Morecambe & Wise/Piccadilly Palace

[Richard Moore]

I've been looking into this show recently and have had it confirmed by ITN Source that only one show survives (Episode 3 with the Small Faces).

What surprises me the most is that the vast majority of M&W ATV shows survive, yet this last series doesn't seem to. What's more, as it was made in Colour for broadcast on ABC as Piccadilly Palace (along with 4 or 5 shows that didn't feature M&W), I would have thought that as a show made for export that it would stand a lot more chance of existing due to the potential of overseas sales.

Does anybody know what the deal would have been with ABC? Would the tapes have been returned? Could the tapes still be languishing in a US vault somewhere?

The recovery of the large amount of drama material by Kaleidoscope and the BFI recently does make me wonder if it could be squirreled away somewhere!

[Deleted]

Personally i'd think there's good chance that the colour versions reside in a U.S. vault somewhere, particularly as Rediffusion material sits there in the same way. I've always wondered about this series myself. I'm hoping that the recent Library Of Congress co-operation will open more doors across the atlantic and make it easier to repatriate other UK programmes!

You'll probably find another thread covering this series in the not-so-distant past as well.

[Simon Winters]

I believe that some off-air of part of one edition of Piccadilly Palace survives on tapes donated to the BFI and Kaleidoscope. These were recorded by a lady living on the south coast, who was incidentally picking up London ITV in 1967/68.

From what I know, the lady was a massive Tarbuck and Frank Ifield fan, and recorded as much of their material as possible. The brief snippets of Rediffusion continuity which she incidentally recorded weres shown at the Kaleidoscope continuity event, and some of her main recordings were shown at a different Kaleidoscope event held at BAFTA.

So, at least something survives from this series.

[Deleted]

What was the nature of the Rediffusion continuity, Simon? Were they in-vision clips, by any chance? I would guess not as this had pretty much disappeared by the end of Rediffusion's life, making it as rare as hen's teeth. But this is definitely better than nothing!

[Peter Stirling]

Its is thought that Piccadilly Palace was more popular in Canada
than the US, but in the US it was just a summer filler anyway for the popular Hollywood Palace show.

[Simon Winters]

The Rediffusion continuity they had on showfrom these tapes was nothing special. Just static Rediffusion logo with voice over announcing the show. There were three of four links in total. No other continuity.