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Post by Ed Brown on Sept 13, 2007 20:23:06 GMT
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Post by Ed Brown on Sept 15, 2007 19:57:16 GMT
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Post by Ed Brown on Sept 15, 2007 20:04:06 GMT
BBC 7 makes some use of the Transcription holdings of BBC Worldwide, in addition to using the BBC Sound Archive as a source.
Worldwide's holdings (including Transcription holdings) are not included on the Sound Archive's computerised database. The two operations are kept entirely separate.
Some material is held by the British Library, and its holdings are searchable on the internet, the only BBC material which is accessible by the public.
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Post by Ed Brown on Sept 15, 2007 20:37:02 GMT
The pilot episode, recorded by Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier, was turned down for series because Arthur's illness was making him slur his dialogue, and unfortunately this made him sound as if he was drunk.
When Arthur died the proposal was reconsidered, with a new cast of John Le Mes, Ian Lavender and Bill Pertwee. Neither Ian nor Bill featured in the pilot recording; and they were not going to be in the series as originally conceived.
Scriptwriter Harold Snoad saved the pilot recording from oblivion. He retained a cassette copy of it when the BBC destroyed the master recording (which was never broadcast). He supplied a copy from his cassette during the BBC's "treasure hunt".
All episodes of the eventual series were also wiped by the BBC, except episode 5 ("Pike in Love") which was retained in mono, and were returned by the general public during the treasure hunt.
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Post by Ed Brown on Sept 16, 2007 15:53:45 GMT
It's not an apocryphal story. I was there! And Harold Snoad did make a suggestion along those lines, but only as a joke.
I was a friend of the late Jack Wheeler and helped him organise the 1998 Dad's Army convention at the Oval, which Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles attended as guests.
A few weeks afterwards, Harold Snoad invited the Society to record an interview with him on tape at his home. Jack asked me along, and together with two or three of the Society's officers we met him for lunch at a pub in Sunbury on Thames, and then went back to his house for tea.
One of the reasons for the get-together was so that we could hear his tape of the unbroadcast pilot recording of "It Sticks Out Half a Mile", which he and Michael Knowles wrote. As the BBC had not retained any recordings from the series, except a mono copy of the 5th episode ("Pike in Love"), he was aware that he had the only existing tape of the pilot show.
He played the cassette for us, but didn't want to give the Society a copy of it at the time (1998). When the BBC "treasure hunt" began, four years later, he gave a copy of the cassette to them.
It was not a transcription recording. It was a cassette copy from the master magnetic tape. It was not an off-air copy, because the pilot (which had a different cast to the eventual series) was never broadcast. So it was a good quality, professional copy run off for him, as the writer, by the production staff.
Because we set up a video camera in his living room to do the interview with him, he joked that he didn't want us taping during the playback of the pilot tape. We were all keen to hear it, as it was Arthur Lowe's last appearance as Captain Mainwaring, and no one (outside of the studio audience) had ever heard it before.
It was very enjoyable meeting him and his wife, Jean, and seeing his collection of framed photographs round the walls, from the many tv shows he had worked on as a director (including "Dad's Army") and, later, as a producer, going back to the 1960s, and hearing his anecdotes of the making of some of those shows.
Harold Snoad has been extremely helpful to the Dad's Army Appreciation Society over the years, as have many of the people connected with the show, not least Bill Pertwee and Jimmy Perry.
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