"Plunder" on "Late Night Line-Up"
Mar 13, 2017 12:44:07 GMT
Matthew Brannigan, RWels, and 1 more like this
Post by markdixon on Mar 13, 2017 12:44:07 GMT
“Plunder” was billed as “a weekly raid on the archives of BBC Television” and it was broadcast once a week from October 1965 to May 1967 as part of BBC-2’s “Late Night Line-Up”. It was probably the earliest British TV series that regularly featured clips from old TV programmes. It ran for about 65 editions, so it was presumably popular (although not all viewers had access to BBC-2 during the Sixties). I don’t think “Plunder” has ever been discussed on this forum before. Therefore, I wanted to start this thread because I think it’s worth noting that there was an audience for archival TV before the mass wiping of programmes during the early Seventies.
Only a very small number of editions of “Plunder” still exist, but it’s still possible to get a sense of what kind of material was shown throughout the series because the listings in the “Radio Times” are very detailed.
“Plunder” mainly showed clips from BBC programmes ranging in date from the mid-Fifties to the start of the Sixties. Obviously, the producers were limited in their choice by the fact that the BBC didn’t perfect their telerecording system until about 1953. Therefore, the early days of live television could only be represented in the programme by behind-the-scenes film footage of broadcasts from Alexandra Palace.
I suspect that “Plunder” didn’t feature much archival material that is now missing. It appears that only a relatively small amount of BBC TV programmes from the 1950s still existed in 1965. It’s possible that most of these recordings managed to survive the purges of the late Sixties/early Seventies because they were old enough to be deemed historically important.
“Plunder” included clips from “Orson Welles’ Sketch Book” and “Face to Face” (which still survive in full). The series also featured film inserts from programmes such as “Monitor” and “Tonight” which are likely to still exist because there’s quite a high survival rate for items that originated on film.
The producers of "Plunder” solved their problem regarding the lack of available archival material by including new interviews with participants from the early days of TV. The programme also contained archive footage from other sources such as Pathé newsreels, silent film serials and early talkies. There were also extracts from BBC radio programmes (presumably accompanied by associated film footage or sequences of photographs).
It appears that the series was cancelled because the producer and presenter, Michell Raper, believed that all the interesting archive clips had already been shown.
By the way, Lisa Kerrigan from the BFI has written a detailed article about “Plunder” which is worth reading and this is available online at viewjournal.eu
Only a very small number of editions of “Plunder” still exist, but it’s still possible to get a sense of what kind of material was shown throughout the series because the listings in the “Radio Times” are very detailed.
“Plunder” mainly showed clips from BBC programmes ranging in date from the mid-Fifties to the start of the Sixties. Obviously, the producers were limited in their choice by the fact that the BBC didn’t perfect their telerecording system until about 1953. Therefore, the early days of live television could only be represented in the programme by behind-the-scenes film footage of broadcasts from Alexandra Palace.
I suspect that “Plunder” didn’t feature much archival material that is now missing. It appears that only a relatively small amount of BBC TV programmes from the 1950s still existed in 1965. It’s possible that most of these recordings managed to survive the purges of the late Sixties/early Seventies because they were old enough to be deemed historically important.
“Plunder” included clips from “Orson Welles’ Sketch Book” and “Face to Face” (which still survive in full). The series also featured film inserts from programmes such as “Monitor” and “Tonight” which are likely to still exist because there’s quite a high survival rate for items that originated on film.
The producers of "Plunder” solved their problem regarding the lack of available archival material by including new interviews with participants from the early days of TV. The programme also contained archive footage from other sources such as Pathé newsreels, silent film serials and early talkies. There were also extracts from BBC radio programmes (presumably accompanied by associated film footage or sequences of photographs).
It appears that the series was cancelled because the producer and presenter, Michell Raper, believed that all the interesting archive clips had already been shown.
By the way, Lisa Kerrigan from the BFI has written a detailed article about “Plunder” which is worth reading and this is available online at viewjournal.eu
