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Brookside Close

Just a dump! (April 2006)

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DJ
DJGM
stevek posted:

nice photo, where did you find that?


It's from Google Earth.
ST
stevek
I thought so, my computer does not like google earth, won't even load it via the net without crashing Crying or Very sad

thanks for telling me though
IS
Inspector Sands
tvarksouthwest posted:
If you think Brookside is in a state you obviously haven't seen Follyfoot Farm, used in the 70s series :

www.follyfoot-tv.co.uk


Or the location for Fawlty Towers:
http://www.btinternet.com/~c.tomlinson/wgaf9.jpg
http://www.btinternet.com/~c.tomlinson/wgaf1.jpg

Pictures from: The Unofficial Guide To Fawlty Towers
NG
noggin Founding member
DJGM posted:
cromerlad posted:

SOL posted:

What happened to the old Big Breakfast house?


AFAIK after the fire it was bought privately and turned into a home . . .


Before the arson attack Channel 4 was hoping to get around £1million for it's sale. It eventually sold for about 40% less.

Since then, the owners have completely repaired and renovated it. They've kept a ten foot barbed wire topped security
fence attached to the old white picket fence, to prevent East End chav thugs getting in and wrecking the place again.

"The Cottage" as it's now known, is a residential property. The owners even lived in part of it during the repair work.


Meanwhile, back on topic ... here's a birds eye view of Brookside Close . . .

http://djgm.co.uk/misc/Brookside-Close-from-above.jpg


Did Channel 4 own the cottages ? I'd have thought that Planet 24, the makers of the Big Breakfast did? After all, it was an independent production wasn't it - not a Channel 4 in-house production (which historically were just a couple of shows like Right to Reply)
NG
noggin Founding member
Inspector Sands posted:
josh205 posted:
were the houses in a real street or studios, and mainly is the picture real
.

They bought the whole street of houses in a new estate. It was cheaper, easier and quicker to do it that way than go down the Eastenders route of building a street and sets


Cheaper for Mersey TV. I suspect that because the BBC already owned the Elstree site, it was cheaper for them to use space they already owned, and had facilities for, than buy/build new property and new equipment. (Eastenders has never, at least in recent years, had full gallery facilities. Although it is cut multicamera, the cut is just done on a simple matrix, not a vision mixer!)

Brookside (like Eldorado which used the same concept) was, initially, a nightmare - because the houses were not built for production, and thus didn't have removable walls, or decent sound properties. Mersey TV always had high technical standards though, and from the beginning used new, good quality cameras.

In contrast, EastEnders was shot at Elstree, using EMI cameras that were over 15 years old and had been retired from other BBC studios... The premises were bought from ATV when they had to become Central and locate all their production in the Midlands (previously ATV had some production at Elstree) - so the Beeb inherited some decent TV studios (albeit that needed refurbing).

Mersey made the right decision for their production, arguably the BBC made the right decision for theirs. They started from different positions.
DJ
DJGM
RE: The (former) BIG Breakfast House . . .

noggin posted:

Did Channel 4 own the cottages ? I'd have thought that Planet 24, the makers of the Big Breakfast did?
After all, it was an independent production wasn't it - not a Channel 4 in-house production (which
historically were just a couple of shows like Right to Reply)


Planet 24 did own the (former) BIG Breakfast House at first. Channel 4 bought it in 1996, prior to the first relaunch.
ST
stevek
those fawlty towers photos are quite old as the building used for the exterior shots burned down years ago

heared recently that doncaster council want to pull down the street open all hours was filmed on.
CW
Charlie Wells Moderator
stevek posted:
heared recently that doncaster council want to pull down the street open all hours was filmed on.

I seem to recall one of the BBC continuity announcers mentioning about that before the start of one of the episodes of Open All Hours.
DJ
DJGM
What's the name of the actual Doncaster street where the exterior scenes for "Open All Hours" were filmed?
PC
Philip Cobbold
DJGM posted:
What's the name of the actual Doncaster street where the exterior scenes for "Open All Hours" were filmed?

Lister Avenue - the article about the demolition can be seen here
JO
Johnny83
noggin posted:
DJGM posted:
cromerlad posted:

SOL posted:

What happened to the old Big Breakfast house?


AFAIK after the fire it was bought privately and turned into a home . . .


Before the arson attack Channel 4 was hoping to get around £1million for it's sale. It eventually sold for about 40% less.

Since then, the owners have completely repaired and renovated it. They've kept a ten foot barbed wire topped security
fence attached to the old white picket fence, to prevent East End chav thugs getting in and wrecking the place again.

"The Cottage" as it's now known, is a residential property. The owners even lived in part of it during the repair work.


Meanwhile, back on topic ... here's a birds eye view of Brookside Close . . .

http://djgm.co.uk/misc/Brookside-Close-from-above.jpg


Did Channel 4 own the cottages ? I'd have thought that Planet 24, the makers of the Big Breakfast did? After all, it was an independent production wasn't it - not a Channel 4 in-house production (which historically were just a couple of shows like Right to Reply)


So the houses just to the left of the close, where they also owned by Channel4/Mersey TV or are these privately owned?

Also interesting to see how far back that wooded area goes, seeing as the final storyline was all to do with building an incinerator(sp) there Laughing
ST
Stuart
Does anyone know what happened to the other part of the Brookside set (the Shopping Parade etc). I know that was actually some distance away, and was presumably purpose built as a set.

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