58:04 | 0:58:07 | |
And it had a certain effect on me, and I couldn't hide it. | 0:58:07 | 0:58:11 | |
And she looked at me in a most disdainful way - you disgusting little boy! | 0:58:17 | 0:58:21 | |
What a nice little old man! | 0:58:21 | 0:58:24 | |
You could be sent to a crew that worked on the not-quite-so-exciting programmes. | 0:58:24 | 0:58:29 | |
And then if you made a complaint, you got a card like this. | 0:58:29 | 0:58:32 | |
TS - tough shit! | 0:58:32 | 0:58:35 | |
There aren't many hovercraft I'd be allowed to bring into the BBC car park. | 0:58:35 | 0:58:38 | |
But this is different. It's very much more manoeuvrable, as you can see. | 0:58:38 | 0:58:42 | |
We're attempting a 360 degree turn here. | 0:58:42 | 0:58:45 | |
'I think part of the magic of this building' | 0:58:45 | 0:58:48 | |
is that you saw strange, incongruous, and weird things every single day. | 0:58:48 | 0:58:53 | |
DR WHO THEME PLAYS | 0:58:53 | 0:58:54 | |
I think the weirdest has to be | 0:58:54 | 0:58:57 | |
a more or less life-size Tyrannosaurus rex in rubber. | 0:58:57 | 0:59:02 | |
THEY GASP | 0:59:02 | 0:59:03 | |
DINOSAUR ROARS | 0:59:03 | 0:59:05 | |
That's the creature that attacked me in the caves! | 0:59:05 | 0:59:08 | |
And inside was a small, elderly man | 0:59:08 | 0:59:11 | |
wearing ballet tights and ballet pumps, | 0:59:11 | 0:59:14 | |
and he would enter this costume via a hole between its legs, | 0:59:14 | 0:59:17 | |
so it's already starting to get a bit weird, | 0:59:17 | 0:59:19 | |
but being in a completely enclosed latex suit, | 0:59:19 | 0:59:22 | |
he got very hot, so when there was a pause, | 0:59:22 | 0:59:25 | |
his colleagues would come up with a compressed air bottle, | 0:59:25 | 0:59:28 | |
stick it up the hole between his legs, | 0:59:28 | 0:59:30 | |
and send a jet of cold air up. | 0:59:30 | 0:59:32 | |
And when they did this, he would relax, | 0:59:32 | 0:59:34 | |
and the result was that the suit sagged | 0:59:34 | 0:59:36 | |
in such a way that the dinosaur's head lolled back | 0:59:36 | 0:59:39 | |
and its jaws flopped open. | 0:59:39 | 0:59:41 | |
So what you saw as a disinterested observer | 0:59:41 | 0:59:44 | |
was some people shoving a large metal cylinder | 0:59:44 | 0:59:46 | |
up a hole between the legs of a dinosaur, | 0:59:46 | 0:59:49 | |
a "psssht" sound, | 0:59:49 | 0:59:51 | |
and the dinosaur going, "Ahhh!" | 0:59:51 | 0:59:53 | |
DINOSAUR ROARS | 0:59:53 | 0:59:55 | |
The late Dame Thora Hird was doing | 0:59:57 | 1:00:00 | |
a programme called Mrs Pepperpot, | 1:00:00 | 1:00:01 | |
and we were getting ready for the dress rehearsal, | 1:00:01 | 1:00:04 | |
and suddenly the door opened and in came a whole lot of dignitaries. | 1:00:04 | 1:00:08 | |
They said, "Carry on as normal." HE GULPS | 1:00:08 | 1:00:11 | |
So we said, "Oh, right, we'll start rehearsing Mrs Pepperpot." | 1:00:11 | 1:00:14 | |
You remember Mrs Pepperpot. | 1:00:14 | 1:00:16 | |
You don't? | 1:00:16 | 1:00:17 | |
Well, she's a woman who shrinks to the size of a pepper pot... | 1:00:17 | 1:00:19 | |
..at the most inconvenient moments. | 1:00:19 | 1:00:21 | |
And so the music plays, and in went the camera to Thora Hird, | 1:00:21 | 1:00:24 | |
and she said, "Hello. Do you know Mrs Pepperpot? | 1:00:24 | 1:00:27 | |
"You don't? Well, sod off!" | 1:00:27 | 1:00:29 | |
SHE LAUGHS | 1:00:29 | 1:00:30 | |
Goodbye. | 1:00:30 | 1:00:32 | |
'We set ourselves a lot of very difficult things to do.' | 1:00:34 | 1:00:37 | |
This French device is a one-man elevator. | 1:00:37 | 1:00:40 | |
They expand to form a strong, light...that's hot. | 1:00:40 | 1:00:46 | |
It was a sort of challenge, | 1:00:46 | 1:00:48 | |
and they did often go wrong. | 1:00:48 | 1:00:49 | |
..let one go, releasing the brakes. Here's Kieran! | 1:00:49 | 1:00:53 | |
God, I'm sorry. I'm really suffering. | 1:00:53 | 1:00:56 | |
It's burning me! | 1:00:56 | 1:00:57 | |
Oh, my God. Motorised roller skates! | 1:00:57 | 1:01:00 | |
MOTOR REVS | 1:01:00 | 1:01:02 | |
'I had to start outside Television Centre.' | 1:01:05 | 1:01:08 | |
Aargh! | 1:01:08 | 1:01:10 | |
And I'd rehearsed all day long. | 1:01:10 | 1:01:13 | |
Tomorrow's World. What studio is it? | 1:01:15 | 1:01:16 | |
Studio 7, dear. | 1:01:16 | 1:01:18 | |
And no falling over at all. And, of course, live on air... | 1:01:18 | 1:01:21 | |
You have to... | 1:01:21 | 1:01:22 | |
SHE SCREAMS | 1:01:22 | 1:01:24 | |
It's not that simple. | 1:01:24 | 1:01:25 | |
I'd got the job, and this wonderful make-up artist set to work on me. | 1:01:25 | 1:01:30 | |
So she kind of pinned my hair back and everything, | 1:01:30 | 1:01:33 | |
and said, "Right, that's great, you've got a good face. | 1:01:33 | 1:01:36 | |
"Mmm. I think what I'm going to do is bleach your moustache." | 1:01:36 | 1:01:39 | |
So without me saying anything about it, | 1:01:39 | 1:01:41 | |
she put all of this foam on top of my upper lip. | 1:01:41 | 1:01:45 | |
Noel Edmonds burst through the door | 1:01:45 | 1:01:47 | |
and I was sitting there looking like... | 1:01:47 | 1:01:50 | |
I don't know. | 1:01:50 | 1:01:51 | |
Like a mad Father Christmas! | 1:01:51 | 1:01:53 | |
And you're the first people I've told that story to. | 1:01:53 | 1:01:55 | |
I used to love the make-up department. | 1:01:55 | 1:01:57 | |
Right, we are recording, everybody. | 1:01:57 | 1:01:59 | |
They used to wear these really sweet little blue gingham smocks. | 1:01:59 | 1:02:04 | |
They used to hate them, | 1:02:04 | 1:02:06 | |
but I thought they were just really erotic. | 1:02:06 | 1:02:08 | |
HE CHUCKLES | 1:02:08 | 1:02:10 | |
Take it from the second one, Roger. That's right, isn't it? | 1:02:10 | 1:02:13 | |
'It was rather like the theatre.' | 1:02:13 | 1:02:14 | |
'It was, "OK, guys, we've rehearsed all day.' | 1:02:14 | 1:02:16 | |
"It's now 7 o'clock, we're back from lunch. | 1:02:16 | 1:02:19 | |
"We have to finish by 10." | 1:02:19 | 1:02:21 | |
I know we're a little bit understaffed this evening... | 1:02:21 | 1:02:23 | |
LAUGHTER | 1:02:23 | 1:02:25 | |
But I know we're all going to do our best. | 1:02:25 | 1:02:27 | |
And don't be afraid to laugh as loud as you like, | 1:02:27 | 1:02:30 | |
and I'm sure we're all going to have a really super evening. | 1:02:30 | 1:02:34 | |
Interesting, when I did Strictly, it was in Studio 1 | 1:02:34 | 1:02:36 | |
and I'd known that studio so much, | 1:02:36 | 1:02:37 | |
and for some people, they would be absolutely petrified going in to, | 1:02:37 | 1:02:42 | |
at one time, what was the biggest television studio in Europe, | 1:02:42 | 1:02:45 | |
and yet, for me, it was like going home, | 1:02:45 | 1:02:47 | |
and it just felt brilliant, | 1:02:47 | 1:02:48 | |
and I used to love going in there and dancing and doing my thing, | 1:02:48 | 1:02:52 | |
knowing that I'd spent so much time in this place. | 1:02:52 | 1:02:55 | |
MIMES BARKING | 1:02:57 | 1:02:58 | |
There's old magical memories like that. | 1:02:58 | 1:03:00 | |
You'll never lose them. They're with you forever. | 1:03:00 | 1:03:03 | |
Shot 52 on Take 1. | 1:03:03 | 1:03:05 | |
'Comes that moment at 7.30,' | 1:03:05 | 1:03:06 | |
the red light would go on | 1:03:06 | 1:03:09 | |
and you had to deliver. | 1:03:09 | 1:03:10 | |
I heard the music start and the doorman said, | 1:03:12 | 1:03:14 | |
"Can I have your ticket?" | 1:03:14 | 1:03:15 | |
I'm dressed like Carmen Miranda or something outrageous, | 1:03:15 | 1:03:19 | |
and I said, "No, I'm one of the dancers." | 1:03:19 | 1:03:22 | |
And he said, "No, no, I need your ticket." | 1:03:22 | 1:03:25 | |
And I started to lose my cool, and I promise you, I'm not a diva. | 1:03:25 | 1:03:29 | |
I said, "Do you think I normally dress like this?!" | 1:03:29 | 1:03:33 | |
And right now, the sound of Elton John. | 1:03:33 | 1:03:35 | |
-Cue the disc! -Island Girl and Pan's People... | 1:03:35 | 1:03:37 | |
Pineapples? | 1:03:37 | 1:03:38 | |
Two and four. | 1:03:38 | 1:03:40 | |
Three. Four and four. | 1:03:40 | 1:03:42 | |
'Ruthie was a nightmare.' | 1:03:42 | 1:03:44 | |
'Just before we were about to start the show,' | 1:03:44 | 1:03:46 | |
'Ruthie would suddenly say, "Which arm is it?' | 1:03:46 | 1:03:48 | |
"Is it the right or the left? Do we go on the left or right foot?" | 1:03:48 | 1:03:51 | |
And we always used to say, "Shut up, Ruth!" | 1:03:51 | 1:03:54 | |
And then, but the irony of it was, | 1:03:54 | 1:03:55 | |
she'd go on and do it right and we'd all go wrong. | 1:03:55 | 1:03:58 | |
# Smarty pants | 1:04:00 | 1:04:01 | |
# Looking for romance... # | 1:04:01 | 1:04:03 | |
Holy God! | 1:04:05 | 1:04:07 | |
You devil! | 1:04:07 | 1:04:08 | |
'We were doing a Dave Allen show, which involved the use of firearms.' | 1:04:08 | 1:04:13 | |
On the night, the adrenaline was up, | 1:04:13 | 1:04:15 | |
and he stood rather closer to his target, | 1:04:15 | 1:04:17 | |
a bare-chested man in bed, than he should have done... | 1:04:17 | 1:04:19 | |
Aaargh! | 1:04:19 | 1:04:21 | |
..causing shock and severe pain. | 1:04:21 | 1:04:22 | |
You've just shot my husband! | 1:04:22 | 1:04:25 | |
'We immediately rang the surgery' | 1:04:25 | 1:04:27 | |
'and were told that, no, it wouldn't be possible' | 1:04:27 | 1:04:30 | |
for anyone to come down in case there was an emergency. | 1:04:30 | 1:04:33 | |
From top again, 108. I think it's probably better on you, Mike. | 1:04:33 | 1:04:35 | |
'You were in a complete time bubble in your dark studio, you know.' | 1:04:35 | 1:04:40 | |
Completely divorced from the real world, but having to do this thing | 1:04:40 | 1:04:44 | |
and having to distil your programme down | 1:04:44 | 1:04:47 | |
to something that could be recorded within three hours. | 1:04:47 | 1:04:51 | |
Soon, Chancellor Flavia will... | 1:04:51 | 1:04:53 | |
'At 10 o'clock, the lights would just go off,' | 1:04:54 | 1:04:58 | |
or the machines would go off, and so you could see, | 1:04:58 | 1:05:01 | |
because they had the big clocks on the wall, | 1:05:01 | 1:05:03 | |
the seconds ticking away till 10 o'clock, | 1:05:03 | 1:05:05 | |
and you knew you had to do a certain scene. | 1:05:05 | 1:05:07 | |
Soon Peter will get the line out(!) | 1:05:07 | 1:05:09 | |
'We were doing Suffragettes.' | 1:05:09 | 1:05:11 | |
'It had a scene where it was force-feeding in Holloway Prison,' | 1:05:11 | 1:05:15 | |
and we had these four cameras on this woman being force-fed, | 1:05:15 | 1:05:19 | |
'and we had five minutes to finish.' | 1:05:19 | 1:05:21 | |
'It was unbelievable.' | 1:05:21 | 1:05:22 | |
'How do you get the shot?' | 1:05:22 | 1:05:23 | |
'And how do you shove the pipe down her throat?' | 1:05:23 | 1:05:26 | |
'and me shouting up in the gallery,' | 1:05:26 | 1:05:28 | |
and we managed to finish at one minute to 10. | 1:05:28 | 1:05:31 | |
'We actually did it, and when you watch it,' | 1:05:31 | 1:05:34 | |
'actually it's quite brilliant,' | 1:05:34 | 1:05:36 | |
because somehow, the panic set into the vision. | 1:05:36 | 1:05:38 | |
SHE CHOKES | 1:05:38 | 1:05:40 | |
'I was directing Eureka...' | 1:05:40 | 1:05:42 | |
I bought this trike for my wee 10-year-old son Johnny. | 1:05:42 | 1:05:45 | |
'..and we'd had a full day | 1:05:45 | 1:05:46 | |
'and we were scheduled to finish at 10 o'clock.' | 1:05:46 | 1:05:49 | |
I had one scene to record at 10 to 10. | 1:05:49 | 1:05:52 | |
'The cast were all pissing about.' | 1:05:52 | 1:05:55 | |
'All pandemonium was going on in the studio.' | 1:05:55 | 1:05:58 | |
'Over talkback, I said,' | 1:05:58 | 1:05:59 | |
"Look, I'm coming down and I'm going to direct it from the floor, | 1:05:59 | 1:06:02 | |
"because we're never going to get this done." | 1:06:02 | 1:06:04 | |
So I rushed out of the gallery and went down the back steps, | 1:06:04 | 1:06:07 | |
burst into the studio behind the white sight cloth and said, | 1:06:07 | 1:06:11 | |
"Will you fucking behave yourselves?!" | 1:06:11 | 1:06:13 | |
And I'd walked out into the Newsnight studio. | 1:06:13 | 1:06:16 | |
Such stories are cheap and nasty | 1:06:16 | 1:06:18 | |
and bring shame on anyone who spreads them. | 1:06:18 | 1:06:20 | |
I went, "Oh, my God! I'm so sorry." | 1:06:20 | 1:06:23 | |
Did he tell you he only did that once? | 1:06:23 | 1:06:26 | |
There was one particular scene, I remember, | 1:06:26 | 1:06:28 | |
where the producer came down to me | 1:06:28 | 1:06:30 | |
and I said, "We haven't rehearsed this." | 1:06:30 | 1:06:32 | |
We were actually in the wrong set, | 1:06:32 | 1:06:33 | |
and he just said, "Go on and act!" | 1:06:33 | 1:06:36 | |
'No tray. Where's the bloody tray?!' | 1:06:36 | 1:06:39 | |
We'll cope. | 1:06:39 | 1:06:40 | |
-It's mentioned! -Mentioned? | 1:06:40 | 1:06:42 | |
LAUGHTER | 1:06:42 | 1:06:44 | |
Get us out of it. | 1:06:44 | 1:06:46 | |
Come on, Beau. | 1:06:46 | 1:06:47 | |
Improvise! | 1:06:47 | 1:06:49 | |
Yes, I just had to bring it in to show you. | 1:06:49 | 1:06:53 | |
Take it. | 1:06:53 | 1:06:54 | |
Isn't it light? | 1:06:54 | 1:06:56 | |
Ooh! And such a lovely shade of mauve. | 1:06:56 | 1:06:59 | |
It was actually quite a thrilling experience, | 1:06:59 | 1:07:02 | |
but you knew the end result was going to be rubbish. | 1:07:02 | 1:07:05 | |
-Should we cut? Go back? -No. | 1:07:05 | 1:07:07 | |
We professionals notice. | 1:07:07 | 1:07:09 | |
Joe Public never clocks a damn thing. | 1:07:09 | 1:07:12 | |
It was just the biggest sin as a producer you could commit - | 1:07:12 | 1:07:15 | |
not finishing was like the end of the world. | 1:07:15 | 1:07:18 | |
You know, you expected to be shown the door | 1:07:18 | 1:07:20 | |
and sent out into Shepherd's Bush down to the dole queue. | 1:07:20 | 1:07:23 | |
I KNOW! | 1:07:23 | 1:07:24 | |
-Look, have a glass of wine and cool down. -I don't want a glass of wine. | 1:07:24 | 1:07:27 | |
You'll feel better for it. Barbara, have a nice glass of wine. | 1:07:27 | 1:07:29 | |
There was a lot of adrenaline. I remember darling Richard Briers | 1:07:29 | 1:07:33 | |
used to say, "Never again, dear. Never again. | 1:07:33 | 1:07:35 | |
'"I'm not doing this again." | 1:07:35 | 1:07:37 | |
Can we clear Penny and Paul? | 1:07:37 | 1:07:38 | |
Thank you very much. You can change. | 1:07:38 | 1:07:40 | |
-Now? -Yes, you can change now. | 1:07:40 | 1:07:42 | |
And it was quite scary. | 1:07:42 | 1:07:43 | |
The business of producing television gives you a great high. | 1:07:43 | 1:07:46 | |
You're throbbing with adrenaline by the time... | 1:07:46 | 1:07:49 | |
particularly if things have gone right. | 1:07:49 | 1:07:51 | |
If they've gone wrong, you don't want to go anywhere, | 1:07:51 | 1:07:53 | |
except to go and shoot yourself, | 1:07:53 | 1:07:55 | |
but if things have gone right, | 1:07:55 | 1:07:57 | |
you really feel terrific, and the place to go was the Club. | 1:07:57 | 1:08:00 | |
It was on the fourth floor, still is. | 1:08:00 | 1:08:03 | |
And it was the home of the comedy department, | 1:08:03 | 1:08:06 | |
which was a fairly disastrous idea, because, of course, | 1:08:06 | 1:08:10 | |
if any of the comedy department had any kind of block, you know, | 1:08:10 | 1:08:13 | |
what they were going to write, | 1:08:13 | 1:08:15 | |
what they were going to do on the show, | 1:08:15 | 1:08:17 | |
they'd go into the BBC Club and drink a bit of inspiration. | 1:08:17 | 1:08:19 | |
It's quite stressful doing a sitcom with an audience. | 1:08:19 | 1:08:22 | |
Even though I loved it. It was a place to go and unwind. | 1:08:22 | 1:08:24 | |
That was the rule of thumb of a good show, | 1:08:24 | 1:08:26 | |
if you could be in the bar by nine. | 1:08:26 | 1:08:28 | |
-Shall we start again? -Lost your friend? -Lost my friend. | 1:08:29 | 1:08:32 | |
You went darting out there and it sort of did... | 1:08:32 | 1:08:35 | |
It's not your fault. | 1:08:35 | 1:08:36 | |
Those silly twits said, "Shut up in the scene dock." | 1:08:36 | 1:08:39 | |
There are the Dimblebys in that corner, | 1:08:42 | 1:08:45 | |
the Attenboroughs in that corner. | 1:08:45 | 1:08:47 | |
There were agents there and there were actors there | 1:08:47 | 1:08:49 | |
and it was the place to be. | 1:08:49 | 1:08:51 | |
All the Radio 1 guys to do Top Of The Pops. | 1:08:51 | 1:08:54 | |
# Mama told me not to come... # | 1:08:54 | 1:08:57 | |
And people tended to clique a little bit, | 1:08:59 | 1:09:01 | |
but we tried to break down those barriers, | 1:09:01 | 1:09:04 | |
and we would introduce ourselves. | 1:09:04 | 1:09:06 | |
"Can we buy you a drink?" | 1:09:06 | 1:09:07 | |
Sir David Attenborough would walk in, for example... | 1:09:07 | 1:09:10 | |
although it wasn't Sir David. | 1:09:10 | 1:09:11 | |
Forget David Attenborough, we liked all the pop groups! | 1:09:11 | 1:09:13 | |
We ended up getting married. | 1:09:13 | 1:09:15 | |
# That ain't the way to have fun... # | 1:09:15 | 1:09:18 | |
You could talk to, you know, | 1:09:18 | 1:09:19 | |
the David Bowies and the Bryan Ferrys and the Hollies. | 1:09:19 | 1:09:23 | |
You're talking to John Cleese and Marc Bolan | 1:09:23 | 1:09:26 | |
and Benny Hill or whoever, | 1:09:26 | 1:09:27 | |
and it's just wall-to-wall fabulous people having such a good time. | 1:09:27 | 1:09:31 | |
You never knew what bands were going to be around | 1:09:31 | 1:09:33 | |
and you had to take your pass up on a Wednesday night | 1:09:33 | 1:09:36 | |
cos otherwise you weren't allowed in. | 1:09:36 | 1:09:38 | |
This was gold dust. | 1:09:38 | 1:09:40 | |
This was the BBC Club card that you have to have | 1:09:40 | 1:09:44 | |
if you wanted to go to the BBC Bar, and without it you couldn't get in. | 1:09:44 | 1:09:48 | |
Or somebody had to sign you in. | 1:09:48 | 1:09:50 | |
We never got a pass! | 1:09:50 | 1:09:51 | |
I got to meet T.Rex and everybody up there without a pass! | 1:09:51 | 1:09:54 | |
It was so exciting. | 1:09:54 | 1:09:55 | |
The guy wouldn't let me in one night because I hadn't got my pass, | 1:09:55 | 1:10:00 | |
and he said, "You might have walked off the street," | 1:10:00 | 1:10:03 | |
I said, "What, dressed like this?" | 1:10:03 | 1:10:04 | |
Opened my dressing gown and I've got this leather leotard on. | 1:10:04 | 1:10:07 | |
Then they believed I was... either that, | 1:10:07 | 1:10:09 | |
or I seduced him enough to be able to go into the bar. | 1:10:09 | 1:10:12 | |
I think Frankie Howerd really fancied my husband. | 1:10:12 | 1:10:16 | |
He saw him and though, "That's rather nice." | 1:10:16 | 1:10:18 | |
Didn't realise it was my husband, I suppose. | 1:10:18 | 1:10:20 | |
And I remember him chasing Patrick out of the club, | 1:10:20 | 1:10:23 | |
and I remember us running round and round | 1:10:23 | 1:10:26 | |
trying to get away, and giggling. | 1:10:26 | 1:10:29 | |
I mean, I suppose we'd all had a little bit of wine. | 1:10:29 | 1:10:31 | |
You mustn't take any notice of her because she's...she can't help it. | 1:10:31 | 1:10:35 | |
She's at a funny time of life, you know. She's very difficult. | 1:10:35 | 1:10:37 | |
Mind you, she has a point. | 1:10:37 | 1:10:39 | |
Actors in the BBC bar - | 1:10:39 | 1:10:41 | |
you've never seen so many moths flying out of wallets, you know. | 1:10:41 | 1:10:44 | |
I loved Jon Pertwee dearly, | 1:10:44 | 1:10:46 | |
but he did find it very hard sometimes to shout a round. | 1:10:46 | 1:10:50 | |
Sorry, could...please people keep out of my eyeline? | 1:10:51 | 1:10:53 | |
Dancing about. Please, it's terribly difficult. | 1:10:53 | 1:10:56 | |
Tom Baker, who was my Doctor, | 1:10:56 | 1:10:58 | |
would be the first with his hand in his pocket. | 1:10:58 | 1:11:01 | |
Doubles all round, all the time. | 1:11:01 | 1:11:03 | |
Even if you had an orange juice, he'd buy you a double. | 1:11:03 | 1:11:06 | |
We are still running recording. | 1:11:06 | 1:11:08 | |
I remember when the head of make-up was very much the worse for wear, | 1:11:08 | 1:11:11 | |
and we really should have taken her car keys from her, | 1:11:11 | 1:11:14 | |
but it was kind of before you did those very sensible things, | 1:11:14 | 1:11:18 | |
and she went up, collected her car from the multi-storey car park, | 1:11:18 | 1:11:21 | |
and I think she hit about 50 cars before she exited the car park. | 1:11:21 | 1:11:26 | |
It had an atmosphere, I tell you. It was a proper old club. | 1:11:27 | 1:11:31 | |
No, but seriously, gagging aside, it was a super show, I thought. | 1:11:31 | 1:11:34 | |
-There you are, Richie! -There we are! Drinks all round. | 1:11:34 | 1:11:37 | |
It was a marketplace, and it was there | 1:11:40 | 1:11:42 | |
that you ingratiated yourself with a producer | 1:11:42 | 1:11:46 | |
in order to get yourself onto the very best of shows. | 1:11:46 | 1:11:50 | |
The man, Eddie, the man who brought Keith Harris and Orville into Television Centre. | 1:11:50 | 1:11:54 | |
The nearest thing that I've got to family. | 1:11:54 | 1:11:56 | |
Oh, sod off, you old queen! | 1:11:56 | 1:11:59 | |
Ohhh, up yours, you rancid, dribbling zit. | 1:11:59 | 1:12:03 | |
Yeah! Screw you, you complacent, misogynistic bumsplat. | 1:12:03 | 1:12:08 | |
I got my first job in the BBC Club. | 1:12:10 | 1:12:12 | |
I went down to have a drink with somebody I'd met. | 1:12:12 | 1:12:15 | |
She said, "Ned Sherrin's looking for a researcher." | 1:12:15 | 1:12:17 | |
I said, "Stay where you are," ran up to the sixth floor, | 1:12:17 | 1:12:20 | |
wrote out my letter of application. | 1:12:20 | 1:12:23 | |
Esther, that wasn't in the script. You're ad-libbing. | 1:12:23 | 1:12:26 | |
And got the job, thanks to the BBC Club. | 1:12:26 | 1:12:29 | |
Do you mind if we carry on? | 1:12:29 | 1:12:31 | |
One day, as a young assistant floor manager, | 1:12:31 | 1:12:34 | |
I went to the lift, main lifts, to go up to the bar, | 1:12:34 | 1:12:37 | |
and the doors opened, and I walked in, and I was facing | 1:12:37 | 1:12:40 | |
this very tall man and this short man. | 1:12:40 | 1:12:42 | |
It was Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, and they wound me up. | 1:12:42 | 1:12:46 | |
I mean, they used me. | 1:12:46 | 1:12:47 | |
"Hello, choochy-face!" "Oh, isn't he pretty?" | 1:12:47 | 1:12:50 | |
And the whole of that lift was in fits. | 1:12:50 | 1:12:52 | |
They were falling about with laughter. I walked out, | 1:12:52 | 1:12:54 | |
and they said, "Where are you going, choochy-face?" | 1:12:54 | 1:12:57 | |
And I said, "Oh, hopefully going to a bar," | 1:12:57 | 1:12:59 | |
not thinking, of course, that's exactly where they were going. | 1:12:59 | 1:13:02 | |
So all the way down to the bar, I had to suffer these two people | 1:13:02 | 1:13:05 | |
sending me up all the way. It was delightful. | 1:13:05 | 1:13:07 | |
Nice fellow, that. Lovely mover. | 1:13:07 | 1:13:09 | |
A year later, I'm standing in reception, waiting for the lift to go up to the bar, the doors open. | 1:13:10 | 1:13:14 | |
Exactly the same situation. | 1:13:14 | 1:13:16 | |
A crowd of people, Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise stood at the back. And they said, "Ooh, it's choochy face!" | 1:13:16 | 1:13:21 | |
Why is it you can never remember anybody's name? | 1:13:21 | 1:13:24 | |
I don't know, I think it's a gift. | 1:13:24 | 1:13:26 | |
Well, you brought me to the BBC club, | 1:13:26 | 1:13:28 | |
which I have to say looks alarmingly sterile. | 1:13:28 | 1:13:31 | |
In my day, things happened that were more than just drinking. | 1:13:31 | 1:13:36 | |
People came for a drink and ended up thinking up programme ideas. | 1:13:36 | 1:13:39 | |
'From the cultural ghetto of BBC2, we present Line-Up Review.' | 1:13:39 | 1:13:43 | |
I remember one occasion when the programme ideas | 1:13:43 | 1:13:46 | |
completely died and about six o'clock, | 1:13:46 | 1:13:48 | |
we had no programme and we were on the air at about 11. | 1:13:48 | 1:13:52 | |
So we came down here and there were a lot of comedy writers here. | 1:13:52 | 1:13:57 | |
Johnny Speight, Spike Milligan and so on, sitting around drinking. | 1:13:57 | 1:14:00 | |
"Will you come and talk about comedy writing?" "Certainly would." | 1:14:00 | 1:14:03 | |
As we'll be pointing out later on, comedy is a serious business. | 1:14:03 | 1:14:07 | |
-< GIGGLING -We're on the air... | 1:14:07 | 1:14:11 | |
That programme has become a legendary archive programme. | 1:14:11 | 1:14:14 | |
They didn't stay enormously sober, so it got quite boisterous. | 1:14:14 | 1:14:18 | |
-I am a comedy writer... -John, cool it for God's sake. | 1:14:18 | 1:14:21 | |
-But it was vigorous and memorable. -Come on, say what you mean. -I'm saying what I mean. | 1:14:21 | 1:14:26 | |
If you are writing in television, this is not an ivory tower... | 1:14:26 | 1:14:30 | |
Wherever I write, I write for myself. If I write... | 1:14:30 | 1:14:34 | |
And you get dodgy ratings and nobody asks you to write any more. | 1:14:34 | 1:14:38 | |
There you go, Johnny Speight. | 1:14:38 | 1:14:40 | |
I write for myself. I write for myself. I have to live... | 1:14:40 | 1:14:45 | |
The commissionaire was very lordly. | 1:14:45 | 1:14:47 | |
Eric, the commissionaire. Tall, balding... | 1:14:47 | 1:14:52 | |
a man with years upon him. | 1:14:52 | 1:14:55 | |
The big thing at the club used to be to get yourself paged. | 1:14:55 | 1:15:00 | |
"Mr Attenborough. Mr Attenborough." | 1:15:00 | 1:15:03 | |
"Janet Fielding, please come to the phone, your agent is on the phone." | 1:15:03 | 1:15:07 | |
It was abused. | 1:15:07 | 1:15:09 | |
And several times, Rupert Bear was summoned to the phone. | 1:15:09 | 1:15:13 | |
Mr Andrew Pandy to TC5. | 1:15:13 | 1:15:16 | |
Yes! We did a lot of that! | 1:15:16 | 1:15:20 | |
Calling for Mr G Raffe. | 1:15:20 | 1:15:22 | |
The cast of the Woodentops go to TC6 immediately. | 1:15:22 | 1:15:26 | |
We had some really disgusting ones, too. | 1:15:26 | 1:15:28 | |
Oh...that's right... Yes... | 1:15:28 | 1:15:31 | |
Mr Hugh Jampton, will he come to...? | 1:15:31 | 1:15:34 | |
It was quite cruel when... | 1:15:36 | 1:15:40 | |
He never ever allowed YOU to make him feel silly. | 1:15:40 | 1:15:42 | |
As far as he was concerned, he had been asked to call for G Raffe, | 1:15:42 | 1:15:45 | |
that was his job and he was going to call for them. | 1:15:45 | 1:15:48 | |
He was once asked, "Eric, were you at any time a butler?" | 1:15:48 | 1:15:52 | |
He drew himself up to his considerable height, | 1:15:52 | 1:15:55 | |
looked at the person and said, "Was I ever a butler? | 1:15:55 | 1:15:59 | |
"I HAD a butler." | 1:15:59 | 1:16:01 | |
There's another wire! | 1:16:04 | 1:16:05 | |
I was a big fan of Robert's, I watched Doom Watch all the time. | 1:16:05 | 1:16:09 | |
So when Babs told me she was going out with him, I was so pissed off! | 1:16:09 | 1:16:13 | |
What? | 1:16:13 | 1:16:16 | |
Don't pull it, follow it back to the terminal. | 1:16:16 | 1:16:19 | |
For years and years and years, I had been watching Top Of The Pops | 1:16:21 | 1:16:24 | |
and I would sit there and gawp. I always fancied the big blonde one. | 1:16:24 | 1:16:28 | |
What are they called - Pan's People, yeah? | 1:16:28 | 1:16:31 | |
There's one special one, beautiful Babs. | 1:16:31 | 1:16:33 | |
Don't know what her name is. | 1:16:33 | 1:16:35 | |
I used to chase after Babs. Never got anywhere. | 1:16:38 | 1:16:42 | |
I was always very jealous of Robert Powell. | 1:16:45 | 1:16:49 | |
BLOWS RASPBERRY | 1:16:49 | 1:16:50 | |
Nice guy, but very skinny. Chin him when I see him. | 1:16:50 | 1:16:53 | |
And I had a friend who was the floor manager on Sportsnight. | 1:16:53 | 1:16:57 | |
I went to the bar and we were chatting away. | 1:16:57 | 1:16:59 | |
I'm standing there and suddenly these five extraordinarily beautiful women walk in. They were Pan's People. | 1:16:59 | 1:17:04 | |
As we walked in, I think Robert muttered something to Chris. | 1:17:04 | 1:17:08 | |
"Look! Look! There's Pan's People!" And he went, "Yeah. | 1:17:08 | 1:17:11 | |
"They're in every Wednesday. This is the night they shoot." | 1:17:11 | 1:17:15 | |
"Is it?" "Do you want to meet them?" | 1:17:15 | 1:17:18 | |
I said, "No, no, no!" | 1:17:18 | 1:17:20 | |
He said, "Come on," dragged me over, | 1:17:20 | 1:17:22 | |
plonked me down on a little banquette with the girls. | 1:17:22 | 1:17:25 | |
I bought them a drink. | 1:17:25 | 1:17:27 | |
And Robert decided it would be quite fun to take us all out to dinner. | 1:17:27 | 1:17:32 | |
Somebody said, "How did you've the nerve to do it?" | 1:17:32 | 1:17:34 | |
I said, "I didn't have the nerve to take one." | 1:17:34 | 1:17:36 | |
# Sharing horizons that are new to us... # | 1:17:36 | 1:17:39 | |
It was Babs he had his eye on. | 1:17:39 | 1:17:41 | |
# Watching the signs along the way... # | 1:17:41 | 1:17:44 | |
But we were a bit naughty and said yes, he could take us all out | 1:17:44 | 1:17:48 | |
because we just wanted to see what would happen. | 1:17:48 | 1:17:52 | |
I remember one point in the evening, | 1:17:52 | 1:17:54 | |
he put his arm around my shoulder and I thought, "Ooh!" | 1:17:54 | 1:17:58 | |
We've been together ever since that night. | 1:18:00 | 1:18:02 | |
I have the Centre to thank for that. | 1:18:02 | 1:18:04 | |
To thank for 36 years of marriage and two kids. | 1:18:04 | 1:18:08 | |
Thank you, Television Centre. | 1:18:08 | 1:18:10 | |
This is BBC1. | 1:18:14 | 1:18:17 | |
And this is BBC2. | 1:18:17 | 1:18:19 | |
And this is Television Centre. | 1:18:19 | 1:18:21 | |
And this is David Dunsbury, a commissionaire on the main gate. | 1:18:21 | 1:18:25 | |
And this is the main gate. | 1:18:25 | 1:18:26 | |
Just recently, I was working on a programme | 1:18:27 | 1:18:30 | |
and somebody made a fantastic fluff. | 1:18:30 | 1:18:34 | |
I said, "Save that one for the Christmas tape." | 1:18:34 | 1:18:36 | |
And everyone looked at me. What is she talking about? | 1:18:36 | 1:18:40 | |
The BBC Christmas tape was an in-house thing. | 1:18:45 | 1:18:47 | |
It was done by the VT department every year. And this predates | 1:18:47 | 1:18:51 | |
It'll Be All Right On The Night or TV's Naughtiest Moments. | 1:18:51 | 1:18:55 | |
Every time anything went wrong, it would be on videotape if it was a recorded show. | 1:18:55 | 1:18:59 | |
And the VT editors had amazing memories for things that had gone wrong. | 1:18:59 | 1:19:03 | |
Happy Christmas to you all in VT! | 1:19:03 | 1:19:06 | |
Happy Christmas, VT. | 1:19:06 | 1:19:09 | |
You would do a clanger on a recording | 1:19:09 | 1:19:11 | |
and you'd go, "Merry Christmas VT". | 1:19:11 | 1:19:14 | |
You knew they were going to pick it up and they liked it with the tag! | 1:19:14 | 1:19:19 | |
-This is where we're happy to say "bollocks". -Crap, anything you like. | 1:19:19 | 1:19:23 | |
That was what you'd do with all those outtakes - save them for the Christmas VT. | 1:19:23 | 1:19:27 | |
A very merry Christmas to all in VT. | 1:19:27 | 1:19:31 | |
And now those are broadcast and whole series have been made of them. | 1:19:31 | 1:19:35 | |
We had our own secret version. | 1:19:35 | 1:19:37 | |
It's running down my willy. | 1:19:39 | 1:19:40 | |
Merry Christmas to the boys on VT. | 1:19:40 | 1:19:43 | |
Obviously bigger budget than us! | 1:19:43 | 1:19:44 | |
'They were fantastic things.' | 1:19:44 | 1:19:46 | |
Whole dance routines and people joining in. | 1:19:46 | 1:19:49 | |
Obviously, people behind the scenes doing most of the work. | 1:19:49 | 1:19:52 | |
# All the girls in make-up | 1:19:52 | 1:19:55 | |
# In the Club bar | 1:19:55 | 1:19:57 | |
# The ladies down at reception... # | 1:19:57 | 1:19:59 | |
A lot of it consisted of rather well-known actors swearing blindly. | 1:19:59 | 1:20:03 | |
Oh, for fuck's sake! | 1:20:05 | 1:20:07 | |
Now piss off! | 1:20:07 | 1:20:08 | |
Fuck you, you fucking bastard! You're not getting it again! That's it! | 1:20:08 | 1:20:12 | |
# Oh Barry Norman... # | 1:20:12 | 1:20:14 | |
Everyone at TV Centre, happy Merry Christmas. | 1:20:14 | 1:20:17 | |
That was very much part of the bonding experience. | 1:20:17 | 1:20:20 | |
You had arrived, you were part of the family. | 1:20:20 | 1:20:23 | |
# ..Patrick, Patrick | 1:20:23 | 1:20:25 | |
# Grooving with Michael Rodd... # | 1:20:25 | 1:20:27 | |
The managing director, Alistair Milne, | 1:20:27 | 1:20:29 | |
today appealed to all programme departments | 1:20:29 | 1:20:32 | |
to stop deliberately making mistakes in studios. | 1:20:32 | 1:20:35 | |
He said commendable though it was to try to make appearances on the VT Christmas tape, | 1:20:35 | 1:20:40 | |
viewers could no longer distinguish BBC programmes from those at ITV. | 1:20:40 | 1:20:44 | |
God, if it's going to get like this, we'll be here till midnight. | 1:20:45 | 1:20:49 | |
Eventually, I think it was stopped because some of the presenters didn't like being humiliated in this way. | 1:20:49 | 1:20:54 | |
Isn't it sad? | 1:20:54 | 1:20:55 | |
My favourite one is actually one of Tom Baker and John Cleese. | 1:20:56 | 1:21:01 | |
Tom, sorry to bother you, sign this for my little godson, will you? | 1:21:01 | 1:21:05 | |
He's a nice little kid, he's blind. | 1:21:05 | 1:21:06 | |
"He's blind." | 1:21:06 | 1:21:08 | |
And so Tom says, "Of course I will. Do you have a pen?" | 1:21:08 | 1:21:11 | |
-Have you got a pen? -I haven't. -He said "No, I don't." | 1:21:11 | 1:21:13 | |
Never mind, I'll tell him you signed it. | 1:21:13 | 1:21:16 | |
There was a bit of space behind the canteen | 1:21:21 | 1:21:24 | |
and I thought that would be ideal for the Blue Peter Garden. | 1:21:24 | 1:21:29 | |
Biddy, characteristically, | 1:21:29 | 1:21:30 | |
went in like Captain Cook, but with a Blue Peter flag, | 1:21:30 | 1:21:33 | |
and claimed it for Blue Peter. | 1:21:33 | 1:21:35 | |
You can guarantee the morning you were recording out here, | 1:21:35 | 1:21:38 | |
you'd open up the curtains and it would be hoying down with rain. | 1:21:38 | 1:21:41 | |
You mean, the minute you went out into the garden, | 1:21:43 | 1:21:47 | |
it would absolutely pelt down with rain, yes. | 1:21:47 | 1:21:50 | |
It's like a wind tunnel. We're just getting battered by the wind now. | 1:21:50 | 1:21:54 | |
They used to ring Biddy to say, | 1:21:54 | 1:21:56 | |
"Could we possibly use the Blue Peter Garden?" | 1:21:56 | 1:21:59 | |
But nobody had ever actually said it was ours. | 1:21:59 | 1:22:02 | |
I was directing the 50th anniversary of children's programmes. | 1:22:03 | 1:22:07 | |
And the climax of the programme was a huge firework display. | 1:22:07 | 1:22:11 | |
'So I said to Biddy,' | 1:22:11 | 1:22:14 | |
"Can we have the Blue Peter Garden to let the fireworks off in?" | 1:22:14 | 1:22:17 | |
And she said, "Yes, of course you can." She was very obliging. | 1:22:17 | 1:22:20 | |
'It was a huge fireworks display' | 1:22:20 | 1:22:23 | |
and the Blue Peter Garden was where the main bulk exploded. | 1:22:23 | 1:22:26 | |
'The next morning,' | 1:22:30 | 1:22:32 | |
the Blue Peter Garden looked like the Somme in the First World War. | 1:22:32 | 1:22:37 | |
Goodbye! | 1:22:39 | 1:22:41 | |
'Vandals broke into the Blue Peter Garden | 1:22:44 | 1:22:47 | |
'and caused rather a lot of damage. | 1:22:47 | 1:22:49 | |
'One really cruel thing they did was to pour fuel oil into the fishpond.' | 1:22:49 | 1:22:54 | |
'To be honest with you, it's really sad coming back here | 1:22:54 | 1:22:56 | |
'because I did so much work in this garden that is no longer here. | 1:22:56 | 1:23:00 | |
'We had a sunken garden, that's been buried.' | 1:23:00 | 1:23:04 | |
We had a nice little veg patch... The greenhouse isn't even there. | 1:23:04 | 1:23:08 | |
'We hope to repair the damage, | 1:23:08 | 1:23:09 | |
'but it's very sad to think that a few people take such pleasure...' | 1:23:09 | 1:23:13 | |
It's only a bloody garden! Turn it off! | 1:23:13 | 1:23:16 | |
Television Centre, from where this programme is broadcast, | 1:23:18 | 1:23:22 | |
has been put up for sale. | 1:23:22 | 1:23:24 | |
The 14-acre site in west London will be vacant by 2015 | 1:23:24 | 1:23:27 | |
after staff move to other sites. | 1:23:27 | 1:23:30 | |
It was an iconic building on its own, | 1:23:32 | 1:23:35 | |
with the cars in the middle. All that's changed. | 1:23:35 | 1:23:37 | |
And certainly, the inside has changed radically. | 1:23:37 | 1:23:40 | |
And, um... | 1:23:40 | 1:23:42 | |
It seems awfully corporate to me now. | 1:23:42 | 1:23:44 | |
Apparently, they can't actually find a studio for us. | 1:23:44 | 1:23:47 | |
Studio 1 is now going to be squash courts. | 1:23:47 | 1:23:51 | |
Studio 2 is executive saunas. | 1:23:51 | 1:23:53 | |
And Studio 3 is now "the Television Experience". | 1:23:53 | 1:23:57 | |
You can actually go and experience television and how it was made. | 1:23:57 | 1:24:02 | |
One word to describe Television Centre... | 1:24:03 | 1:24:06 | |
Nucleus. | 1:24:08 | 1:24:09 | |
Historic. | 1:24:09 | 1:24:11 | |
Opportunity. | 1:24:11 | 1:24:12 | |
Brilliant. | 1:24:12 | 1:24:14 | |
Ideal. | 1:24:14 | 1:24:15 | |
Unique. | 1:24:15 | 1:24:17 | |
Magic. | 1:24:17 | 1:24:18 | |
Champion. | 1:24:18 | 1:24:20 | |
'There'd always be friends in there and there'd always be gossip.' | 1:24:20 | 1:24:24 | |
Eccentric. | 1:24:24 | 1:24:25 | |
Terrific. | 1:24:25 | 1:24:26 | |
Excitement. | 1:24:26 | 1:24:28 | |
Excitement. | 1:24:28 | 1:24:29 | |
Exciting. | 1:24:29 | 1:24:31 | |
Extraordinary. | 1:24:31 | 1:24:33 | |
It's a hard one to try and think of. | 1:24:35 | 1:24:37 | |
Magnificent. | 1:24:39 | 1:24:40 | |
Luscious. | 1:24:40 | 1:24:42 | |
If I was being romantic, I'd say it echoes with the spirits of creative figures | 1:24:44 | 1:24:47 | |
who have worked here and other such nonsense. | 1:24:47 | 1:24:50 | |
Creative. | 1:24:50 | 1:24:52 | |
Dedicated. | 1:24:52 | 1:24:53 | |
Wondrous. | 1:24:53 | 1:24:54 | |
It's like coming home. | 1:24:54 | 1:24:56 | |
It played such a big part of our lives. | 1:24:57 | 1:25:00 | |
Youth. | 1:25:00 | 1:25:02 | |
Topping. | 1:25:02 | 1:25:03 | |
Romance. | 1:25:03 | 1:25:05 | |
'There's another wire!' | 1:25:05 | 1:25:07 | |
Drama. | 1:25:07 | 1:25:08 | |
Peg board. | 1:25:08 | 1:25:09 | |
Fun. | 1:25:09 | 1:25:11 | |
Fun. | 1:25:11 | 1:25:13 | |
-Warm. -Family. | 1:25:13 | 1:25:15 | |
Home. | 1:25:15 | 1:25:17 | |
Magical. | 1:25:18 | 1:25:20 | |
Wonderful. | 1:25:20 | 1:25:22 | |
Wonderland. | 1:25:22 | 1:25:23 | |
Wonderland. | 1:25:23 | 1:25:25 | |
Shangri-La. | 1:25:25 | 1:25:27 | |
'Those were such happy days. I was so happy.' | 1:25:27 | 1:25:32 | |
Iconic. | 1:25:32 | 1:25:33 | |
Influential. | 1:25:33 | 1:25:34 | |
Historic. | 1:25:34 | 1:25:36 | |
'Television Centre completely changed my life. | 1:25:36 | 1:25:40 | |
'I met my husband here, we had a daughter.' | 1:25:40 | 1:25:44 | |
Rose is called Rose after Rosemary Gill, | 1:25:44 | 1:25:46 | |
'the editor of that first programme, Swap Shop.' | 1:25:46 | 1:25:49 | |
It's a building I will really, really miss. It's got such an atmosphere. | 1:25:52 | 1:25:56 | |
It's my guess that, in a very short time, | 1:25:57 | 1:26:00 | |
they'll be making a programme in which Penelope Keith will return | 1:26:00 | 1:26:04 | |
to restore this building so that the BBC can return in splendour | 1:26:04 | 1:26:09 | |
to where they belong. | 1:26:09 | 1:26:11 | |
'I would like it to live on through the programmes that it produced' | 1:26:13 | 1:26:18 | |
more than the bricks and mortar. | 1:26:18 | 1:26:20 | |
When we worked here, we used to say, | 1:26:20 | 1:26:23 | |
they won't be happy, the administrators, | 1:26:23 | 1:26:27 | |
until they've closed down all these studios | 1:26:27 | 1:26:30 | |
and this whole complex can just be admin. | 1:26:30 | 1:26:33 | |
'Television Centre is full of the laughter and the anger' | 1:26:41 | 1:26:45 | |
and the crackle of making television. | 1:26:45 | 1:26:49 | |
There's nowhere I've ever been like it. | 1:26:49 | 1:26:53 | |
There will never be a building like this in the world again | 1:26:53 | 1:26:58 | |
responsible for so much broadcasting. | 1:26:58 | 1:27:00 | |
'It wasn't just a fun factory, | 1:27:06 | 1:27:07 | |
'it was just one of those best places in the world to work.' | 1:27:07 | 1:27:10 | |
'My whole career was created here. | 1:27:16 | 1:27:19 | |
'Without Television Centre, my life wouldn't have been nearly as good.' | 1:27:19 | 1:27:23 | |
I don't want to see it go. I feel I have to walk away and not look back. | 1:27:24 | 1:27:28 | |
# There was a time when the time didn't matter | 1:27:45 | 1:27:49 | |
# Only the time of day | 1:27:49 | 1:27:53 | |
# And living was living in hope which would never pass away | 1:27:53 | 1:27:58 | |
# Worry was a Monday morning | 1:28:00 | 1:28:04 | |
# When weekend was done | 1:28:04 | 1:28:07 | |
# Fear was the fear of being what we had become | 1:28:07 | 1:28:14 | |
# Oh, what happened to you? | 1:28:14 | 1:28:18 | |
# Whatever happened to me? | 1:28:18 | 1:28:22 | |
# And what became of the people we used to be? | 1:28:22 | 1:28:28 | |
# Tomorrow's almost over | 1:28:29 | 1:28:33 | |
# Today went by so fast | 1:28:33 | 1:28:36 | |
# Is the only thing to look forward to | 1:28:36 | 1:28:40 | |
# The past? # | 1:28:40 | 1:28:44 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 1:28:44 | 1:28:46 |