From Keith Jacobsen

Lots of pictures from Keith .....

  Cutaway plan of Television Centre as it soon would be, published originally by the Architect And Building News, 23rd July 1958.

Click on pic for the (very) large version....don't be surprised if all you see is a white page, this is the top left corner.

(I've just looked at this again and realised that it includes the tank in TC1 - number 61. At some point someone presumably worked out that 110V DC and water don't mix well, and the lower area became the first VT library instead!)
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  This is from about the same time, in mid-build   jacobsen_TC1950_small (37K)
       
  And here a little earlier and from another angle - note White City Stadium top right, and Centre House bottom right - one long gone, the other soon to go.   jacobsen_tvcbuild2_small (39K)
       
  TC3 - nearly finished. The Marconi Mk4 cameras are on trollies in the lighting gallery   jacobsen_tc3-2_small (29K)
       
  And here's the production gallery during the very first show.

I don't know who the TM2 in the foreground is, but next right is vision mixer Rachel Blaney, followed by the producer, who I think is Graeme Muir.

This show still exists in the BBC library, and I saw it a few years ago. Sadly, given that it's supposed to be a grand opening of a new age of tv, it isn't much more than a very average and over-long light entertainment show, and actually shows very little of TC3 at all. The best bit is the incredibly camp and over the top opening sequence with the Irving Davis Dancers who start down at the front gate and dance all the way into the studio.
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  On the fourth floor, and a few degrees clockwise from TC3 is, or rather was, Pres A. This was one of two studios intended for in vision announcers, and that's whats happening here. In vision announcing went out of fashion very soon after, so Pres A became the home of the weather and trail-making (see other pages). I spent 15 years in the Presentation department and a very large amount of time in Pres A.

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  Pres B, the mirror image next door, was the home of Late Night Line Up. a late evening show on BBC2. Many stories can and have been told about LNLU, some in these pages, but some of the other stories aren''t suitable for a family audience. Let us just say it was the 1960s. LNLU spawned a number of good shows, and some top people learned there. Old Grey Whistle Test, a live pop show, was based there for many years - note the size of the studio - any you haven't lived till you've pointed a camera at Joe Cocker singing "I get by with a little help from my friends" backed by Sue and Sunny in a place not much bigger than your living room. Jimi Hendrix also played live there, and the BBC - just about - has a recording of it. And when you see that video of Bob Marley with the monitor up in the corner of the studio above his head, that's there too. Of course, all music had to stop whilst the weather went out live from next door, as otherwise the viewers wouldn't have heard it.

Pres A and B were destroyed in the late '90s to make way for a rather short lived network control room complex, so you can't now stand where famous people once played, and I was a twentysomething.







  Keith says that this is from a Dr Who. He doesn't know who the cameraman is, but we know it's Reg Poulter, don't we boys and girls?   jacobsen_poulter_small (24K)
       
  This one was taken in 1969, but Keith doesn't know any more about it, and neither do I.   jacobsen_tvc1969_small (29K)
       
  TC2 and That Was The Week That Was - Millicent Martin on stage with Willy Rushton, Roy Kinnear and Lance Percival sat at the desk

And maybe just possibly - is the man with beard and glasses holding the script at the monitor Jim Atkinson?
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  Taking some long leaps back now - this is What's My Line? 15/10/1961 at the TV Theatre.   Jacobsen_whatsmyline_small (26K)
       
  Lime Grove, Studio D in the 1950's. Peter Friese-Greene and guests.   jacobsen_peterfriesegreenelgd1950_small (25K)
       
From John Rossetti

       
  Co-inncidentally, John, who was a Technical Instructor, Television Production Training 1965 - 1968, has sent another version of the 1958 TC plan, complete with words.

John says....

"An A3 exploded diagram of the TVC as published by the BBC on the 23 July 1958.
I worked, amongst others places, at Woodstock Grove, home of Television Training and BBC Overseas Training, there was, on the top floor, in the old Canteen a 3 camera (EMI201) studio, technically not a regular tx studio, but there was a feed to/from CAR and it was used on air a couple of times, for interviews, when the interviewee did not want to go to a "public" venue."

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