Category: Drama

An Actor’s Life for Me

Photos by Lynda Kettle, no reproduction without permission.

Lynda Kettle was a Production Designer at BBC Pebble Mill, working on factual, entertainment and drama shows in studio and on location.  The photos were taken as records of the Sets, and in some you can just see the studio lights over the top of the flats.

Previously a Radio 4 comedy, ‘An Actor’s Life for Me’ was a  6 part television drama series recorded in Pebble Mill Studio A and outside broadcast, and transmitted in 1991.  The drama starred John Gordon Sinclair, who played Robert Neilson, a struggling actor with an incompetent agent, Desmond, played by Victor Spinetti.  Gina McKee played his teacher girlfriend, Sue.  Lynn Scott-Farrell played the fourth character, Brenda.  The comedy was directed and produced by Bryan Izzard.  ‘An Actor’s Life for Me’ was a series hosted at Pebble Mill, but produced out of London.

Production Designer, Lynda Kettle also worked as a theatre designer and an artist, and now runs courses from her art studio http://www.lynda-kettle.com.  She is a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, Birmingham Water Colour Society. Midland Pastel Society and Birmingham Art Circle . She exhibits her paintings several times a year at selected galleries.


The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence adaptation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photographs copyright of Willoughby Gullachsen, no reproduction without permission.  The Rainbow was a 3 part adaptation, by Anne Devlin, of the D.H. Lawrence novel.  It was produced at Pebble Mill by Chris Parr and directed by Stuart Burge.  Transmitted in 1988 it featured Imogen Stubbs as Ursula; other members of the cast included Tom Bell, Kate Buffery, Jon Finch, Martin Wenner, Jane Gurnet, Clare Holman and Eileen Way.  It was filmed on location in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

 

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Dangerfield

Photos from drama producer Bev Dartnall, not to be reproduced without permission.

Dangerfield was a police surgeon drama series which started in 1995, and ran until 1999. Paul Dangerfield, the police surgeon, was played by Nigel Le Vaillant, with Joanna Stevens being played by Amanda Redman.  In later series Nigel Havers played the lead.  Chris Parr was the Executive Producer.  Dangerfield was produced at Pebble Mill.

It is Kenilworth Castle which is shown in a couple of the photos.

Martin Chuzzlewit – photos from Jo Mainwaring

Photos provided by Jo Mainwaring, not to be reproduced without permission.

Martin Chuzzlewit was a 6 part dramatisation of the Charles Dickens novel, adapted by author David Lodge.  It was transmitted in 1994 on BBC 1.  Produced by Chris Parr and Directed by Pedr James, it starred Paul Scofield, Tom Wilkinson, Emma Chambers, Philip Franks, Keith Allen, Pete Postlethwaite, Julia Sawahla and Lynda Bellingham.  The story concentrates on the wealthy Chuzzlewit brothers and their contrasting destinies.

‘All Creatures Great & Small’ – Make Up Artist, Maggie Thomas

Maggie Thomas Make-up Artist

The First Series Of ‘All Creatures’

Christopher Timothy, Peter Davison and Carol Drinkwater were with us all the time, since most of the storylines required them to be ready for their scenes all day. My main responsibility was Chris and Carol. How lucky was that? They soon became my dearest friends and keeping Chris’s period haircut neat was really the most make-up I needed to do for him. We were really aiming for the totally natural country look and with Carol it was a matter of controlling her beautiful natural curls into a slightly more old- fashioned look. So, apart from hats on and off and making sure that wind-blown pieces of hair were in the same place for continuity, the actual make-up job seemed pretty minimal, until we realised that every storyline had an injured animal in it and that my Designer and I would, as far as possible, be doing them!

What we didn’t know was that every animal injury in the storyline would require a lot of attention from the Make- up Department. It soon became very clear that we were going to have our work cut out to achieve some believable looking animal injuries and other problems that I will now relate to you. Another lovely job that came our way was mud – on and off at all relevant times, i.e. when an artiste slipped over in a cowshed or an animal had a sudden and unexpected movement that made the artiste get dirty. So, at the start of every day we had to mix up our bucket of artificial mud that went everywhere with us, just in case! That was not the worst thing we had to produce. Every day the script would throw up things like puss in the horse’s hoof which had us propositioning the catering wagon for a mixture of mustard and mayonnaise which we then put into the hole in the horse’s hoof that the real vet Jack Watkins had cut out in readiness and then we put some of the horny hoof bits back over it so that when Chris (Mr. Herriot) started to use the hoof implement the puss would ooze out.

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