There are other examples of the same show being made by more than one department. For a couple of years in the eighties Russell Harty did his show twice a week on BBC2, where on Tuesdays it came from London and on Thursdays from Manchester, with a different production team in each city.
Yep until recently Womens Hour came from London some days and Manchester/Salford others
Live and Kicking did change quite a bit when it went to Glasgow - don't forget it had been announced as not returning in the February, so it was pretty much on death row during the summer months in Scotland. So I think they were largely given free reign to try new things and it was reformatted quite a bit towards the end. I'd say it actually got better but that's often the case when the pressure is off a production, and in this case it got a whole new production team...
Woman's Hour used to move around even more than that according to Genome, with Bristol, Pebble Mill and even Newcastle (credited as BBC North East rather than as an outpost of Manchester) amongst others producing editions.
Was Why Don't You a similar story, with the relevant region/nation producing rather than a visiting team?
Yes, they had a larger studio in Glasgow and added areas such as the den part which I remember being made up of many small monitors - I remember liking the look of it at the time.
One thing that I didn't like at the time was how they split the programme into three sections. They had kicking toons featuring rugrats, etc. And related features, I may not have liked the segregation but I have vague memories of a cartoonified theme tune. They then had a main section with games, competitions and interviews (I'm not sure if this just kept the live & kicking name or if it was branded differently but I think it used the graphics & main theme), then had Live & Loud for the last section - trying to compete with CD:UK a little, this was a music themed part of the show.
Woman's Hour used to move around even more than that according to Genome, with Bristol, Pebble Mill and even Newcastle (credited as BBC North East rather than as an outpost of Manchester) amongst others producing editions.
Was Why Don't You a similar story, with the relevant region/nation producing rather than a visiting team?
I think Woman's Hour had a specific "regional" episode one day a week with the different regions taking turns to make it.
Why Don't You did indeed go around the regions, but seemingly this started to become a bit more trouble than it was worth and the different regions' shows were of too vairable quality because at the end of the eighties they decided to make every episode from BBC Manchester. They decided that the Cardiff episodes had been the best, so they got their writer to move to Manchester - one Russell T Davies. Actually I did read that RTD had been hired as a designer, but the producer was fed up with writing the scripts and asked if anyone else wanted to have a go, and RTD volunteered.
They still went round the regions as late as 1988 as a certain Ant McPartin was part of the Newcastle team that year.
:-(
A former member
I still remember when L&K went on its holls to glasgow for the summer. Katy never went with them and someone else come in. The whole feel of the show was different, its was like who cares let's have fun and be silly feel. I remember there brought back "Strange or fiction" or true or fiction show? as a gameshow on the series.
They still went round the regions as late as 1988 as a certain Ant McPartin was part of the Newcastle team that year.
Indeed, I think the Newcastle series was the last to come from the regions, though. And despite Ant's presence, I remember at the time thinking the Newcastle gang's series was bloody awful.
I still remember when L&K went on its holls to glasgow for the summer. Katy never went with them and someone else come in. The whole feel of the show was different, its was like who cares let's have fun and be silly feel. I remember there brought back "Strange or fiction" or true or fiction show? as a gameshow on the series.
Yeah, Heather Suttie took over. They knew they were being cancelled but the decision to have the show on during the summer was very last minute. Think the summer replacement was doing even worse in the ratings.
Like you say, there was a case of "who cares" going round. Features only seemed to last a couple of weeks and constant new gunge games.
:-(
A former member
I bet there had something else planned before there pulled the rug from Glasgow and told them L&K is moving north.
Here is that strange FOT, which was just a rehash of a CBBC show made by scotland. That feature lasted the full run.
https://youtu.be/hpjjDRshb2g?t=1357