Goodbye Pebble Mill

forgive the creation of a new thread - but my excuse is that this (whatever it is) is on network bbc one - and not just bbc one midlands.

just glancing through digiguide and happened to notice:

ENTERTAINMENT: Pebble Mill
Channel: BBC 1 Midlands
Date: Sunday 1st February 2004
Time: 13:00 to 13:30 (starting in 10 days)
Duration: 30 minutes.
(Subtitles)

what on earth is it? repeats, highlights, best of the "at one" series - or about the building - or something completely unrelated?!

whatever it is, the name makes it sound very exciting - the epicentre of a television revolution which gave birth to a dynasty of daytime television.

set your videos kids.

It's on everything except Scotland. Interesting.

From Waveguide

Goodbye Pebble Mill At One

After 32 years and countless hours of broadcasting, BBC Pebble Mill in Birmingham is to close, ending an era of programming that will never be forgotten.

On Sunday, February 1 in BBC One's Goodbye Pebble Mill…At One, celebrities recount personal memories of the building which revolutionised daytime television; audience members re-live their favourite shows; and viewers can look back at the golden moments – and a few on-air bloopers.

Programme presenter Toyah Willcox was raised locally, grew up with Pebble Mill At One and made her name with hit home-grown shows such as Look Hear! She went on to star in a variety of Pebble Mill productions including Call My Bluff, Doctors, The Really Useful Show and Good Morning With Anne And Nick.

Willcox takes viewers on a whistle-stop tour of the broadcasting centre, from the set of the daytime show Doctors, where she recalls the great drama traditions of Pebble Mill, to the studio where Radio 4’s The Archers is made.

Highlights include Bob Langley and Marian Foster talking about being in the hot-seat of the first daytime TV show of its kind, Sir Cliff Richard reminiscing about his many appearances on the Pebble Mill At One sofa and Christopher Timothy recalling life on
the set of All Creatures Great And Small.

Behind the scenes is the cleaner who has been polishing the floors ever since the studios opened, keeping the dressing rooms spick and span for the likes of Shirley Bassey and Sophia Loren; and the security guard whose 25 years of service include protecting boy band Bros from 3,000 screaming girls and minding HM The Queen
for a day.

The last stop for Toyah is BBC Birmingham’s brand-new home in the revitalised city centre. Purpose-built, cutting-edge, glamorous and modern, it’s a bit like Pebble Mill itself all those years ago.

And thre was me thinking she made her name as a singer

I don't suppose BBC Midlands is allowed to do a more localised version at some point, ie banging on about Midlands Today, BBC WM, other local shows, or will that be relagated to a 3 min report one night on MT, or if I'm really lucky, the Carl Chinn show on WM will have a 2 hour special one Sunday, like they did for 30 years of WM, a few years back ?

What's happening with 'Doctors' ?

I was under the impression that there was no space for it at the Mailbox !

(Interesting point, I remember reading, the programme that eventually became 'Eastenders', could have been made at Pebble Mill & on location, if the BBC hadn't bought Elstree instead! Wonder how long that programme would've lasted if that happened ?)

Another question. Discounting 'Doctors', & other studio based stuff at PM like MT, Politics Show etc, what was the last regular network show to be made at PM?

I think it's between Howards' Way (It's replacement, 'Trainer', only lasted one series & was shot on film(on location?), 'Telly Addicts', or maybe early daytime tv (I have a edition of 'Talkabout' from about 1997, presented as a simulcast from the PM conservatory on BBC1 network tv & additionally locally on BBC WM radio, because Doolan was presenting !)

Thats because of Sportscene, so BBC1 Scotland will be showing Eastenders - but, rather interestingly, when they rejoin the network later in the afternoon, they'll be showing Eastenders again!

Loads of stuff, Gardeners World is still in production, Top Gear was Pebble Mill until recently and there is a lot of daytime made there. The last studio programme was probably Call My Bluff

oh yes, i think it would be a v interesting variation - especially seeing as local programmes are a big part of what pebble mill is about.

and i think doctors is moving to a four wall-er in solihull, still produced by bbc birmingham tho - or did i dream that?



big strong boys (bbc one)
big strong girls (bbc one)
call my bluff (bbc one)
garden invaders (bbc one)
trading up (bbc one)
million pound property experiment (bbc two)
countryfile (bbc one)
doctors (bbc one)
gardeners world (bbc two)
grease monkeys (bbc three)
hidden gardens (bbc two)
home front in the garden (bbc two)
small town gardens (bbc two)
the flying gardener (bbc two)
the winter flying gardener (bbc two)
trading up in the sun (bbc one)
network east late (bbc two)
up market (bbc two)
wrong car right car (bbc two)
the archers (bbc radio 4)
dalziel and pascoe (bbc one)
inside out (bbc one midlands)
bbc radio wm
bbc midlands today (bbc one midlands)
farming today (bbc radio 4)
bbc radio 2 (around a 1/3 of it's output)
bbc 6 music (a portion of its output)
the politics show midlands (bbc one midlands and bbc one east midlands)
the afternoon play (bbc one)

i'm sure ive missed a few out

all of the above are pretty much current, so the good old mill is far from dead

Aren't the majority of these produced on location, & not using studio space in the old/traditional way, only using PM for editing etc purposes ?

I was thinking of the type of series PM used to produce for the network, eg Howards' Way, A Very Perculiar Practice(deserves a terristrial repeat of both series, not just Series 1 on BBC4 !), but 'Call My Bluff' sounds about right.

On the subject of Howards' Way, I remember hearing somewhere that there tended to be more film sequences in the later episodes, due to them being near transmission. Is that right?

Out of curisotcity, I seem to recall one of the later 'Brush Strokes' series being shot close to transmission(?), because they mentioned both Karl Howman & his then current female lead(Louise English(?)) also appearing in a play at the same time & 'Brush Strokes' was shot on the Sunday & transmitted the following Thursday!

Am I right, because this sort of production schedule seems dodgy to me, espicially if someone falls ill, in fact has that ever happened as well ?

well yes, most, if not all are location based.

thinking about the last studio based show - what about that programme pebble mill produced for bbc knowledge at its launch - called "the k club" or something similar.

Never heard of that one.

It's not very often I come away from BBC ONE, ITV1 & of course BBC WM/Alex Trellinski !

A great big amount of Asian Network programming comes from Pebble Mill too.