Viewers have been intrigued by the glamorous setting of the new series of Box Office programmes late on Sunday nights: here GEORGE BARTRAM tells how this solid-looking bungalow is erected every week within a few hours, and writes of the Box Office team’s working week.

WHEN cinema box offices have closed down for the night, television’s Box Office is all set to start, with film excerpts, songs and gossip all packed
into 23 minutes.

Youthful producer Ben Churchill has re-jigged Box Office and given it a luxurious setting more in keeping with the glamorous world of films.

“Glamour is the key word,” says Churchill. “We want to convey this atmosphere throughout the programme. Hence the new bungalow suite setting which the current compere, John Fraser, and other stars will tenant.”

This splendid suite befits any star in the higher-income bracket. It has contemporary furniture, lush carpeting and a balcony complete with foliage. Then, of course, there’s the cocktail bar with the sliding shutter which acts as a cinema screen.

This scene of luxury is created in just a few hours at Birmingham’s Television Theatre. Due to the complexities of the programme, it has to be screened from the large Studio A, where, in the afternoon, Bid for Fame is staged for Midlands and Northern ITV channels.

As Bid for Fame ends and the audience troops out, work begins in the studio for Box Office, screened six hours later. The set is struck,
lighting is arranged and rehearsals begin. It’s a race against time, but the careful planning of the previous week ensures a minimum of difficulties.

Ben Churchill begins work on the programme on Monday morning with musical adviser George Clouston. Songs are chosen from old and new films.

“We’re hoping to feature new film songs which haven’t been released to the public,” Churchill said.

On Tuesday there’s a joint conference to decide what should go into the following Sunday’s programme. Present are: Ben Churchill, John Fraser, Genine Graham – the programme’s gossip correspondent – scriptwriter Rex Reinits and film editor John White.

White co-operates with the film renters in choosing the films for presentation. He and Churchill first view the extracts, which are shown at the conference before being edited.

“We want to get more into the heart of films,” Churchill told me. “Apart from excerpts, we want to feature every aspect of this gigantic industry.”

People want to know what the stars are doing. So it’s Genine Graham’s job to provide a regular gossip feature. Each item of gossip is considered at the conference.

This done, the programme layout is devised. Rex Reinits is then ready to prepare the script, which must be in the hands of the producer by Wednesday night.

On Wednesday, Churchill settles final details. He may also have to attend a film premiere with Genine Graham, or arrange for her to interview some film stars. And there’s the script to be discussed.

Thursday morning finds the script being typed and duplicated. By midday, everyone connected with the programme has received a copy. On Friday, the script
is arranged for cameras. Then the routine switches from London to Birmingham; Churchill holds a production conference with the studio heads of sound, lighting and cameras. On Saturday he ties up all the loose ends ready for Sunday.

If the foregoing week has seemed busy, Sunday borders on the chaotic. With so many programmes emanating from the Birmingham studios on Sunday, there is little space available. Camera rehearsals cannot, in fact, begin until 7 p.m.

Script rehearsals, however, can be held – but in the quiet club room of a nearby public house. Every utterance and movement has to be timed to fit in with the film excerpts which, of course, cannot be shown until studio space is available.

Back in Studio A, rehearsals grow in intensity as the time for transmission of Bid for Fame draws near. Just as it is due to go on the air at 4.15, the Box Office team break for tea. They forego their tea and watch the programme in the viewing-room.

By 5.15, when most Bid for Fame people have gone, John Fraser and Genine Graham move into their respective dressing-rooms and quietly run through their scripts. Occasionally, Churchill pops in to discuss a point.

Time now for Churchill to run over the songs. The band has arrived and band call is fixed for 6.30 in Studio D, next door to Studio A, where painters, scene- shifters, property men and electricians are getting to work on the Box Office. The studio is transformed. There stands the luxury “bungalow” a miracle of construction. It seems fit for a millionaire, and yet is all plywood and hardboard and plaster of paris.

It’s 7 o’clock. Camera rehearsals begin. Then there’s a steady slog until 9.30, when there’s a supper break… 11.5 transmission time… 11.30 the end of Box Office for another week.

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TO-DAY is the birthday of a new entertainment organisation in the Midlands, the independent commercial television service. It is a remarkable occasion for many reasons, for although television entertainment is no new thing, it is the first time Midland viewers have had the opportunity of sampling television-cum-advertising.

B.B.C. television, like Topsy, “just growed” from the only begetter sound radio; but commercial television has a more mixed ancestry and it inherits the qualities not only of radio entertainment but also of the cinema and advertising. It has near relatives in America and in other countries and an elder brother in the London service which has been in existence since last September.

Independent television comes to the Midlands after a five months run in London during which some experience has been gained by the promoters. For example, morning programmes have been abandoned and the resources of entertainment saved for filling the more popular viewing hours later in the day.

Under the dominion of the Independent Television Authority, two contractors are to provide the programmes for Midland consumption. Week-day entertainments will be produced by Associated TeleVision, Ltd. (ATV) and the week-end programmes by A.B.C. (Television), Ltd. (A.B.C.). Both these bodies will work in conjunction with the programme contractors engaged for the other regions of Britain and the programmes will be widely exchanged and “networked.”

The new entertainments will be welcomed as an alternative programme to the single B.B.C programme, and Mr. Philip Dorté, the Midland A.T.V. Controller, has made the point that co-operation between the two organisations exists to further the principle of providing an alternative.

Transmissions from the Lichfield station will open at 7.45 tonight with a ceremony televised from the Birmingham Town Hall. The opening speeches will be made by Sir Kenneth Clark, Chairman of the I.T.A., and the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Alderman A. Lummis Gibson. This will be followed by a five-minute news bulletin, and then a variety show from the new television theatre at Aston Cross. The stars will be Bob Monkhouse, Denis Goodwin. Barbara Lyon, Tyrone Power and Richard Hearne (Mr. Pastry).

Boxing Contest

After a half-hour film in the Robin Hood series, starring Richard Greene, the “live” cameras will come into service to transmit pictures of the boxing contest at the Embassy Stadium, Birmingham, between Al Brown [sic] of Stepney and Johnny Mann of Birmingham.

Another film feature, an episode in the “I Love Lucy” series, will fill the short period between the boxing relay and the “live” transmission of the scene at the opening night ball at the Birmingham Town Hall.

At 10.40 pm, the Bishop of Lichfield. Dr. A. S. Reeve, will speak the Epilogue that will bring the first day’s programmes to an end.

This special occasion has been arranged by both the programme contractors, but on the following day the A.B.C. will take over and the usual run of programmes win begin.

Week-end Host

In the first A.B.C. transmission at 2.45 on Saturday afternoon will be Janette Scott, the young film star. A pleasant feature of the weekend programmes will be the presence of a “host” in the studio, an acknowledgment of the personal link between broadcasters and viewers.

This function will be performed by Edward Ward, who is well known as a B.B.C. commentator. He will present a feature entitled “This Day,” a retrospect of Midland events and personalities of the past.

A special film has been made of the Lichfield transmitter and the new Television Theatre at Aston, and this will be shown as an introductory feature. The rest of the afternoon will be filled by popular music on records, an advertising magazine and children’s features, with a short session from “ABC Sports Desk”, wherein news from current football matches will be given, with results at 5.30.

News and sports surveys will open the evening transmissions, and at 7.30 “live” cameras will gather “Hometown, Saturday Night” from the Leofrid Hotel, Coventry, when the local stars will include Phyllis Calvert, Billie Whitelaw and John Hanson.

Forty-five minutes of variety, starring Ruby Murray, David Evans and Tony Payne will lead on to Playhouse which will present “Last Reunion” by Kenneth Hyde, with Eric Portman in the lead.

An edited film of the Cup-tie match between West Bromwich Albion and Birmingham City will be given with a commentary by John Bannister, and a news bulletin will end the day.

Film Scenes

Sunday’s transmissions will open at 2 p.m. with This Day, an anniversary programme. A special film report of the Midlands Amateur Boxing Championships at Birmingham Town Hall on Saturday will follow. The introductory edition of “Film Fanfare” will include scenes from new films, visits to studios, music from the films and personal appearances by stars.

A magazine for women, and children’s features, including “The Adventures of Noddy” by Enid Blyton, a Western film, and The Adventures of Robin Hood will fill the time until the close down at 6 p.m.

News and features about Midland personalities will open the evening at 7.30, followed by “Moment of Fame” in which Edward Ward will turn the limelight on ordinary people in the headlines. “Sunday Night at the Palladium” will be compered by Tommy Trinder who will introduce the audience-participation show “Beat the Clock.” “Theatre Royal” at 9 o’clock will present “Bardell versus Pickwick,” with Donald Wolfit, Desmond Walter Ellis and Sam Kydd. An “I Love Lucy” episode and a record programme “The Jack Jackson Show” will lead up to the news and close down.

That is the pattern of programmes for the week-end, and the week-day programmes similarly will follow a well-defined pattern, including many serialised features. For example. “One Family” (The Armstrongs) will be screened every weekday at 4.45.

Plays, often on films, will be presented every day. Next week the drama features Include “Both Ends Meet” on Monday; “Cross Current” on Tuesday; “Mid-Level” on Wednesday; “The Egg,” by Stanley Mann, starring Emrys Jones, on Thursday; and “The Old Man of the Air” on Friday. The “Playhouse” feature for Saturday, February 25 is “Boy About the Place.”

For the rest the main features of the week on are are a glamour show, “Paris in Piccadilly” on Monday; “Strike a New Note” on Tuesday; “Double Your Money”, a quiz show, on Wednesday; “Jack Solomon’s Scrapbook”, and an Arthur Askey show on Friday.

Commentary

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The new-look Let’s Go, streamlined, trim and with the accent on sport, comes back for its second season on ITV, starting on Saturday afternoon next week.

Horse racing (flat and steeplechasing), professional wrestling and boxing—the most popular sports in the ITV ratings—will be the main regular items in the programme. Out are the dog shows, dancing and off-beat activities.

Racing will be “on” – from courses in almost every part of the network area. So will wrestling — by special request. Amateur boxing will come into the programme planning, probably every fortnight, after the season starts in October.

There will be athletics, too, and motor racing, plus the classified football results and full sports news and results.

The racing outlook is good. Let’s Go will take three or four races from the chosen meeting, spotlight any feature event, give the betting market moves, interview trainers, jockeys and paddock personalities and sum up prospects.

Said Peter Moor, ITV racing adviser: “We’ve got a good team, and I believe we provide the best racing coverage. Certainly that is our aim all the time.

“The courses we cover are all good for the viewers, and we do have plenty of first-class racing. In fact, the only thing our critics demand is —more racing.” Ripon is the scene of next Saturday’s meeting, with the St Leger Trial as the highlight.

Wrestling, which shares the first programme of the new series, also seems to be the sport of which many viewers cannot get enough. Their critical letters have demanded wrestling every week. And that is what they are going to get — 45 minutes each week, with some of the most colourful characters in the game.

So look out for Canadian-Indian Billy Two Rivers; European star Tibor Szkacs, whose contest with Mike Marino in Leeds during the first Let’s Go series was generally rated in wrestling circles to be the best TV bout of the entire season; and Britain’s champions, Billy Joyce, Ernie Riley and Norman Walsh. And coming over to wrestle here are the 16st Japanese Great Togo, giant Bert Stein from Germany and Hungarian ex-Olympic competitor Mihalyi Kuti.

The proportion of “More, please,” letters from women viewers during the summer was incredibly high for a sport that prides itself on its masculinity.

Fashion shows will be featured once a month. But they will be fashion shows with a difference, where the surroundings and background tie up with the clothes.

Not for Let’s Go the parade of models on a platform. As producer Stephen Wade says: “We think that’s dull. If we want to show a model in travel clothes, we’ll put her on a train, or in a plane.”

Tim Brinton and Roger Malone will feed news and comment into the programme between items and at the end, when the results are ticker-taping into the studio.

Brinton, ITN newscaster and Roving Report reporter, took over from Berkeley Smith as link man in the last series. Malone, ex-Fleet-street sports journalist, is now on the staff of Alpha Television. Interviews and comments are his job in Let’s Go.

There are plans, too, for a specially-designed electric score-board to bring the football results to viewers within seconds of the scores being known.

Cameras will show the results as Malone comments. Then, when they are complete, there will be a classified run-through for a Pools coupon check.

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Exciting new programme ideas are being tried out in the Birmingham ITV studios. ABC chiefs have given instructions for 18 new shows to go before the cameras with full crews, cast, costumes and sets.

But none of them will be going on the air yet. They will be studied critically by company officials.

The 18 programmes range from simple panel games to “really big productions.” And under this system a show can be scrapped after a “dummy run” should it not come up to standard.

“We confine ourselves to the cost of one show, whether it be play, musical, revue or quiz game,” said an ABC official. “Much better to have a sample show and then modify it or reject it if it is not suitable.”

One of these “dummy runs,” shown to a sample audience in Birmingham, was a panel game called Full House. It was devised by Roy Ward Dickson, who was the chairman, and had a panel of three comprising Elaine Grand, Wally Reyburn and Pamela Russell.

Contestants were engaged couples who had to try and stump the panel; 1,300 couples applied for the show – four couples were chosen to appear.

The idea is that if a couple manage to stump the panel in four minutes they win a bedroomful of furniture. They would then come back the next week to try for another roomful of furniture and so on until they got a houseful. Hence the title, Full House.

Another feature of the show was Memory Table, in which a married couple had to memorise as many objects as possible before being blindfolded.

Here appeared all the elements for a successful show: atmosphere created by the minutes ticking away, youthfulness, glamour, humour and gimmicks — even to a pageboy presenting a bouquet to each contesting couple.

What did the audience think of it? Average comment was “very good.” Everybody present filled in a card on which they wrote their candid comments. These cards were collected by producer Eddie Kebbell and forwarded to the powers-that-be at ABC Television.

Typist Kathleen Neal, of Birmingham, thought Full House had all the elements of a first-class show. Mr. A. Tyler, also of Birmingham, agreed, and added that he thought Pamela Russell was a distinct asset to the panel.

“I should like to see her on TV much more,” he said. “She has been missing since she appeared in Quite Contrary.”

Mr. F. Doherty, a commercial traveller, of Four Oaks, said: “There’s lots of room for improvement, but I think it could become a popular show. The panel should alternate between using two girls and one man and two men and one girl.”

Said Mr. and Mrs. A Griffiths, who have been married 28 years and took part in the Memory Table: “We should very much like to see the show again.”

Miss Beryl Tibbitts and her fiancé, Mr. B. Wyer, said: “We thought the panel were particularly good. They got on with the job without trying to make impressions. We think it’s a novel giveaway show. For couples like us, who want to get married, it presents a wonderful opportunity.”

These audience comments and the views of the officials of ABC Television will be the decisive factors for the future of Full House — and other such “dummy run” shows, and this “television test bed” will serve an important function in the interest of entertainment.

Howard Thomas, head of ABC, tells me he is particularly interested in “spontaneous-looking” programmes. One of the ideas he is trying out is for a casual, off-the-cuff programme of the kind so popular on American TV.

No matter how the 18 projected programmes differ in concept, they have one great thing in common: they are all based on brand-new ideas.

The cost of the full-scale tryouts will come to many thousands of pounds. This may appear an expensive way of finding new programmes, but it is an essential method for a week-end company whose tightly-packed schedule leaves little room for experimenting with shows that may or may not make the grade with the viewer.

During the next few weeks Mr. Thomas will be keeping a sharp lookout for possibilities for the 11 p.m. – midnight slot on Saturdays. “I call it the teenage time, and I think it is going to attract a tremendous audience,” he says.

The post Shows the viewers don’t see appeared first on THIS IS ALPHA from Transdiffusion.

To emphasise my point let me tell you the story of a very ‘dull and undemonstrative’ audience I once had when producing an Arthur Askey comedy series.

For the first programme in the series we had a studio audience of about ninety people.

Immediately the show was over, Arthur came to me, a very worried man. “Why did we get no atmosphere Bill?” he said. “I don’t know” I replied “the script was funny enough — let’s ask them.” So, although nearly all of the people were on their way out, a ‘phone call to the front door stopped them and brought them back to the studio. I talked to them and asked why they hadn’t laughed — didn’t they think the show was funny — why? They had liked the show well enough, they told me, but they were so intrigued with the way a television show went together, the movement of cameras and booms, sets being changed, artists taking up their positions in other parts of the studio to where action was taking place, ready for the next part of the show, that they had no time or thought to laugh because their mind was not fully on being an audience — as it were.

I told them that we had been disappointed and that at home the viewer also might not have liked the show as well as he might if there had been more laughter, and they understood then how much we of the show needed our audience to be a part of that show, as necessary an ingredient as a camera or an artist or a writer — or dare I say it — a producer. So I struck a bargain with them, and asked if they would be our audience for the rest of the series, and come every week for the remaining five weeks — and they did — and a wonderful audience they were.

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EVERY Saturday afternoon Studio ‘A’ at the Alpha Television Theatre becomes the nerve centre for the biggest networking operation attempted on British television.

From one o’clock until five, “Let’s Go” is on the air to all television areas in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Producer Alan Olivers with his director, lead a team of technicians, sound and camera crews, telecommunication engineers and outside broadcast crews who may be stationed anywhere in the country, sending back to Aston sound and vision signals showing the country at work and play.

Every Saturday four or five Outside Broadcast units are out and about covering events which appeal to all members of the family.

• For Mother, a fashion show, or Joe Loss playing for lunchtime dancing in Coventry.
• Father is taken on a visit to a boxing or wrestling match, a race meeting and perhaps a bathing beauty competition for good measure.
• For the youngsters it may be a pantomime, an ice show, or a visit to a busy locomotive depot.

Finally, at 4.30 p.m. “Let’s Go” provides a full service of sports results — football, rugby, racing and summaries of the big sporting events of the afternoon.

Over twenty cameras, five complete mobile units, and over 400 technicians are working throughout the day in all corners of the country, bringing the world to Aston.

Inside the studio control centre, Alan Chivers and his team work with split second precision, passing on this ambitious kaleidoscope to the viewers at home.

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