Bill Nighy – What Was Pebble Mill?

This publicity photograph, of Kate Nelligan and Bill Nighy is from the Play for Today: Dreams of Leaving, transmitted on 17th January 1980.

Below is the entry from the Radio Times, from the BBC Genome project:

‘A film by DAVID HARE
William came to work in Fleet Street in 1971. London meant girls, as many girls as he could find. Then he met Caroline and so it began, that very strange summer … Caroline said the best of her life.
Music NICK BICAT
Film cameraman MICHAEL Williams. Film editor MIKE HALL
Designer MICHAEL EDWARDS. Script editor ROGER GREGORY. Producer DAVID ROSE. Written and directed by DAVID HARE
BBC Birmingham

Contributors:
William: Bill Nighy
Caroline: Kate Nelligan
Andrew: Andrew Seear
Xan: Mel Smith
Stievel: Johnny Shannon
Mrs Alexander: Helen Lindsay
Aaron: Julian Littman
Colin: Charles Dance
Robert: Hilton McRae
Gallery owner: Tony Mathews
Keith: Gary Holton
Keith’s lawyer: Raymond Brody
Drunken journalist: David Ryall
Miss Collins: Annie Hayes
Doctor: George Raistrick
Laura: Maria Harper’

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/bb14c4a2d19c4195a6367a2812da9221

The following comment was left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Steve Saunderson: ‘I was Focus-Puller on this and did a bit of Operating too. DOP was Mike Williams ( RIP ) and John Kenway was the main Operator. Mainly all night shoots in Soho. I think it was Bill Chesneau on Sound from Ealing Studios. Remember playing “air-guitar” with Bill Nighy to “My Sharona”, he never could get the right chords.’

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This photo is from the 1982 Pebble Mill Play for Today, Under the Skin. Peter Ansorge was the producer and Tony Smith the director. Janey Preger wrote the script, with lighting by Alec Robson and Sally Engelbach as production designer.

The play was about three women involved in different ways in the women’s movement.

The drama starred: Frances Tomelty, Barbara Rosenblatt, Imogen Bickford-Smith, Jacqueline Tong, Bill Nighy, Michael. J. Jackson, George Costigan, and Michele Winstanley.

Janice Rider was the costume designer.

Thanks to Janice Rider for sharing the photograph.

The following information was added on the Pebble Mill Facebook Page:

Peter Ansorge: Janey Preger wrote three wonderful TV dramas for us at Pebble Mill. The other two were Fattening Frogs For Snakes and the glorious Bobby Wants To Meet Me. The latter about a journo meeting his god – Bob Dylan – at Earls Court, also directed by Tony Smith.