Blue Peter

Talking about the show in general, what has happened to the presenter banter? Part of its appeal to me in the mid-nineties was the fact, in my opinion, the presenters didn't over-rehearse and took the programme as live and unscripted.

Perhaps the two new presenters are still finding their feet or it's successfully being destroyed by aiming at it's younger audience - part of which (alas the scandals also) I reckon Marson was sacked for as well.

Some extra info on colourization of BP here - http://www.tvstudiohistory.co.uk/old%20bbc%20studios.htm

Seems Biddy Baxter objected to the cost of using colour studios so would often use Riverside which was b/w and therefore cheaper.

Also interesting about the 50th show was that it was preceded by a BBC1 ident. Presuambly they thought there would be some adult interest too, or that CBBC doesn't have "announcers" as such on BBC1 and it needed an intro? (despite Holly and the brain doing something like that just beforehand).

I like the new guy Joel although he does seem to be either grimacing when someone else is speaking or trying too hard ( sometimes ). Not sure about the mockney accent he lapses into sometime.
( You should see what I say about people I don't like )

Has the garden been dropped now? I know there's talk and it's mentioned in the 50th anniversary book about it being featured less..

And last point for this post - I think the new(ish) editor would be doing himself and possibly the programme a favour if he brought back in the Christmas carols. Then people actually might think that he did give a s**t about the programme.

I did laugh when reading this statement in the Daily Star Sunday



Clearly she wasn't THAT good at keeping them when shown a big cheque from a publisher. I'm sure everyone has their price, but it's perhaps not very good PR to illustrate your duplicity and double standards in the space of two consecutive sentences.

has Romana shunned her BP past or somthing

didn't see much of her, was she with the programme long

Though ironically this era was one where Autocue was used ISTR.

Historically BP didn't use Autocue - and presenters had to learn scripts and deliver them unaided. When Yvette Fielding arrived they realised she was hopeless without a script - so introduced Autocue AIUI. It remained until a year or two ago AIUI.

Perhaps the current presenters are working so hard to deliver memorised scripts that they lose spontaneity?

(Or have I got this all wrong?)

From what I've seen of this series the banter is still there, especially between the two newbies, but Thursday's show wasn't one of the best of the series.

Yvette Fielding explained her absense from the documentary in something the other day - she was due to feature, but fell of a horse or something so couldn't.

maybe she was filming Britian's Most Haunted Stables

I can remember her as a child actress in a programme about two kids who lived in a sea side guest house

showing your age alert!!

She played the sister in "Johnny Briggs". Great show.

Of course, she wasn't the only BP presenter who started her career as a children's BBC actress - Sarah Green was in a drama called, "The Swish of the Curtain". When she was on the Blue Peter show bring interviewed about it she was spotted by Biddy Baxter who said she seemed perfectly relaxed in the studio - and so she was invited to audition.

According to my BP annual for that year, anyway.

That wasn't her that was Sue Devaney who went on to be in Victoria Wood's dinnerladies.

What was Yvette in then?