The post Granada gallery appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

The latest Granada show, Scene at 6.30, which is 2½ hours a week long, has successfully passed the dangerous early days. Now the infant is strong enough to bear some examination of its pedigree. It is a pedigree which stretches back seven years to Granada’s first days as a television station and my first assignment as a floor manager for them.

In 1956 Granada plunged into the North with, I would guess, the heaviest outside broadcast plans ever. Lifeboats at Fleetwood, docks at Liverpool, a Salvation Army hostel in Manchester, cheese in Cheshire, Guy Fawkes night in York — the Travelling Eye units hardly stopped for the whole year.

While they were working, a new type of current affairs programme was evolving in the studios. It was criticised as brash and vulgar, the studio audiences who asked the questions condemned as uncivilised. Members of Parliament who were asked to take part found a hard fight on their hands. Under Fire was on the map.

Granada’s coverage of the Rochdale by-election in February, 1958, established a new involvement of television in politics that later developed into our coverage of the last general election.

The first live TV reports of a Party Conference came from Granada. Our cameras entered the Labour Party’s conference hall at Scarborough in 1960 to record Hugh Gaitskell’s famous “Fight, Fight and Fight Again” speech. This led to the first live coverage of Party Conferences and the TUC — again by Granada.

The Ringway air crash in 1957 posed a question of television ethics. It was possible for a Travelling Eye team to get to Ringway quickly and give us live television coverage of a tragedy that would normally have been reported for us on film.

The unit went out and in a remarkably short time we were transmitting to the network pictures of the Viscount airliner that had swung off course in the last moments before landing and slashed part of a terrace of council houses into obliteration.

The pictures spoke for themselves, our talk at the scene was muted. It was a depressing job to work on and at the time I wondered if we were right to do it.

On a practical level, I was afraid that our bulky equipment might obstruct the rescue workers. On this point I was immediately proved wrong; in fact, our television lights were an aid to the rescue operation.

And, on reflection, I think we were right in principle to do it.

There have been other examples of this kind of news story. The most recent was the hurricane that swung into Sheffield at four o’clock on the morning of February 16, 1962.

It left a trail of roofless, shattered buildings and as the first reports came in, our Travelling Eye unit, by now refined into a highly mobile and compact set-up, left for the scene. By late afternoon live TV pictures from Sheffield were on the air.

The Northern face Granada has shown to the national network has not just been one of politics and news. It wasn’t our political programmes that made actors frantically try to re discover the Northern accents their drama school teachers had so carefully ironed out.

On the crest of a wave of novels about the North and films about the North came a television serial about the North. I doubt if Tony Warren, the original creator of Coronation Street, realised the full significance of the moment when he put the first sheet of paper in his typewriter.

He started a serial that rose steadily through the ratings to a consistently dominating first and second position. A programme that made people experts about the North who previously had known only that “it always rains in Manchester.” A programme that even managed to combine great popular success with unheard-of praise from some of the egg-head weeklies. A success indeed!

Now we have Scene at 6.30 – which we hope embodies all the best from what has gone before. A magazine programme for the North and of the North. But not simply about the North. We make gracious acknowledgment that there is another large city in the South of England by having a studio there.

The Scene at 6.30 London studio exists because it is foolish not to recognise that many of the people we want to talk to are for one reason or another in London. If they haven’t the time to come up here, then we. in the interests of good coverage, must go there.

But if you know Scene at 6.30 you know that the London end is dominated, not dominating. Our cameras travel farther and farther across the Granada region. If there were places that had not been visited by a Granada unit before Scene came along, their number diminishes every day. In fact, we’re beginning to hear complaints that we’re never in Manchester!

Pop artists presented in an original way, news and interest stories from the North, subjects national and international that affect the North.

I suppose the next Scene at 6.30 milestone will be when one of our camera units goes abroad to cover a story. Why not?

The post And the SCENE is all set at Granada appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A new Granada comedy series Bootsie and Snudge begins next Friday. It features those two characters from The Army Game — Sergeant-Major Claude Snudge, played by Bill Fraser, and Bootsie, played by Alfie Bass. But they have left the Army. TV TIMES writers Frank Duesbury and Charles Bayne met them in Civvy-street

WE were strolling down King’s-road in London’s Chelsea when we noted something odd. Not the sort of normal odd thing you would expect to see about Chelsea, which is famous for its oddities.

It was the sight of Sergeant-Major Claude Snudge and his old enemy Bootsie in civvies.

Snudge was leading by about 20 yards, his beady eyes squinting in one of those rare bursts of late summer sunshine. He was immaculate in a business suit, white shirt, nattily knotted tie, and a well-brushed Homburg.

Bootsie was trailing behind, scowling. He was clad in a sweater, trousers and his best plimsolls, which have fewer holes in them than his second-best pair.

“Mr Snudge,” we ventured, “why are you not in uniform?”

“Are you addressing me, sirs?” he snapped, his thumbs, we noted, stiffly pointing down the seams of his immaculate pin-stripe trousers.

We said we were, and perhaps he would like to come and have a drink. And Bootsie, too. “Not wiv him, never,” said Bootsie, who had drawn up beside us.

“I will have a drink with you gentlemen in the saloon bar of this ’ere public house,” said Snudge.

“And I’ll be in the private bar,” said Bootsie testily, hobbling away.

We asked Snudge what he would like to drink. “Bearing in mind me new life I think I’d like a gin and mixed,” he said with an evil smile, “because I’m going to be mixing it.”

He smoothed his waistcoat, deftly snapped a cherry stick between his thumb and forefinger and said: “I am going to be a company director, but I have not decided which company shall have the benefit of my experience. I am in considerable demand.”

We said his experience with the men of Hut 29 in The Army Game should help.

“Help,” spluttered Snudge. “It is invaluable. If there was any of them takeover bids knocking around, Snudge would know. Anything dodgy going off and Snudge would sort that little lot out. Not no how they won’t make a ‘nana’ out of me.

“Then there’s me upbringing, me stature. There’s them that’s got it and them that ain’t. Like speaking proper.” Snudge paused to sip his drink. “I shall have a car, chauffeur-driven of course, two secretaries, and occasional trips abroad,” he said. “No more of that Bootsie and his pals for Snudge. I am now going to live the life of a gentleman, manipulatin’ millions of pounds, thousands of men, machines, exports, imports.

“Power is what I’m trained to, and power is what I am going to be. If I can handle Hut 29 I can handle anything.”

We left Snudge planning his company reports to join Bootsie in the private bar. He was sitting on one stool with his aching feet resting on the rung of another.

“Am I glad to see the back of him,” said Bootsie, nodding towards Snudge several yards away. “It’s worth being in the Army just to be able to say goodbye – to horrors like Snudge.”

Well, we said, what are you going to do, Bootsie? “Me,” he cried, his face lighting up. “I’m just going to do good for everyone. I’m going to be a politician.”

We said we would have a drink while he explained. “Yes,” said Bootsie. “I’ve seen so much unhappiness in the world brought about by that rotten old Snudge that all I want to do is make people happy. Especially them with bad feet.”

He looked serious and went on: “When you have suffered as much as I have, with feet and Snudge, and all the time spent in the medical room of any Army camp, you get to understand the needs of people.

“That is why I have such compassion. I feel for the underdog. I’ll fight his case, because there are Snudges throughout the land.

“I can see myself now, making my maiden speech in the Commons. The deathly hush as the Members listen to my argument, one that would make Flogger Hoskins proud to call me his mate.

“‘Oh, Bootsie, Bootsie!’ they’ll shout when I sit down. I can see it all now … the newspaper headlines … the interviews … my Private Member’s Bill for free plimsolls for bad feet sufferers … Can’t you see it all, eh?”

We said we could. More or less.

Bootsie wriggled on his stool and muttered: “But I never want to do anything for Snudge. Except to make him unhappy. If I ever meet him again in Civvy-street, I’ll have him. I’ll have him.”

How, we ventured, was Bootsie going to get elected to Parliament? He gave us a conspiratorial wink. “It’s being fixed,” he said. “I’m already at the top of the top ten at Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park. The crowds love me. I just can’t help being popular.”

With that, he finished his drink, slipped from his seat and limped through the door into the bustling street. Ahead of him was Snudge, still 20 yards away …

They were heading for the Labour Exchange. A company director, a Member of Parliament? That is what they said. We shall have to wait and see.

The post Bootsie and Snudge in Civvy-street appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE moment Harry Fowler takes off the uniform he wears as Cpl “Flogger” Hoskins, The Army Game‘s organising genius, he becomes a real-life organiser of practical jokes.

Says Harry: “I find people I meet go through life so seriously — except for the boys in the show. Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner (he is a Cockney from Lambeth), but I can’t resist playing jokes.”

Tommy Steele has helped in some of Harry’s jokes. Last year they shared a flat for three months. “We borrowed a car without an engine from a car-dealer friend,” said Harry. “We got a push down hill, steered it into a garage and ordered two gallons of petrol. When I pulled the starter nothing happened, of course, so asked the man to look under the bonnet, while Tommy and I went to the office to pay.

“When we returned, the mechanic was gaping under the empty bonnet. ‘What have you done with our engine?’ I asked. ‘He’s stolen it,’ said Tommy. We spent several minutes insisting it was there when we drove in, and threatened to send for the police if it wasn’t put back!

“Finally we admitted it was a joke, but chap never fathomed how we got the car into the garage.”

American film actor Keefe Brasselle, who starred in The Eddie Cantor Story, was another butt for Fowler’s fun.

Said Harry: “We were filming at Walton Studios, where The Adventures of Robin Hood series was made. Our dressing-room accommodation wasn’t so hot, and Keefe compared his room to the one he had in Hollywood.

“That gave me an idea. The Robin Hood unit was on holiday. I got one of the boys to take Richard Greene’s name off his dressing-room door and replace it with Harry Fowler.

“I went to Keefe’s room — we had to learn some lines together — looked amazed and said: ‘Is this your room? Well, I can’t believe it. It’s not a patch on mine … but then I suppose your status over here is a little different. Why don’t you come along to my room?’ It was three days before he caught on. I reckon they were the unhappiest he spent in England.”

Harry still doesn’t know what significance the US Navy placed on his top secret “code” message. “One of their crack submarines was visiting Britain, and I rang London HQ saying ‘I’m Lew-tenant Eagle’ and gave the sub’s name.

“I was put through to a lieutenant commander and gave him precise instructs to memorise this message for his chief. ‘Will have Big Ben blown-up by Two – Eagle.’ He said he would make sure it was passed on!”

Harry insists he doesn’t set out to harm anyone, though one of his jokes misfired with embarrassing results — for him.

“Gerald Campion and I were filming in Top of the Form at Pinewood. Gerry became sleepy and, of all places, chose the studio floor for a nap. While he slept, I got a small hammer and, as quietly as possible, nailed the edges of his coat to the floor.

“That was the day Rank’s managing director John Davis chose to visit the set. The first thing he saw was Gerry asleep — and when someone woke him up poor Gerry was stuck to the floor! I got a dressing-down after that one.”

Bill Fraser (CSM Snudge) comes in for some of “Floggers” Fowlerisms.

“Alfie Bass and I phoned him from a party at 3am, using Eastern accents, said we were calling from India, and would the CSM like a commission in the Indian Army?

“We’re all practical jokers at rehearsals. We bought Frank Williams, our OC, a trick telescope. He wondered why people kept staring at him, until he found he’d been walking round with a black eye.”

Harry even jokes with his fans.

“They stop me and say, ‘You’re “Flogger” Hoskins,’ so I switch from my usual accent and say in a lah-di-da voice: ‘About 14 people tell me that every day. Who is he?’

“Some of them aren’t convinced, but I hear a lot go away saying, ‘No, he can’t be: he speaks so differently.’”

It was Diana Dors’ first husband, Dennis Hamilton, who got further than anyone in giving Harry a dose of his own medicine.

“He phoned saying he was an agent and would I sing a new song over the phone for him. I was half-way through the chorus before I realised it was a gag.”

The post ‘Flogger’ Hoskins – what a card! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

On Friday Granada’s The Army Game returns. Two regulars, Cpl Springer (Michael Medwin) and Pte (Cupcake) Cook (Norman Rossington) will be missing, but never fear, Snudge will be there. Here, the worthy CSM fills in a few details of the delights of his summer rest and the delights he would have if he could clean up Hut 29

THE garden gate was blancoed a gleaming white. On it, the name of the house — The Last Post — was neatly picked out in khaki paint… I glanced over the hedge. In every flowerbed the plants were drawn up in three ranks, tallest on the right, shortest on the left, and down the far end an elderly willow tree seemed to be trying valiantly to stand to attention.

My search was over. I had found the home of Sergeant-Major Claud Snudge. My knock was answered by the great man himself. “Well?” he barked. Almost without thinking, I snapped my feet together, my shoulders went back, my chest out and my chin in, and I stammered the purpose of my visit.

Slowly the corners of his mouth moved wide apart and he bared his teeth. For a dreadful moment I thought he was going to bite me — until I realised he was only smiling.

“So you’re the bloke what’s come about the interview. Come in, come in.”

He led me through to the lounge, where a pile of suitcases and trunks stood against the wall. “I hope you will excuse the place not being quite tickety-boo,” he said, “but we’ve just come back from holiday.”

Somehow it had never occurred to me that sergeant-majors went on holiday. I told him so. “Ho, yes, indeed, yes,” he said. “Us sergeant-majors probably need it more than anyone else. We don’t get no privacy in our job. All the time we’re being surrounded and clamoured at, not just by soldiers but just as often by people, real people.

“Believe me, it’s nice to get away from the human race once in a while.”

“Where did you go this year?” I asked.

“Blackpool. Marvellous place. A proper haven of peace and tranquillitude. For two whole weeks I did nothing but lie on the sand, soaking in the sunshine and thinking beautiful thoughts.”

“What kind of beautiful thoughts?” I asked.

A dreamy glow came into his eyes. “Lovely, beautiful thoughts, like what I would do to that shower in Hut 29 if I had my way. Jankers and fatigues ain’t good enough for that lot. I’d like to see ’em doing some real fatigues, real fatiguing fatigues that would keep ’em out of mischief for good.

“For instance, imagine Private Bisley being told to sweep down the Great North-road with a toothbrush. Or Bone being ordered to bale out the English Channel with a child’s bucket. Now that’s the kind of threat that’d soon clean up Hut 29. What you might call the Ultimate Detergent.

“But what’s the use of torturing myself?”

He lapsed into a sad, troubled silence. It seemed a shame to disturb him, but I was after the facts.

“I noticed you mentioned only Bone and Bisley. Didn’t you consider methods of correction for the others?”

His face grew sadder. “Cook and Springer? The ones wot got away? Yes, they’re gone, and I’ll never have the pleasure of putting them on the hooks no more. Cook’s uncle died and left him a cake shop, so he bought himself out of the Army. And Corporal Springer wangled himself a posting as military bodyguard to the clerk of the course at Newmarket.” “But surely life will be a lot easier now that Hut 29 is without a leader?”

“They’ve got a leader all right. Captain Pocket has moved Corporal Hoskins into Hut 29.”

Corporal (Flogger) Hoskins is played by Harry Fowler.

Snudge looked so upset I thought I would try to cheer him up. “Well, that should make a nice change,” I said brightly.

Snudge gazed at me in silent pity. When he finally spoke, his voice shook with emotion. “It’s a nice change, all right. Like a plague of Colorado beetles is a nice change from a swarm of locusts. It’s just my luck to get rid of the Army’s Conniving Champion and find myself stuck with the No 1 Contender.”

I clucked sympathetically. “It looks as if you are in for a pretty rough time, then.”

Snudge’s drooping figure snapped erect and his eyes flashed indignantly. “Nonsense! I’ll soon show them who’s the master. It’s all a matter of attitude.”

“Attitude?”

“Yes, if I catch ’em at it they’re going to get chewed.”

“At least you have only three of them to worry about now.” I pointed out.

Evil cunning gleamed from the corners of his eyes. “Yes, and they’re used to working in fours. I can use that. All I need is a real soldier. A proper, heels-togethering, shoulders backing, chest out-ing, chin-inning, neat and tidy, no-idle soldiering soldier. With someone like that in Hut 29, we’d really get somewhere.”

“And where are you going to get such a paragon?”

The dream of hope faded. “T don’t know. I just don’t know. Oh, we’ve got some, you know. I remember seeing one at Aidershot only last year…” His voice trailed off as the treasured memory warmed his mind.

“Lovely sight he was. All knife-edge creases and blanco.” I turned my head tactfully to allow him to wipe away a nostalgic tear that threatened the left wing of his moustache.

“Perhaps they’ll send you one,” I said. I felt I had to say something. “They do send you soldiers from time to time, don’t they?”

He shook his head. “No, not soldiers. Sleeping, talking, eating, walking, living uniforms, yes. Soldiers, no. In fact, we get a new intake arriving the day camp opens.”

“They might send you a good one by mistake.”

“That would not be a mistake, it would be a blooming miracle. And miracles,” said Snudge sadly, as I left him, “don’t happen, not never no more.”

The post The beady eye is back appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

LOVE of animals occupies a big part in the life of C. B. Poultney — alias Major Geoffrey Gervaise Duckworth, the fiercely-monocled CO of The Army Game.

But whereas, at Nether Hopping, the Major, as befits an old cavalry officer, is only happy when he is talking about horses, in private life Poultney excludes them from his affections. “I think they are silly creatures,” he told me. “They’ve got flat heads.”

I found “C.B.” in his London bachelor flat — a 67-year-old military-looking man whose constant companion is a four year old, irrepressible, floppy-looking spaniel called Buffin.

But before I could get one word out of Poultney about himself, I had to hear how Bulfin came to be there.

For years his master wrote animal stories in a national newspaper. Many of them were about his Scottie, Rhoderick Dhu, and, when “Roddy” died, the readers of the paper subscribed £200 [£4,000 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] to buy another dog. He chose Buffin — and also bought a guide dog for a blind person.

C.B.’s love of cats and dogs is shown by the photographs of them covering one wall of his sitting – room and the books and short stories he has written about them, many of which he has illustrated himself with pen and ink sketches. For C.B. is an artist as well as an actor and an author, and, in fact, started his career as a commercial artist in Birmingham, where his father was a newspaper editor. He is also a member of the governing committee of the People s Dispensary for Sick Animals.

Another difference is that “Major Duckworth” is married with a daughter, while C.B. is a bachelor. C.B. Poultney has some Army background to call on in building up the character of the Major. “I joined the Army as a private in 1914,” he says, “and, by the time the war ended, I was a captain in the Fusiliers, so I knew quite a lot of officers like the Major.”

C.B. never uses his Christian names, which are Clifford Blake. “I don’t like ’em,” he said. “Most people call me C B. or ‘Tibby.’”

I thought the latter might be a reference to his affection for cats, but I was wrong. “It’s because I once played the part of Captain Tibenham, VC, in a play with Marie Lohr. That was many years ago, but the name has stuck,” he said.

He has appeared in a wide variety of plays in his long career — everything from Shakespeare to comedy, but since playing in Charley’s Aunt at His Majesty’s Theatre in 1948, C.B. has devoted most of his time to writing and television.

C.B. likes his new role. “Major Duckworth is a character I can get my teeth into,” he said. “And as for keeping the ‘shower’ under control, well, my neighbour gave me a few tips on that.”

His neighbour? Jack Allen, the last CO at Nether Hopping.

The post The cavalry major doesn’t like horses appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

The Army Game troops report back for duty this week.

Most of the regulars will be on parade: Sergeant-Major Snudge (Bill Fraser), Corporal Springer (Michael Medwin), “Cupcake” Cook (Norman Rossington) and “Excused Boots” (Alfie Bass).

But two newcomers are on the postings-in list on the guardroom notice board: A new CO, Major Geoffrey Gervaise Duckworth (C. B. Poultney), still living out his Army life as a cavalry subaltern, and Private BONE (Ted Lune) …

A TOP-SECRET signal was flashed from Whitehall to the Commanding Officer, Nether Hopping: “Am posting Private Bone to you forthwith. Documents revealing him to be a psychopathic scrounger and pathological liar to follow.”

I intercepted that short-wave message … and immediately chartered a helicopter to fly me to Nether Hopping to get Bone’s story.

Lancashire-born Bone is a brilliant old campaigner and strategist who has fought his way — single-handed — out of NAAFI queues all over the world. He is also an internationally-known authority on the game — he would call it The Art — of football.

Bone revealed to me a shattering now-it-can-be-told story that will shake Britain — the true story of how Bolton Wanderers really won the FA Cup last season.

Over to Private Bone, alias comedian Ted Lune …

“Ask any football fan who led t’Wanderers to victory in t’Cup game last season, and he’ll tell you: ‘Nat Lofthouse.’

“And he’ll be wrong. It wasn’t Nat at all.

“IT WAS ME — BONE.

“Only the 11 men of Bolton Wanderers knew the truth until today. Now I can reveal it.

“It was me that led t’Wanderers on to the Wembley turf that historic Saturday in May, 1958.

“And this is how it happened … The Friday night before t’Final. I got a telegram from me Mam in Bolton.

“My hand shook as I tore it open. Perhaps she’d wangled me a Cup Final ticket after all. But, no. It was this message:

“‘Coome ome, lad, T’Wanderers need thee.’

“I knew what was expected of me. It had happened just this way before. Somebody had dropped out of the team at the last minute.

“A panic-stations conference in the plush Bolton board-room and the decision was made. Send for Bone.

“I talked it over with the lads in the billet. Should I go? I’d nothing else on that day. And it was a great chance.

“I’d played plenty of League games when they’d been short of first-team payers. But this — The Football Match of The Year.

“‘Take it, Bone,’ said the lads. ‘We’ll be cheering for you.’

“So I went home and collected my things. No 9 shirt … size 10 boots.

“Thousands of folk in that packed Wembley Stadium never guessed, millions of viewers watching on TV couldn’t have known—that the chap who went to Bolton Wanderers’ rescue in their Hour of Need was ME.

“For the first time, pictures tell the true story …”

Before I wrote this amazing story, I sought the approval of the highest-up brass-hats I could find in Whitehall.

This is their report: “Our records show that on May 3, 1958, the day of the FA Cup Final at Wembley, Private Bone was under close arrest in his unit’s guardroom.

“He was awaiting court martial, accused of being absent without leave the weekend before.

“Military Police picked him up in Bolton — trying to sell five-shilling Cup Final tickets at black market prices.”

Footnote: The Bolton Wanderers players who co-operated in this TV TIMES reconstruction of Bone’s story were: Nat Lofthouse, Roy Hartle, Ray Parry, Dennis Stevens, Brian Edwards, Tommy Banks, John Higgins and Eddie Hopkinson.

The post Private Bone (alias Ted Lune) reveals: how I won t’cup for Bolton appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

NO, Bernard Bresslaw — Popeye of The Army Game — isn’t as goofy as all that. It’s just that he’s 6ft 5in tall, has an adenoidal voice, big eyes, and tends to leave his mouth open…

But one can’t kelp making good-humoured fun of Bernard — his looks and personality naturally invite it.

The other day, for example, a man introduced his young daughter to Popeye. She had insisted to her father that Popeye couldn’t really be so silly. “Say something,” ordered the girl. Bernard said something. The poor girl went away with an even more puzzled air. To be proved wrong at that age can be shattering…

Of course, being so tall isn’t all fun. People tend to pick on you. Till last season, Bernard used to play rugby. He was a wing forward, one of the most vulnerable men. Opponents used to look his team over, then the whisper would go round: “Better get that big feller down hard to start with or he might be a trouble.” First time he touched the ball, down he would go under a pile of writhing bodies.

It was the same in the Army. Bernard didn’t find it half such fun as the television one. People always used to pick on the tall RASC driver clerk.

But Bernard showed them. He turned to good account his natural ability to play the part of an “oaf.” His first big part was that of a simple country boy in the Irish farce The McRoary Whirl. This was one of the few occasions he has worn a suit on stage — a sky-blue suit to go with his off-white camel-hair coat and white cap.

The play lasted only three days in London’s West End. But it was a good blooding for Bernard.

Previously he had been cast in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art students’ annual public show. It was Christopher Fry’s Venus Observed, and was put on at the Phoenix Theatre. He didn’t play an oaf then. In the audience was the director of Windsor Repertory, who heard complimentary remarks about Bernard made by Fry, who was sitting next to him.

When Bernard wrote to Windsor Repertory for a job the director gave him a part in The McRoary Whirl.

Bernard left the Academy with the Emile Littler Prize.

He did a couple of tours before The McRoary Whirl, but then began to find doors closed to him with “You’re too tall.” They couldn’t say that, though, when he was auditioned for the part of a guardsman in the television play Who Goes There? In this part, people really began to appreciate what a perfect oaf he made.

But oafishness is not the only weapon in Bresslaw’s armoury. He recently played a brute in a Mark Saber thriller film on ITV.

Bernard’s friends say he makes a lovable goof; others say he’s a “natura” as a psychopathic case. And it was as the latter that he appeared in the Mark Saber production, going so far as to shoot a poor old lady’s dog.

He believes his public will accept him in this sort of role. One admirer wrote him saying she didn’t like Popeye nearly so much since he had shot that dog. I don’t know whether that means she accepts his other guises or not, but at least she really lives them all with him. I wonder what she’ll think if she sees Bernard in his current film role as a bearded sneak-thief in Blood of the Vampire?

Though 23-year-old Bernard doesn’t mind playing the fool, he would like to develop his other capabilities. He doesn’t yearn to play Hamlet, but he does want to play Shakespeare.

Another ambition is to play in pantomime. Any combination of Idle Jack and Buttons would do.

Who knows? Under that amiable and “vacant” exterior may beat the heart of a great Shakespearean actor. What would Cupcake think of that?

The post He’s Popeye the soldier man appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IT started as a polite excuse for “taking the mickey” out of Army life. It has become one of television’s most rib-tickling comedies. The Army Game, originally intended to last only for the summer, has now been given an indefinite run. And with every fortnightly instalment it is building up new battalions of viewers.

What is the secret of its success? One very important reason could well be the judicious way in which each programme contains a carefully balanced mixture of the real and the imaginary.

The characters are the kind of men you would rarely meet in real life. The situations are all highly improbable. But although these are entirely fictional goings-on, every possible effort is made to see that they happen in surroundings that are true to life.

The man responsible for what we see of Nether Hopping is Granada designer Stanley Mills. The lifelike transit and surplus ordnance depot, with its huts and offices and parade ground, grows up from sketches on his drawing board.

Nether Hopping did not, however, start as just a figment of his imagination. It is made up of hundreds of different features which he has borrowed during visits to several Army camps, big and small, in various parts of the country.

I joined Stanley Mills and his sketchbook for a visit to a hutted camp “somewhere in Cheshire.” Never have I seen an artist with such an eye for detail.

He walked around the grounds noting the positions of stirrup pumps. In one of the huts he got out his steel measure and noted the dimensions of beds, lockers and wall brackets.

He was about to leave the hut when he noticed the door. He stopped and stared. But it was the turn of the off-duty troops in the hut to stop and stare when they heard him enthusing about that simple door.

“Just what I have been looking for,” he murmured, as out came the sketchbook and down went every little feature of the door, from type of knob to the size of the padlock and the shape of the panels.

Said Mills later: “Most of the ideas for the sets used in The Army Game have come from visits I have made to five camps, all of them different.

“One was a Guards training and transit camp, a permanent place that must be one of the biggest in the country. It had polished floors and central heating in each hut. It was very pleasant, and laid out in a most efficient way. But it was more like a garden city, and was much too nice for our purpose.

“Then, completely different, was a munitions dump. It was hidden away in a forest, and there was only a handful of men on the site. When I arrived — even though I had a War Office permit — they rushed around covering up all their maps and plans. A funny thing about that place is that the OC actually keeps pigs — just like our Major Upshot-Bagley.

“What we wanted was something between the Guards camp and the munitions dump. I think that in Nether Hopping we have succeeded.”

The huts used in The Army Game have been built by Granada carpenters from Stanley Mills’ designs. But the equipment that goes into them is all genuine Army issue — on loan.

From Ladysmith Barracks, headquarters of the Manchester Regiment at Ashton under-Lyne, have come beds, lockers and other barrack-room furniture — and a welfare radio set. Certain items of military equipment have been borrowed, too.

“Spud” Taylor, head of Granada’s property department, told me that only two things had to be specially made for the programme. One was a mock bomb which had a little charge in the tail. When a button was pressed it released a sheet of flame. The other was an illicit gin still which, as “Spud” rightly remarked, was not likely to be found in any ordinary Army camp.

In the early days of The Army Game, dummy rifles were used. But now, thanks to Ladysmith Barracks, they have the real things, even if they are unserviceable. Whether they work or not, however, Granada has to have licences for them. And when they occasionally borrow light machine-guns and other small arms, they have to take out separate licences and War Office permits.

The property department once failed to satisfy the programme’s requirements. That was when the script called for a pig. Two were tried. The smaller one was too noisy, and the bigger one turned out to be not much of an actor; he refused to go on when he was cued. Result: no more pigs.

I was in the studio just before this pig episode was rehearsed, and I remember the outburst of Geoffrey Sumner (who besides playing the pig-loving OC is a pig-keeper himself) when he caught sight of one of the porkers.

“I am quite devastated,” he told me. “I asked them to provide me with the kind pf pig I’ve been used to myself — a lop-eared Welsh. But this is a prick-eared Blue pig, which is a cross between a Wessex saddleback and a Large White.

“I made a special point of telling them what I wanted, because a lop-eared pig is much easier to handle than a prick-eared pig. It will be a feat of acting for me to fall in love with this mongrel.”

Fortunately, as it turned out, Geoffrey didn’t have to.

Only once have the people behind The Army Game had to search for something that was not authentic — and that was to work out unidentifiable regimental names.

After a lot of research it was decided that the commanding officer and the company sergeant-major should belong to the “Loamshires,” while the men were all to be in the “QRSBs.”

What does that stand for? Well, “QR” obviously means “Queen’s Royal,” but the rest is anybody’s guess.

The post Here’s why those ‘Army’ sets are so realistic appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

GEOFFREY SUMNER speaking: “In various ways, these TV soldiers that I command once a fortnight remind me of some of the real soldiers I had under my command during the war.”

Geoffrey is, of course, the light comedy actor whom viewers know as Major Upshot Bagley, dithering commanding officer of The Army Game depot, Nether Hopping, on ITV screens again next Wednesday.

What most viewers do not know, is that Sumner ended World War II as a full-blown Colonel.

I had arranged to meet him to hear about his two Army careers, wartime and TV, and the three Sumners — Mr., Major and Colonel — paraded in the cocktail bar prompt on time.

“One of the TV privates keeps on asking questions,” he said.

“It reminds me of a gunner who gave me a lot of trouble.

“He was taking part in gun drill and wanted to know why No. 2 man had to stand in the way of No. 3 man and raise his hand to shoulder level.

“I didn’t know the answer, and eventually this problem got back to the War Office, with the result that some time and motion study fellows arrived.

“They found that the gun drill had not been revised since the days of Napoleon, and the reason No. 2 had his arm raised was to hold the reins of the leading horse.

“Then we have in the TV Army one of the brainless types. I met some of those, too, and, being quite frank, I didn’t take too kindly to them during the war.

“Our wartime circumstances were far from funny, and a foolish mistake might have cost all our lives. I’m afraid I was rather severe — used to frighten the daylights out of them.

“The brainless ones came in two categories: intentional and unintentional. The former got jumped on, and the chaps who couldn’t help it were sent to the cookhouse and elsewhere.

“At the other extreme we had the ‘fly boys’ — very similar to our TV Corporal Springer. We had a bombardier who was the image of Springer and was wonderfully useful. He made our dump nice and comfortable. I would far rather have a ‘fly boy’ to command than a nit wit.

“For one thing, they know how to make the best of what there is available, and as long as the benefits are coming in they are an asset. You need to watch them, though.”

While Geoffrey was telling me this I was wondering what his great-grandfather would have thought of him becoming an actor. Probably, he would have been horrified, because great-grandfather was an Archbishop of Canterbury. At the same time, another relative was Bishop of Winchester.

“Ours is an old Devonian family,” Geoffrey said. “On one side we are strong Church people. On the other we are Army. I have a cousin who is a brigadier and I don’t think there is much doubt that he is destined to become a general. I envy him quite often.

“And — forgive me if I’m boring you — Sir Francis Drake was an ancestor.”

About his career Geoffrey Sumner said: “As a boy, the RAF turned me down on medical grounds, so I went to study farming in South Africa. I became a farm manager, and eventually had my own farm of 800 acres.

“That was fine — until one night a tropical hail-storm smashed my crops and future. So I came back to England and, in a roundabout way and without any training, started in the theatre.

“Today, I live with my wife, Mary, and our three girls — Victoria, 17, who is a fine horse-woman and pianist, Alexandra, eight, and ‘Charlie,’ four.

“Notice something about the girls? All named after queens. To complete the family we have a Boxer dog, 12 cats and appropriate number of kittens, two horses, budgerigars, chickens and pigs. Home is a 10 acre small holding near Upper Warlingham, and the house dates from Charles I.’

Geoffrey Sumner takes his farming seriously. Recently he had 350 pigs, including some prize winners, but has sold most of them. He is starting again in earnest later this year. Throw in membership of the local branch committee of the National Farmers’ Union, and that would seem enough to keep any man busy.

But not Geoffrey. He also finds time to work as managing director of a cartoon film studio employing 75 artists and technicians.

His toothbrush moustache reminded me that it was the military Sumner I had wanted to interview, not the businessman or farmer.

“I always had a yen for the Army and I never really lose it,” he admitted. “I still have the Army in my blood. You hear criticisms of Army life, but there is a lot to it. There is the ‘bull’ and the red tape and other nonsense, I agree. But my view is that any profession which enables you to make life-long friends is worthwhile.

“On the lighter side, I remember my first command on the south coast, near Dymchurch. We had two naval guns and nobody knew how to fire them accurately. When we practised, we nearly blew the target towing ship out of the water.”

One of his many jobs called Geoffrey Sumner away — but not before I asked him what rank he considered the best in the Army.

“If you want a quiet life with most of the advantages, there is nothing to rival a corporal,” he said.

Now, I wonder what Corporal Springer would say to that?

The post If you want a quiet life, be a corporal appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THERE are right ways and wrong ways of obeying commands. Which comes as a surprise to the awkward squad in The Army Game —they never knew they had a choice. However, on realising the situation, they immediately applied for permission to publish “The Army Game Guide to Good Soldiering”.

(Note : The Guide to Good Soldiering, as here illustrated, is not recommended to serving soldiers).

(Note again : The Army Game will serve up more laughs this Wednesday and every alternate Wednesday).

(Last Note: Cast of our Guide is… The O.C. (Geoffrey Sumner), Sergeant-Major (William Hartnell) … Corporal (Michael Medwin) … Popeye (Bernard Bresslaw) … The Professor (Charles Hawtrey) … Cup-Cake (Norman Rossington).

Words by Eric Linden, following a technical chat with ex-RSM Brittain

The post The Army Game guide to good soldiering appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

SAID William Hartnell: “You’d never believe it, judging by some of the parts I’ve played, but I used to be known as a comedian. I called myself Billy Hartnell in those days.”

Certainly, the hard-bitten petty officer of Seagulls over Sorrento, the sergeant of The Way Ahead and the Scotland Yard detective in several films had never struck me as being comedy roles.

“That’s why I like The Army Game,” he continued. “Even though I’m not supposed to be the comic.” Hartnell has only one protest: “I seem to be doomed to playing sergeants and petty officers.”

I took a careful look at Hartnell, the amateur company-sergeant-major. He was off duty at home. And I have to report he looked extremely like a professional company-sergeant-major off duty at home. Or maybe I’m like the rest – I can’t think of him in any other role.

He was wearing a check sports jacket, a brown shirt open at the neck, grey flannels held up by a leather belt, brown slippers. He smoked his cigarette jerkily and kept throwing his chin out and half closing his eyes to look into the distance.

He might have been picking out that ‘orrible little man at the other end of the parade ground. In fact, he was watching a bird which is the part of Hartnell he would like you to know.

“Most people think of me as a tough, snarling character with not very much grey matter,” he said. “Those are the parts I always play. But nobody ever inquires whether I’m really like that.”

I report with pleasure that Mr. Hartnell is not like that. His wife, playwright Heather McIntyre, showed me round their Sussex garden and confided a few secrets about her husband. “He loves birds and animals. See that little wooden house up in that tree? Bill built that for two field mice. We call them Mr. and Mrs. Ashley and every evening about eight we take a meal out to them… Mind where you put your feet – a shrew lives under those two small holes in the lawn. We call it Baby…”

This didn’t sound like a sergeant-major’s life. Inside once more, Bill took me on a tour of the house.

I commented on his pictures, several by Augustus John. “Any money I have to spare in the future will go on buying up originals,” he told me.

Hartnell’s other major interest is fishing. He’s a member of the Hove Deep Sea Fishing Club. “Nearly all my best friends are outside the theatre business,” he said. “You’ve got to escape from the insanity of that world. That’s why we live here. We love the country and a quiet life.”

“Here” is a half-tiled cottage, non-vintage, in a remote lane in a remote part of Sussex 12 miles from Brighton. It’s not a sumptuous house, but it’s friendly. “People have got to accept us as we are,” said Heather Hartnell. “We’re no good at putting on a show.”

I remembered reading somewhere that Norman Hartnell, the Queen’s dressmaker, is Bill’s cousin. Correct? “Second cousin, actually. But we don’t I see each other often. We live in different worlds.”

Heather smiled. “Somehow I can’t see him sitting on our kitchen table having a good old chat.” Then she said: “Let’s have some tea.” We sat down to, fruit cake, scones and strawberries, Hartnell ate three scones and declined the strawberries.

“I was born in Seaton, Devon,” he told me. “My parents separated when I was a child and I was brought up by a guardian. My ambition was to become an actor and a jockey. Somehow, I thought I could do both together. I hated school, ran away three times and finally, at fifteen, was allowed to go to work in a racing stable. But my weight was against me. One day the trainer called me into his office and told me I’d better try something else.”

Sir Frank Benson, the famous Shakespearean actor-manager, took him on. “I did almost every job in the theatre before I began to make a name for myself.”

Hartnell – “Billy” Hartnell that is – understudied Bud Flanagan and Ralph Lynn and attracted a certain amount of attention in comedy roles in films. Then Carol Reed saw him in Brighton Rock and gave him the part of the sergeant in The Way Ahead.

For Hartnell the way ahead ever since has been through the doors of the costumiers who fit him out with sergeant-majors’ and petty officers’ uniforms and raincoats as worn – in films at any rate – by Scotland Yard detectives.

Bill put his foot up on a kitchen chair and brushed a parade ground shine into his shoes. “I wish they’d let me show that I can play other parts besides sergeants.” He moved to the hall and put on a beltless raincoat. “I’d like to play Polonius instead of policemen.”

Then we set off for Brighton, where Bill had an appointment to pick up a script. The role? A tough, tight-lipped gangster. Obviously someone had said “Just the part for Hartnell.”

The post Off parade – at the Hartnell home appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THERE is nothing very special about the Nether Hopping transit camp and surplus ordnance depot. Motorists passing by as they speed along the arterial road never give it a second glance.

It is a ramshackle, miserable-looking hutment camp, three miles from the nearest village and 10 from the nearest town. A camp forgotten by the War Office, where life follows the same lazy routine.

This is the scene of Granada’s new fortnightly comedy, The Army Game.

The peace of Nether Hopping is, however, rudely shattered by the arrival of five newcomers.

“Fly” boy of the outfit is Cockney Cpl. Springer, played by Michael Medwin. He’s the type who sizes up the situation in his first three days in the Army and decides that the rest of the two years will be one long scrounge.

Only regular among them is Pte. Brisley (Alfie Bass) who is called “Bootsie” because he’s been excused boots for most of his Service life. He’s the pessimist of the group.

Then there’s Pte. Hatchett (Charles Hawtrey), who for obvious reasons is nicknamed “Professor.” He’s the barrack-room lawyer.

Pte. Popplewell (Bernard Bresslaw), better known as “Popeye,” is a giant who represents the brute strength of the quintet.

Finally there is Pte. Cook who, on the strength of all the parcels he receives from his fond mother, has the nickname “Cup Cake.”

Collectively, the five are a major threat to the smooth running of any camp – a quality which has kept them on the move. They are determined that their travels must end. But they haven’t counted on Company Sergeant-Major Bullimore (William Hartnell). He does his best to run Nether Hopping on service lines, but he is getting rather tired of the effort.

It is inevitable that a meeting between such a group and a man like Bullimore should be the start of a private war in which no quarter is given and none asked.

Quite happy to let the sergeant-major run the camp his own way is the O.C. Major Upshott-Bagley (Geoffrey Sumner) realised that when he was given the least responsible job the War Office could find for him he had reached the pinnacle of his career. He is content to vegetate until he is pensioned off.

The Army Game has been devised as a riotous comedy – but it is not a farce. The situations may be a little larger than life, but they are based on incidents that could happen in any Army camp.

In this all-male cast, Granada have found people who look the part and who can act the part from personal experience.

Geoffrey Sumner, for instance, joined the Army in 1939 as a second-lieutenant and finished up in New Delhi as a colonel.

Bernard Bresslaw feels quite in character as one of the inmates of Hut 29. He was a private in the RASC. And William Hartnell had a private’s-eye view of the war in the Tank Corps. His promotion didn’t come until he left the Army in 1943 and Carol Reed made him a sergeant for his part in The Way Ahead.

Alfie Bass was a dispatch rider. About the characters in The Army Game he says: They could be real people.”

Scriptwriter Sid Colin was in the RAF. To make sure he gets his technical facts right, Granada have appointed a military adviser, Major John Foley. And the War Office have provided a liaison officer and given him permission to visit any Army camp he likes in search of authentic material.

The post ITV joins the army appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE question I have been asked more than any other during the short time I have been in Britain is: what are the differences between Russian and British television?

I have not seen enough to give a balanced answer, but generally what surprises me is how similar they are.

In Britain you have programmes about serious subjects – what we would call social-political subjects – so do we.

You have dramas: so do we. You have quizzes: so do we. You have spectacular shows: so do we.

You have a programme called The Army Game, which laughs at Army life: we have humorous films in which army characters fall into comic situations.

Now I won’t say they are quite the same as The Army Game, but I should like to have a script of one of the programmes so that we could show it in the USSR.

It was easy for me to understand The Army Game, for its characters are international. I have had more difficulty with other programmes because of the language problem.

But the programmes transmitted by Independent Television in your country are obviously acceptable to the public. And that is the thing that counts. Television must give the people what they want.

At the same time, the tastes of the minorities must be catered for, and this we attempt to do in Russia.

In Russia we have no organisations to give us “ratings” for different programmes. So how do we find out what the people do want? We find out in a variety ways. Firstly, if a programme is liked very much – or is not liked very much – viewers telephone us as soon as the programme is finished, and sometimes in the middle. We also receive between 3,000 and 4,000 letters a month.

But we do not rely on views which are sent in: we hold regular viewers’ conferences at which both past and forthcoming programmes are discussed, and in addition we have a Council of Viewers, composed of about 100 people.

On this council we have factory workers and professors, doctors and housewives, all sorts of people. When they meet twice a month they give their views of the programmes as well as the opinions of people they know and work with. In this way, it is easy for the central studios in Moscow to get the opinions of a good cross-section viewers.

From my observations, one thing seems it is safe to say that no country has yet produced a programme which has satisfied everyone.

Which brings me to another question I have been asked: do you have television critics in the Soviet Union? This question was asked with feeling. My answer is: “Yes, indeed, we have critics, lots and lots of them; and they can be very stringent in their criticism.”

In the Soviet Union, television is looked on as a baby that is growing up and needs an occasional reprimand.

The critics demand good television. But I what is good television? That is the most difficult question to answer, but I would say this: whatever the type of programme, the aim must always be to keep the quality high. It seems to me that Granada is doing this, for I was particularly impressed by the way they handled coverage of the Trades Union Congress meeting. This was a model of how such a programme should be covered.

I have also seen rehearsals for a television version of Dickens’ “Old Curiosity Shop” (The Small Servant), and, as a former actor, I was struck by the high level of this production. This would be a popular play in Russia.

My visit has really been to study technical methods, and in some ways you are ahead of us, notably in the videotape field, in which programmes are transcribed into electrical impulses and recorded on tape.

The Granada Convertor was also most impressive, for it solves the problem of “translating” the British line system into the different systems used by other countries.

My colleagues and I were also interested in the “Travelling Eye” Outside Broadcast Units and other production methods.

However, we are ahead of Britain in the colour television field. Already, we are transmitting one and a half hours of colour television a week. Of course, the programmes can be picked up in colour only on special sets, but they can be received in black and white on normal sets. From the great interest shown in colour work, it is obvious that colour television is going to be developed quickly, but I do not think that it will ever entirely replace black and white, any more than colour has ever done in the cinema.

We also have two other black and white channels, both, of course, run by the State. There are 4,000,000 television sets in the Soviet Union, and this, considering the large population, is a small percentage. We are rapidly increasing production of sets, and this year we shall have made another million.

My visit has been short and, of necessity, much confined to technical matters, but it has emphasised how much television can be a common language.

Language barriers can be broken, but there have also been certain technical barriers. Now these, too, are falling to inventions such as the Granada Convertor. This sort of machine can play a great part in making television truly international.

The post British TV through Moscow eyes appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.