Gosta Green – Page 3 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Yesterday’s Enemy 1958

Gordon Jackson and Alex Scott in ‘Yesterday’s Enemy’. Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

Thanks to Joyce Hawkins for sharing this photo. This was the first production that Joyce worked on in the Costume department.

Yesterday’s Enemy starred Gordon Jackson and Alex Scott. It was written by Peter R Newman, and produced by Chloe Gibson. The designer was John Cooper. The drama was transmitted on 14th October, 1958, and was produced at Gosta Green, presumably in the studio. It was set during the Burma campaign of WWII.

Interestingly the television play spurred a Hammer Films production of Yesterday’s Enemy, in 1959, with Gordon Jackson playing the same role.

Below is the cast list from the Radio Times:

Japanese Officer: Otokichi Ikeda
Burmese informer: Andy Ho
Sergeant Ian McKenzie: Gordon Jackson
Captain Alan Langdon: Alex Scott
Second Lieutenant Paul Hastings: Barry Foster
Private Wilson: David Webb
First Private: Tom Watson
The Doctor: Alan Rowe
The Padre: Manning Wilson
Max Turner, war correspondent: John Sharplin
Second Private: Graham Lines
Brigadier Wilmont: Hugh Morton
Corporal Patrick: Terence Brook
Japanese Private: Burt Kwouk
Major Yamazaki: Lee Montague
British and Japanese soldiers: [uncredited]

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Top of the Form – from Gosta Green

Here are a couple of script pages from an outside broadcast of the quiz show Top of the Form, mixed at Gosta Green in 1964. The show started as a radio quiz in 1948, and finished in 1986, with the television version running between 1962-1976.

Thanks to Malcolm Hickman for finding and sharing the scripts.

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

Pete Simpkin: ‘Fascinating…seems odd now that they were still using the term ‘telerecording’ which referred to the original system of recording of programmes onto a film camera pointing at a monitor! It was still in use in London at the time!’

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Prometheus: The Life of Balzac 1975

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Prometheus: Life of Balzac, by Andre Maurois, was adapted for television by David Turner. It was transmitted in autumn 1975 on BBC2. The producer was Richard Beynon, with director, Joan Craft. Derek Hobday was lighting director, with Lennox Phillips as script editor, and Margaret Peacock, the designer. Joyce Hawkins was costume designer, and the photograph is made available by Joyce.

The photo shows Nicky Henson as Balzac, with Nanette Newman playing Countess Even Hanska.

The series would have been recorded in Studio A at Pebble Mill.

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Hilda Lessways 1959

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Thanks to costume designer, Joyce Hawkins, for making this photograph of Judi Dench, playing Hilda Lessways, in the eponymous role, in the 1959 studio drama, from Gosta Green, available. Hilda Lessways was a six part adaptation of Arnold Bennett’s novel, ‘Clayhanger’. It was produced by Peter Dews, dramatised by Michael Voysey, and designed by Margaret Peacock. Note that Violet Carson, who went on to become Ena Sharples in Coronation Street, played the character, Auntie Hamps.

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

Synopsis

A serial in six parts.
Based on ‘Clayhanger’ and ‘Hilda Lessways’ by Arnold Bennett.
Dramatised by Michael Voysey.

[Starring] Judi Dench, William Squire
With Brian Smith, Violet Carson
From the BBC’s Midland television studio

Contributors

Author: Arnold Bennett
Dramatised by: Michael Voysey
Producer: Peter Dews
Designer: Margaret Peacock

Hilda Lessways: Judi Dench
Mrs Lessways: Beatrice Varley
Mrs Grant: Alison Bayley
Clerk: Philip Garston-Jones
George Cannon: William Squire
Florrie Bagster: Jacqueline Wilson
Janet Orgreave: Miranda Connell
Sarah Galley: Nancie Jackson
Mr Karkeek: David Lytton
Edwin Clayhanger: Brian Smith
Auntie Hamps: Violet Carson
Maggie Clayhanger: Eileen Atkins
Darius Clayhanger: Chris Gittins
Post Boy: Paul Taylor

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/023f8773118e4d5e985029334e7d5f1a

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All Memories Great and Small – part 4 Joyce Hawkins

Excerpt from “All Memories Great & Small” by Oliver Crocker

Memories from Joyce Hawkins (Senior Costume Supervisor)

‘I remember Head of Planning, Eric Holmes, asking me if my department would be able to cope with a long-running series based on the James Herriot books. Thirteen years before Pebble Mill, I was the Midland region’s only costume designer. I was based at the Gosta Green Studio, from where I designed 64 plays, 4 serials, 8 series and 5 twice-weekly “Soaps” all in and around Birmingham. All rehearsal rooms and costume suppliers are based in London, so I was well aware of the complexities posed by rehearsing in London, recording in Birmingham and filming in Yorkshire, but now I had a Staff of very talented people, so of course I told Eric “Yes”.

60 cast and crew have shared their memories for this new book, which is available to preorder now from Miwk – http://bit.ly/2d7p5ts

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Joyce Hawkins speaking at mac screening 2016

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