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Poldark – from ‘Dishing the Dirt’ by Maggie Thomas (make up artist)

POLDARK

We were a large number of make-up personnel with such a lot of main actors as well as hordes of supporting artistes. So we were all booked into pubs in the area and our make-up room was in the main hotel/pub in Lostwithiel. They were such happy days. The cast were a great bunch of people and made the long hours of work very enjoyable, as well as being in the glorious Cornish countryside in spring. The massive scale set-ups on a popular series like Poldark come as close to feature films as it is possible to get for television. There are all the period carriages and people who own and usually drive them who have to be made-up with facial hair and tie-backs and costumes. This is a whole way of life for them and they are in constant demand. They spend their whole lives around film sets. Their skill in manoeuvring the huge horses and carts, wagons and carriages is spectacular, especially when they have to keep doing take after take and getting the animal and vehicle back on their marks to go again, involving the most intricate manoeuvring. I think there are very few people left who can take over such work.

When we returned to Pebble Mill to start preparing for studio, I found I was to be doing a 100-year make-up on one of the cast. Fortunately, she was an older actress, which gave me a good base to work with and in those days we always had time to have some practice make-up before the day; but the hour-long make-up, layering fine plastic especially made for ageing make-up and drying each layer with a hairdryer, is very unpleasant for the actress and then the removal at the end is almost worse.

When we started on the scenes in studio we had some extra characters who had not been used on film and one of these artistes was Christopher Biggins, who was playing the part of a very frisky ‘Reverend’ Ossie Whitworth, who was up to no good with one of the Fair Ladies in the story. We, of course, had no idea that he would eventually become a National Treasure in I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, but even way back then his wonderful disposition shone out. He was the sunniest, most cheerful person and had the most uplifting effect on everyone around him. He is also a great entertainer and there was never a dull moment when Biggie was in the make-up room; he used to have us all crying with laughter. I was not surprised to see him overcome such ghastly challenges in the jungle and become chosen as The King by the whole country. It couldn’t happen to a nicer chap.

(from ‘Dishing the Dirt’ by Maggie Thomas available on Amazon authors on line)

Pebble Mill at One – Salman Rushdie. Memories of Make Up artist, Maggie Thomas

Salman Rushdie on Pebble Mill at One

One day Salman Rushdie came to Pebble Mill to talk about his new book. I was working on Pebble Mill at One that day. I didn’t know anything about this man in my make-upchair; we had such a variety of people on the programme and many of them were not famous, so he was just another shiny head to powder. As always I was in the make-up room right up until we went on air and, as it was live, it was quite a challenge to find a corner on the sidelines and keep out of shot, ready to step in if any sweat appeared on the presenters when the cameras were not on them, and dab them with the cool chamois. On this day, when I looked outside I could see swarms of strangely dressed men with banners streaming into Pebble Mill Road . Even then I was too busy concentrating on my work to pay much attention. It was only when the item interviewing Salman Rushdie came on that this huge crowd of them outside started advancing on the building, shaking their fists and waving their banners. It was the most chilling experience of my life, partly because of the huge number of them and partly because there seemed nothing to stop them entering the building. Everyone was frozen to the spot and the poor interviewer struggled to appear as though nothing was happening. Fortunately, one of our security guards must have phoned the police and they soon arrived in some numbers and quelled the advance of the hordes. It wasn’t until I saw the local news that evening that the whole story was explained. His book had made some insulting remarks about their religion and they had come to protest. I have often wondered why a man of letters and supposed intelligence such as he didn’t realise that his ‘Satanic Verses’ would upset his fellow countrymen and how much it has cost this country to protect him from them. How unsuspecting we were in those days that this would become the norm.

From ‘Dishing the Dirt’ by Maggie Thomas available from Amazon authors on line

Boys from the Blackstuff – photos from Make-up Artist Maggie Thomas

Continuity polaroids of Bernard Hill, playing Yosser, in Boys from the Blackstuff. Photos by Maggie Thomas, no reproduction without permission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These photos are not to be reproduced without permission.

Boys from the Blackstuff was transmitted in 1982, and consisted of 5 x 55 min episodes.  It was produced by Michael Wearing, directed by Philip Saville, and written by Alan Bleasdale.  The cast included Bernard Hill as Yosser Hughes, Michael Angelis as Chrissie Todd, Peter Kerrigan as George Malone, and Julie Walters as Angie Todd, with Tom Georgeson as Dixie Dean and Alan Igbon as Loggo Lomond.

The series continued the original Black Stuff ‘Play for Today’ group of characters, and focussed on unemployment and poverty in Liverpool at the height of Thatcherism.

It was a particular challenge for make up artist Maggie Thomas, as Yosser (Bernard Hill) had a series of injuries which had to partially heal, before new injuries were added, making continuity difficult.

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The Deep Concern – Richard Callanan

The Deep Concern.

I directed four episodes of this six-parter and it was a memorable fiasco!

The problems I believe began with the series Gangsters which David Rose had produced the previous year. It had been very successful critically but had also drawn a lot of flak for the violence and for the portrayal of Birmingham as a gangster city. David felt that he had to rein in and chose to commission a conventional country house mystery serial and turned to his former colleague (and onetime Head of BBC Drama Series) Elwyn Jones to write it. Elwyn Jones was a master of television series writing with a long line of credits including Z Cars andSoftly Softly.

David offered the scripts to several high-flying Directors who all turned the job down. I was working at the time in the Regional Drama script department at Pebble Mill with Michael Wearing and Peter Ansorge. I was not a member of their staff but was “on attachment” from my post as producer/director at the Open University. I was there to gain experience and explore possible career paths. At the OU I had directed several studio based literary dramas but had no experience of popular television and very little experience of filming.

I feigned an interest in the scripts to David Rose and, without actually lying, I convinced him that I could do a good job directing them. It was typical of David’s adventurous approach that he took the risk of employing me, a complete novice in the field, rather than turning to an established director who would have doubtless done a competent job. If he could not have a rising star as a director, he would choose an unknown and live dangerously.

Once appointed, I set about working on the scripts with Michael Wearing. They were, frankly, dreadful. Full of cardboard cut-out characters, glib dialogue and unbelievable plot twists. There were whole boxes of misleading red herrings. The story centred on a group of international celebrities, all leaders in their field, who were brought together for a corporate conference in an English country estate. A dead body is found at the end of the first episode and I think there was a body per episode after that. I can’t remember who done it!

Elwyn Jones was extremely unwilling to do rewrites and provided only a few minor alterations in answer to our requests.  Michael Wearing and myself arrived one day at his remote cottage in Wales for a script meeting. He opened the first bottle of fine claret at 10 am! He would not rewrite and he would not let us rewrite but he did let us cut. And we cut as much as we could. But despite stretching out the action to fill what had been cut we still under-ran. One episode (Ep 5, I think) was so short that it had to have a transmission slot which was a full five minutes shorter than planned.

The shoot was divided between location and studio and it would probably be a consensual feeling to describe it as “unpleasant”. As often happens with a bad script, the cast were embarrassed to be doing it and found scapegoats to blame for being there! The scapegoats included the catering and their fellow actors. I was far too inexperienced to deal with the egos that arose. Resentment built over the duration of the shoot; some actors were literally not talking to each other by the end of it.

And yet there was a group within the cast, philosophical and amused by their predicament, who could laugh about it and enjoy the experience despite the pain. I remember them all fondly.

Obviously the bosses in London didn’t like the series much and sat on it for several months before scheduling it in mid-summer. It got poor audience figures and was panned by the critics. Clive James reviewed it in The Observer and finished his review (I’m quoting from memory) “At the end of the first episode it is discovered that all the car keys have been stolen. So nobody can escape. Except us. Click.”

I’m sorry to say I have no photos from the shoot or any other souvenirs. I do remember The Birmingham Post taking photographs of our leading ladies (Katherine Schofield, Beth Porter, Yolande Bavan)  on a vintage car.

Multiculturalism

 

Multiculturalism in drama at Pebble Mill

5- Multiculturalism from pebblemill on Vimeo.

This specially recorded video includes interviews with Peter Ansorge, Tara Prem, Philip Saville, David Rose and Barry Hanson. It discusses how the English Regions Drama Department at Pebble Mill in the 1970s was amongst the first to develop dramas which included multicultural stories. A Touch of Eastern Promise, by Tara Prem, was the first British drama with an entirely Asian cast, and Gangsters portrayed multicultural themes prevalent in Birmingham at the time.