FAO Andrew Martin

[Graeme CaddiesGreen]

Hi Andrew

I'm after some advice on Steptoe in the BBC archive. Can you help?

Thanks

Graeme

[Andrew Martin]

What do you need to know?

[Johnny Dillon]

Hi Andrew, sorry I had to get around to joining up.

The DVD of the Xsms specials from 73 and 74 appear to have cuts to them. There's a rumour going around that there's faults on the masters hence the tuncated versions.

I'm guessing this is not true since there would have two D3/Digibeta dubs from the Quads made back in the mid 1990s.

Do you know?

Thanks

Graeme

[Andrew Martin]

There are no faults as far as I know - there were pre-existing shorter edits which had been used for repeat showings, it may be that they were used inadvertently. That said, without knowing how long the cut versions are it's hard to be sure. Might be worth writing to Worldwide or 2|Entertain and asking why there were cuts - there could be rights issues? There certainly are duplicate copies of the original versions (and there is an earlier edit of the 74 show and an uncut recording of the 73 show as well as the transmitted versions).

[Johnny Dillon]

Thanks Andrew.

I know one person who has asked 2|EL states that he's been told that the orig masters were faulty and they could not be used, hence the edited versions.

[Andrew Martin]

I couldn't swear whether that's true or not - given that they quite happily issue the domestic quality copies of the otherwide missing colour episodes, you wonder what could be so objectionable!