Shakespeare or Bust – Tara Prem

The following blog is part of an interview I recorded with English Regions Drama Department Script Writer and Producer, Tara Prem.  The English Regions Drama Department was innovative, and sometimes used unusual methods, as described here, talking about the 1973, Play for Today – ‘Shakespeare or Bust’ .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Peter Terson wrote ‘The Fishing Party’ and then ‘Shakespeare or Bust’ and ‘Three for the Fancy’.   He wrote ‘The Fishing Party’ and then he said he wanted to have the three guys go to Stratford on a narrowboat by canal.  So David (Rose) said why don’t you do the journey and see how you get on.  So he did the journey and he would write as he went.  I was script editor and my job was that he’d get to a lock and use the lock-keeper’s phone and say – ‘I’ve got another 30 pages, you can come and get them’.  And that’s how the thing came.  And when I’d got all the pages together he said he’d got to the end and they didn’t get into the theatre, and he decided they would see ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’ actors Richard Johnson and Janet Suzman on the balcony, and somehow this would be how the piece ended – that although they didn’t get into the theatre, because there were no seats, that they would get the Shakespeare from them.  But Peter said they meet them – and then you sort it out.  So that’s how much freedom again.   Firstly the idea of just going to get 30 pages and putting several lots of 30 pages until you got to the end, and then sorting it all out, as a method! Obviously I’d give it to David, and everybody would read it, but there was no committee to decide.  If it had been dreadful I suppose, somebody could have said we’re not going to do this, but otherwise the idea was that when we’d got enough pages to make the whole script, the whole filming process would crank into action, and off we’d go!’

Tara Prem, Script Editor ‘Shakespeare or Bust’

‘Shakespeare or Bust’ starred Brian Glover, Ray Mort, Douglas Livingstone, and Frank Woodfield.

 

Archive Screening Event

Had an interesting day today at the Archive Screening Event at the School of Art in Margaret Street.  We showed several Pebble Mill dramas: A Touch of Eastern Promise by Tara Prem, A Box of Swan by Alan David Price and Fellow Traveller by Michael Eaton.   Tara Prem and Michael Eaton were able to join us and it was fascinating to hear from them about how the dramas came about.

Fellow Traveller is set in the McCarthy era in the US, when many Hollywood film makers were blacklisted for their Communist sympathies.  Some screen writers who couldn’t write in the States resorted to working for British television, particularly ITV’s highly successful Robin Hood series.  Fellow Traveller is the story of a Jewish writer: Asa Kaufman, who flees to Britain and writes several Robin Hood episodes.

Michael Eaton wrote Fellow Traveller as a speculative script which he sent to HBO.  The BBC had apparently already turned it down.  Two weeks later HBO asked him to come across to the States.  He said that going there was like having a masterclass in script writing.  He was told that what he’d submitted was a two Act drama, and what it needed to be was a three Act drama – he hadn’t come across the three Act structure before.  The original version finished with Asa Kaufman finding out how he had been betrayed and by whom, but unable to do anything about it.  He then had to write a third Act where Kaufman confronted Leavey, which gave a much more satisfying conclusion.

Fellow Taveller was a three way co-production between HBO, BBC Pebble Mill and the BFI.  It was shot on 35mm film, and had some theatrical release before being transmitted on BBC 2.  It was the only TV film made at Pebble Mill. HBO apparently needed two different versions – one shorter and without any of the scenes containing nudity or sex, and one longer than the BBC version with some additional scenes in. Greg Miller, who edited the film in Soho, told us about how HBO had become quite demanding about their different versions quite late in the day.  Michael Wearing produced the film and Philip Saville, who had worked with Michael Wearing on Boys from the Blackstuff, was the director.

Vanessa

Free Screening Event – Sat 5 March

Archive Event Flier

Screening Schedule

 

Film info


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday 5 March, Birmingham City University are holding a free screening event at the School of Art in Margaret Street, very near the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.  The event is open to the public, and it would be great to see as many people there as possible, so please come along if you can.

We’ll be screening three BBC Pebble Mill dramas: Fellow Traveller, (the only TV film made at Pebble Mill) TX 1991, which will be introduced by Exec Producer Michael Wearing and writer Michael Eaton; A Box of Swan , starring Adrian Dunbar and Pete Postlethwaite, TX 1990; and A Touch of Eastern Promise, TX 1973, which will be introduced by writer Tara Prem and script editor Peter Ansorge.

There will also be the opportunity to see excerpts from a Philip Donnellan documentary made in Birmingham before the building of Pebble Mill: Joe the Chainsmith.

 

 

 

The schedule for the screenings is as follows:

11am-12pm and 2pm-3pm: ‘A Touch of Eastern Promise’ (1973) & ‘A Box of Swan’ (1990)

12pm-1pm: ‘Joe the Chainsmith’ (1958) & ‘A Story of Cradley Heath’ (2010)

1pm-2pm: ‘Made in Birmingham’ (2010).

3pm-4.30pm:            ‘Fellow Traveller’ (1991 )

 

I hope to see you at the event on Sat 5 March. For more information see this link: http://homeidentityandcitizenship.posterous.com/

Vanessa

A Touch of Eastern Promise 1973 – Tara Prem

A Touch of Eastern Promise 1973

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m half Indian, so I was always very anxious to reflect what I saw when I went up to Birmingham.  I wrote a film called A Touch of Eastern Promise, because when I went there I realised there were loads and loads of Indian people, not probably as many as there are now, but nothing was being done about it, and there weren’t any writers.  So Barry was script editor, because I said I wanted to write something, so I did and that was the first thing on British television ever to have an entirely Asian cast.  So I felt very proud about that as well.  But that also spun on to other things.  Michael Abbensetts came and wrote Empire Road, which Peter [Ansorge] produced, and I do think that it was quite new then, but it was very, very apparent in Birmingham – it opened a door really.   In a way it’s what Peter and I are still kicking at the same door of thirty years later.  It’s a bit sad in a way. But it was rather good that we had that opportunity.  So those sort of things I do feel quite proud of.  I do think it kicked open a door.

Tara Prem

(Excerpt from an interview with Tara Prem recorded in summer 2009 by Vanessa Jackson and Olivia Swinscoe from Birmingham City University).

A Touch of Eastern Promise was recorded in Balsall Heath Birmingham.  Michael Lindsay-Hogg was the director, David Rose the producer, Barry Hanson the script editor, Tara Prem the writer.  Mike Williams was the cameraman and Oliver White the film editor.

The cast included Dev Sagoo as Mohan, a young Indian boy who dreams of film stars, and in particular ‘Shalini’, who is coming to perform in Birmingham.  Jamila Massey played Shalini, Zareen Kamal played Lata, K.S. Matharu played Balraj Kumari, and Charan Kaur Matharu – Mrs Kumari.

‘The Back Page’ – Tara Prem

Photos by Lynda Kettle, no reproduction without permission.

‘THE BACK PAGE’, a Second City Firsts, went out on BBC TV 1978. It was written by Andrew Nickolds and Stan Hey, directed by Derek Lister.

It was a comedy about sports journalists, set in the Press Box when Charlton Athletic are playing Notts County. A half hour studio piece, recorded in Studio A.

It starred Graham Stark as Bert Reynolds, Henry Moxton as Percy, Howard Southern as Molotov, John Salthouse as Binoculars and Roger Avon as Sergeant.

‘The Back Page’ was produced at Pebble Mill by Tara Prem, Peter Ansorge was the script editor and Lynda Kettle the production designer.

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 Back Page'