Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Gipper Piccolo
At about 2:25 p.m. on November 18th 2005 a bus passed by me at Camden Lock in North London. One side was covered in an ad for Mary Poppins, listing some of the songs including Feed The Birds.I remembered singing this song at school in 1970, and half-remembering it as being from that musical. I imagined a question on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? about the musical which featured this song.I crossed the road and entered a cafe to make entries as part of an attempt to get on the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? show to be recorded on November 22nd.About 35 minutes later a group of about nine people came in and took over several of the computers around me. They clutched pieces of paper and seemed to be making some concerted effort to answer questions. I heard some on the theme of Lord Lucan being mentioned, including one about the make of car he drove ( months or years earlier I had imagined that a question about where his car had been found would also crop up on Millionaire?. I knew that it was at Weymouth, but also knew, unlike the group of people searching for the answer, and presumably also the question setter, that it had not been his car; it belonged to a friend of mine, Major Michael Stoop.)
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4 comments:
We Can still spell Time, Can't we? I remember a show where Amy brought two mirrors to the other side of the room. I never asked any question about the garbage bags. She was never their pretty girl.
naturally, the episode aired November 5, 1969 was the apex of the 2nd act. Joseph Molare was the tenor who brought depth and bathos to the character of James III, his rendition of "Spring In The Mountians Of Summer" was truly something to behold. For lovers of the empire only.
That was the only time when a laugh track wasnt added; neither was their a studio audience present. It's true about lovers of the empire--the only person in the room for the entire performance was Spaulding Gray. It was entirely up to his perception and sense of recall to recreate all the scenes for the Camera men and the sound production assistant. Thank Goodness he did so before his fateful dip into the drink.
As you'll naturally recall, Spaulding had declined the role of Profumo even though the BBC had offered double union scale. Arthur Askey was later cast, and I believe Gielgud got the role of MP. The part of Harold "Wilsod" Wilson however was given the innovative casting choice of a pair of wingtips stapled together to two plastic arms that would clap together at shuddering volume. The laugh track being drowned out was totally abandoned altogether as a more reasonable approach was raised at the monthly "Mash Notes" meeting in Canteen 9A. In the Ivor Arthur Memorial Building. Blood sausage with HP sauce was served along with everyone's favorite brand of Chinese Odeon Pilot Tea.
The four principles upon which the dramatic laughing was poigiantly set were the following 1) the Navy in Spain 2) the love that never started 3) National Health dental arrangements and obviously number 4) Winedark After Dark.
Filiming began in Battersea with remote hook-ups (the first of their kind) into the BBC office in London with the lorded over Richard Lewiston hovering above the quaking engineers. All pregnancies, medical emergencies, and trains were called off as to not upset the delicate frequencies of such an "all-together" broadcast.
Now some background, Enoch Powell had recently allowed the Tories to charge the gates of Stoke-On-Trent as part of his Pakistani exchange legislation proposal. The "running near ground" camera technique had been first employed and though the New Wave autuers deplored the tactics, as with Triumph Of The Will, they could not help but be overwhelmed the presentation.
In this broadcast and for the purposes of accuracy, Powell was played by Wilfred Bramshell from Carling.
As Patrick astutely, pointed for lovers of the empire etc etc etc.
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