Dennis Main Wilson

[Mark Aldridge]

Hi all,

I'm not sure if this is of any use to anyone, but I'd feel silly if I didn't mention it...

*I have no idea how true what I was told is*

Talking to someone who works 'in the industry' today they spoke about Dennis Main-Wilson, and mentioned that he had half-inched copies of much of his work before the BBC had a chance to wipe the tapes. Now, I have no idea if radio shows such as Hancock's Half Hour etc were even recorded and so able to be saved, but my source claims to have spoken to Main-Wilson's widow after his death, when she was pondering what to do with these tapes - whether to throw them out or not. Might be worth chasing up, if anyone has the time...

Mark

[KevMulrennan]

A propos Dennis Main Wilson.

I remember he was working on a comedy encylopedia. Anyone know if he finished it or most of it?

[Matthew K Sharp]

Well, there are several goodish chunks of It's Marty that only survive on home-format colour tapes said to be dubbed from the original 2" masters for/by DMW. So it's entirely conceivable that he could have retained all sorts of things...

[William]

have the bbc checked this sort of thing in detail(audio/visual recordings etc) or was it just a printed standard letter to all ex/employees during the treasure hunt?

[Andy2]

I too have heard this, and other writers such as Galton and Simpson also recorded episodes of Steptoe on reel 2 reel and thus preserved a great deal of 'lost' material.

[Andrew Doherty]

In my search for missing programmes I managed to find someone who knew Dennis Main Wilson and they trusted me with Philips 2000 tapes containing what turned out to be missing BBC "Marty" comedy show sketches. I have given a few more details in the topic marked "Marty".

Yours sincerely

[William Martin]

I've always felt that there is some material in this form, why do you think the tapes remained undiscovered so long , ie do they know that what they have is so sought after etc

[Adrian Gregg]

about 12-15 years ago the ABC (radio) were presenting a series of Hancock's Half Hour Repeats (series 2 or 3) and at the top of one of the repeats an anouncer stated that the shows were found by Dennis main wilson in a airing cupbord at his home, he'd forgorten that he'd had them and gave them back to the beeb!!

[William Martin]

if DMW can forget, anyone can, bearing in mind that most of the people actualy involved with the programs are less interested in the whole missing epiosde thing than we are