Julia Versluis – What Was Pebble Mill?

Producer Choice Explained

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This article was published in the Midlands News, the internal newsletter, in June 1992. Roger Waugh, the Head of Resources sets out to explain the principles behind, Director General, John Birt’s ‘Producer Choice’.

‘Producer Choice’ split off the Resource departments from Production, and resulted in mass redundancies in Resources. Redundancies are hinted at in this article, but the position wasn’t clear in 1992.

Thanks for Stuart Gandy for sharing this edition of Midlands News.

The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Carolyn Davies: ‘Still commonly used in inverted commas to mean ‘complete disaster’…’

Malcolm Hickman: ‘I remember I had to establish each business units’ asset size so they could be charged. A mammoth task.’

Mark Holdstock: ‘I couldn’t decide who was the worse DG. Birt or Mark Thompson producer choice was a completely stupid idea. When they started charging for record loans, we quickly worked out that it was much cheaper to pop into town to HMV and buy the disc.’

Steve Peacock: ‘Idiotic and divisive policy. Decimated the craft base and did us producers no favours at all.’

Caroline Feldon Parsons: ‘Producer Choice. Leading to much less actual sensible choice than a producer had before it was implemented. Lovely.’

Julia Versluis: ‘Until you had to pay for a service and discover it was three times more expensive this way.’

Julie Hill: ‘I jumped ship before that hideous “initiative” was enforced. Lost out on any redundancy though!’

Vicky King: ‘I remember it well, working in HR, one of the biggest change programmes I’ve worked on.’

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A Date with Fate

Photo by production designer Lynda Kettle, no reproduction without permission

(Thanks to Steve Weddle and Julia Versluis for the information here about A Date With Fate. The BBC1 Daytime series was transmitted in May and June 1998, at 9 or 10am).

“A Date With Fate is possibly the world’s only Astrology based Game Show, starring Jonathon Cainer and future [now former] Tory Minister, Esther McVey. Contestants used to get a consolation Date With Fate plate.

Jonathan Cainer, sadly passed away not that long ago. He was massively rich as a result of his astrology telephone lines, and at the time of recording was by his own admission searching for a new wife. One particular member of the production team was in his sights, but the planets obviously weren’t suitably aligned.”

Steve Weddle

“A Date With Fate was so funny. I remember we lost power in the studio. Jonathan Cainer was standing next to me while I was doing autocue and said something along the lines of, “well you know why we lost power? It was due to Saturn being in conjunction with Jupiter” – all I could think was it would have been helpful for him to have told us all before it happened but I just smiled and waited for the power to come back on!”

Julia Versluis

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All Over The Shop

Thanks to Ian Collins for making this titles grab of the series, All Over The Shop available.

All Over The Shop was a shopping and consumer panel game show, presented by Paul Ross, in 1997-9. Panelists included actors and celebrities. It went out on BBC1 Daytime at 12.25pm. The producer was Caroline Jones, and the exec, Steve Weddle.

The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Steve Weddle: ‘It was a London creation – the second series was shipped in to Pebble Mill for reasons I can’t recall. So we inherited the format – flimsy, to say the least – and tried to make a half decent telly show out of it. I think we just about succeeded, but there was so much politics behind the scenes,given the half London/ half Birmingham set up. It did however open up channels for some PM production people to work in Events in London, especially Veronica Butt.’

Veronica Butt: ‘Linda Flavell Michelle Furey Ellena Stojanovic Yvonne Stevenson Julia Versluis Merrick Simmonds, Andrea Miller, Caroline Jones and Steve Weddle worked on it’

Julia Versluis: ‘I had fun trying to get Paul’s script onto all those lovely cards. Hours of fun! as well as trying to dodge the rest of the office printing on my labels before I could shout “no-one print” I do believe I have a photo of Veronica Butt, Paul Ross and myself at the end of show BBQ. I’ll see if I can find it.’

Caroline Jones: ‘Wow now that’s a blast from the past clearing all those logos was a copyright nightmare and all the guest who suddenly developed allergies to the items slated for the taste tests! Weird commission shipped up from London to stop us from closing the first time!’

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Style Challenge

Photo from Julia Versluis, no reproduction without permission.

Style Challenge was a BBC 1 Daytime make-over show, which ran on weekday mornings from 1996-8. Contributors had a clothes, hair and make-up makeover. The key format point was a revolving mirror, meaning that the contributors could not see their transformation until the very end of the show.

The presenters of the show included John Leslie (centre in the photo), Kirsty Young, Caryn Franklin, Shauna Lowry and Oz Clarke. The stylists included Trevor Sorbie, Ollie Picton Jones, Charles Worthington (on the left-handside in black), Hilary Alexander (next to Charles Worthington),Anthony Mascolo, Teresa Fairminer, Robert Frampton (at the front), Patrick Cameron, and Karen Mason.

Children in Need – Alice in Wonderland

Thanks to Julia Versluis for sharing this photo, of her as Alice in Wonderland, joined by Jill Bent as the Mad Hatter, manning the phone lines for Children in Need.