Election 83

Thought I'd mention Election 83 is coming up - it's been on before, but only once, back in 2006.

It's quite a low-key election, coverage didn't start until 10.40 (preceded by Carrott's Lib) and, as in 1987, all the behind the scenes people are, well, behind the scenes, with only David, Peter and Robin (and Donald McCormick in the morning when Robin goes off to Downing Street) in the studio and everyone else brought out when required, including John Cole whose first appearance isn't until 3am. And of course the result's obvious within about ten minutes.

It's also the first election with computer graphics but the technology didn't yet exist to project these on a large scale so Peter sits down throughout, though the graphics are very nice and clear, and in the credits they thank Monotype International for "their typographical co-operation". Though there is a bit overnight where they seemingly crash and they revert to an old caption generator for a couple of minutes.

Nicholas Witchell is with Thatch but he doesn't have a very good time, the declaration is delayed for ages and he has to fill for a ridiculous amount of time and Michael Brunson keeps getting in his shot. There's a great bit in the following day where he's in Downing Street where he's meeting the public and the cameraman keeps going but Nick's microphone lead is too short so he has to physically drag the cameraman back. There's also a bit where Michael Cole follows David Steel only to realise at the last minute that he's actually walking to Alastair Stewart to be interviewed, and then his cameraman falls over Steel's dog. And there's a bit where they try and show Roy Jenkins entering SDP HQ but more or less give up because there's too many people in the way so give us a nice long shot of Trevor McDonald chatting to his crew.

For those interested in this kind of thing, we don't get the evening news or Breakfast Time but we do get the lunchtime news and it's a right shambles, read by a hapless Sandi Marshall who at one point has to be audibly prompted to the correct page of the script. And South East opts throughout with Laurie Mayer.

Thanks for posting.

As an aside, do contributers get paid any repeat fees? I imagine no, because the costs would be prohibitive, but I wonder how they can repeat previous election programmes so easily. For most of them, the idea that anyone would be interested in watching repeats of the programmes umpteen years later would have been crazy.

One programme which isn't likely to get a repeat is the 1997 Election Night Armistice on BBC 2, though only in England and Northern Ireland. It was a special edition of Armando Iannucci's programme. It is on YouTube, however.

It was shown for the 25th anniversary in 2008 too - I remember recording it then as Parliament was still stuck in quarter-screen when it was on the first time (though it was only weeks away from switching to full-screen).

looking forward to seeing this on tv having only ever seen it on you tube

Can I just say: your username is awesome.

Is this from TC1 or one of the smaller studios?

Doesn't look big enough to be TC1. The only wideshot is in/out of the regional opts and certainly its not epic looking!! Was Newsnight in TC2 at this point? I assume the South East opts are from Lime Grove.

Although at 4am when they packed up until Breakfast TIme came on, David did thank 'all those under us working away', so it could have been the far end of TC1 on a very high raised stage. Certainly they do look close to the lighting grid on the long shots, so it's entirely possible. I've been watching for the past 3 hours, and it's wonderfully tatty.

You can hear gallery talkback on some OB's, live mic sound checks going out, the workhorse Link cameras being wheeled around the set, some lettering on the consituency results graphics getting lost somewhere over the west coast of Wales, long zooms across the set which lead to David and Peter Snow delivering the first part of their links totally out of focus, and Donald McCormack who was parachuted in to replace Sir Robin (he was sent to interview Thatch at number 10) wore a thin lined jacket leading to strobing issues.

And Sandy Marshall and the 'looking down the barrel of a gun whilst caught in the headlights' news presentation was priceless. I'm guessing she was only on that shift, because all the other newsreaders were all out in the field reporting from the various counts in and around London the night before?

The Radio Times for that week shows that she had been co-presenting News After Noon all week with Richard Whitmore.

Googling to jog my memory to remember who Sandi M was, led me to this faintly worrying video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llk0VdDY88w

Not wishing to turn this into a rota thread but throughout 1983 they had a different presenter joining Richard Whitmore on News After Noon each month after Moira Stuart had moved to the teatime news. Usually they were regional presenters, Fern Britton was the first and they also had Noreen Bray, Judith Stamper, Judi Lines, Viv Creegor and others, plus Anne Diamond to give her something to do as Nationwide signed her but didn't like her. Sandi Marshall did the whole of June. That carried on for almost the whole year before Frances Coverdale joined full-time.

Imagine this forum if they did that now!

Worth watching for David Steel's taste in chunky knitwear alone.