Been to a mixture of shows over the years:
National Lottery Live - September 1998, hosted by Gloria Estefan. Rather amused when a little gaunt man shuffled on mid
VT and suddenly she was introducing Bryan Adams, and literally none of us had even recognised him...
Dinnerladies - second series, Saturday recording. Victoria Wood had swung it so every episode was recorded twice so she could tweak everything that didn't work on the Friday taping. She also did the pre-show warmup before handing over to the actual warmup guy.
Never Mind The Buzzcocks - back in the Mark Lamaar days. He started it by explaining at least half of the gags were written solely for the audience that night and would never get past the edit. "...well, it's a half hour show, we'd rather make it a proper night out for you all..."
Eyes Down - failed Paul O Grady sitcom, with one or two names who've done quite well for themselves since - Sheridan Smith, Tony Maudsley. Problem was, the retakes probably had to have the initial take's laughter on, as things did not bear repeating...
Miranda - last main series episode where she got it together with Gary. Memorable as the big kiss stopped proceedings for a good twenty minutes, as the audience got thoroughly hyped up, and I can be heard chucklng throughout the show, given I was literally one of about five men in the whole audience. As I recall, there was me, a few husbands, and Nick Robinson just across the aisle from me.
The One Show - yes, I know, it doesn't have an audience as such, but five of us were in to watch Gloria Estefan on the show. Her husband stood behind the cameras chatting to us throughout, and it's so much more watchable when you don't actually have to watch the inserts! Especially remember Alex Jones standing up EVERY single time the camera cut away from her, to hoik her skirt down a bit as it ended up round her waist every time she moved. Also, Jay Rayner was on learning to salsa, and was lovely, whilst Alex and Matt couldn't have been snottier.
(I should've been at Alan Titchmarsh two days before The One Show, but issues with my London-bound train delayed things too much for that to happen. Shame, as the tickets had been organised by Gloria's people, and had I been there in time, I too would've been whisked off from Titchmarsh to the Daybreak studio, to perch on the red sofa and watch Aled Jones pre-record an interview for Wednesday or Thursday morning.)
Mel and Sue - their short-lived daily live ITV chat show from Whiteley's. The audience people spent the whole time trying to persuade us all to sign up to come back to watch The Wright Stuff. M&S kept popping into the audience in the breaks to shake hands with people, and I ended up with a whole plate of the outcome of that day's cookery slot, as most people chickened out of trying lamb hearts...
QI - must've attended half of series P. Damned edit cut out the bit where I answered a question about the origin of cornish pasties, though I can be seen gurning away behind Josh Widdecombe during another show, when he was in a sack race with the world record holder. (Also, that was the coldest day of the damn year, an afternoon recording, and Sandi had two fan heaters under the desk whilst we all sat there bundled up to hell. So much for hot studio lights!
The Chase Celebrity Special - the warmup guy kept telling us how sad everyone was, as it was the final recording in Studio 1. Took about four hours to film one episode...
The Graham Norton Show - Two red chair stories, as I recall, and one simply got chopped out. Don't remember Graham bothering to record different intros for that, just a simple "who's in the red chair? Hello!" He then recorded about six different trailers, not only for BBC One that Friday, but also an Australian channel, and BBC America too, IIRC. Then they brought one of the guests back on to do the "Hi, I'm...and welcome..." bit, right at the end!
