Have you been in a TV audience?

Beadle's Hotshots, only now notable because a) a lot of the videos had to be re-edited quite substantially for them to work on telly (you probably wouldn't be able to do that now, what with safeguarding trust) and the job of doing that fell to Edgar Wright in one of his first TV roles, and b) the second series was dropped mid-run because it was flopping at 7pm on Fridays and LWT asked the Network Centre to drop it because it was doing so badly in their region - even though it was actually an LWT production.



Yes, as I say in his book he lavishes praise on the crew and he bought them loads of presents at the end, and got T-shirts made up with "I worked with Cheggers on Star Search" on the front and "For God's sake don't tell anyone" on the back. He always seemed very popular on set, he got the Big Breakfast job because he was booked for The Word, in their traditional let's-laugh-at-a-faded-celeb spot, and he absolutely charmed everyone with loads of self-deprecating humour and he knew exactly what they wanted from him and delivered it. He said that after the show Mark Lamarr told him he had a load of scripted jokes about him which he couldn't use because he was going down so well with the audience, and he was doing them all himself anyway.

I thought I was the only one who remembered Beadle's Hotshots. What I remember most is a Last Of The Summer Wine spoof mocking how long the show had run for.... and it still had another 15 odd years to run at that point.

I always wanted to be in a TV audience, but never was. I somehow got the erroneous idea that you had to be 18 to be in an audience, (I must have misread something on Central's teletext page on applying for tickets about needing to be over 18 to order tickets or needing to be accompanied by an over 18 ), so even though I live close to Nottingham, I never saw any shows made there, and the studios literally closed at virtually the same time I hit 18. All those shows made there that I could have seen but missed. Never really looked at going for tickets anywhere else because of the distance to travel for it (though we have applied for HIGNFY a couple of times, but got nowhere)... but maybe I should look at something at MediaCity sometime.

Steering this back onto the thread title, away from my 'format point diversion' a couple of posts further up the page..

I attended Golden Balls recording twice. Both times in TVC TC4 I seem to recall.

Jasper Carrott didn't quite play to the audience as much in recording breaks as I thought he would.
There were a couple of them, when the contestants had the balls rolled down from dispensing machine, and then put them on to the stands, recording would stop and the independent adjudicator and a producer would come onto the set, and write down the value of each ball in the rack in front of them. Carrott both times stayed at the back of the stage set, only occasionally making humerous comments, or talking to the contestants.

Also notciable, in the first series at least, there were two sets of audience seating in the studio, but I suspect ticket allocation cold feet, as I only ever saw the right hand seating section filled (as you look from the stage into the camera run) when Carrott did his throw to the breaks with the audience in shot.

At both recordings, unlike The Weakest Link, there didn't appear to be a 'separate' studio for the post show reactions.

They were done on the set, shot at an angle with the migraine inducing backdrop shot in soft focus. The winner was done with the audience present, so they could get another clap off the audience as they were led off the set and out of the studio.
I presume the 'bitter' looser was recorded after the audience had left, which, depending on the outcome, also allowed some cooling off time to collect their thoughts.

I’m in awe of all of your audience appearances.

My only audience appearances to date are:

Two episodes of TV Burp (a year after one another) when it was at Teddington - a bit of a ball ache to get to from the West Midlands, but it was incredibly entertaining from warm up to the throw away clips shown to audience members to keep the laughs going.

And Who Wants to be a Millionaire, 2019 Christmas Day programme where we ended up in the front row... the set was tiny, but also dirtier than it appears on screen with many scuffs over the floor and scratches in the set.

Other than that as a kid we were in the crowd for a live link up Michaela Strachan was doing for something (I can’t remember what though), and my sister and I accidentally walked across a shot where Magnus Magnusson was being interviewed at Plymouth Hoe.

Reminds me of when I went on the Broadcasting House tour in 2014, the table in the One Show studio was horrifically scratched, but it doesn't show up on screen, or even in the photo I took of it to try and show people how bad it looked.

The nearest I've been in is when I was at school and they filmed a Children in Need stunt for the local news, and when I just happened to be at Minehead Railway Station the day they were filming The Antiques Roadshow there (wasn't planned!), though they didn't show any of the actual bits I saw being filmed (though you could see my back in one shot). One thing I did learn is most of the items they show on the programme are planned in advance before the filming (though the people who own them don't know what it's worth until the filming), most of the people who turn up on the day just tend to be sent one of several experts who aren't being filmed and only end up in front of the cameras if it's something exceptional.

I wonder if there is more pressure on contestants on gameshows when there is an audience present than without so they're more prone to make a cock up? I honestly think if I'd made a blunder, I'd be out of the studio ASAP so no one would recognise me on the way home!

I've been to quite a few TV shows in the past, thought not many since TVC closed, and a lot of radio recordings. I personally prefer the later as it is quicker and you avoid recording breaks and retakes - and is generally very civilised. (I went to a quiz show with Jake Humprey & went home during the break between the two shows - after about three hours!) I've been to shows like Never mind the Buzzcocks and They think its all over which seem to work on the basis that if you go on for long enough a thirty minutes of the jokes will work - many don't. That said live TV recordings can be great fun, the energy level is always high & there is always the danger that something will go wrong. I even ended up on the Late Edition Live - wish I'd set the video recorder up for that.

I was a contestant on the Weakest Link in the early days (the recording was on the day the third programme was transmitted). I'm told that they started off doing four recordings a day but reduced it to three as no one could manage four. It certainly took in excess of two hours. Everyone had to do (at least) two walks of shame. And I asked for a retake when I stumbled in the interview.

I always wonder what it was like in the days when you used a razor blade to edit videotape and you were only allowed a few edits a programme. If you look at old shows such as Dad's Army you see fluffs that would certainly result in a retake these days but I don't think that they suffer for that.

I saw 'Home to Roost' at YTV starring John Thaw and a young Reece Dinsdale in about 1985/6. It was interesting to see the exterior scenes shot on film played into the studio recording - and then off to the bar afterwards, loooong before it was converted to the Calendar studio.

I feel privileged to have watched Bob Monkhouse doing his On The Spot show at TVC in the mid-90s. Just an absolute tour de force of course.

Large parts of the prog were done off autocue despite it claiming to have been spontaneous. But Bob’s warm-up to his own show- and the ad-libs during filming- were even more terrific. And some barbed comments about Anthea Turner (who he had recently succeeded on the Lottery) too.

Was the end of On The Spot as spontaneous as it seemed, or were the topics Bob had to navigate through planted in the audience?

That end sequence wasn’t on the autocue as I remember. But the people shouting out the topics were pre-planned (cos of the need to get the camera shots fixed and boom mics in place). Whether or not they were told to say agreed things, I can’t be sure.

Was that the show where one of Bob's legendary ledger book of jokes, joke and routine concepts, and material sketches went missing, and Adrian Walsh was, unfairly and incorrectly as it turned out, rumoured to have taken it from the production office?

The gag going around at the time was they were looking for the thief of bad gags..