by Pamela Brown
‘It wouldn’t matter,’ he told her. ‘The assistant floor manager has a switch on a long cord, and when she presses it, it cuts the sound out while she prompts the actor, and so the viewers don’t hear the prompt.’
‘I’ve seen that happen,’ said Eric, ‘It seems as if the sound on your own set has gone, then it comes back again.’
‘That’s right,’ said Mr Manyweather. ‘As long as the actor just stands still and waits for the prompt, and doesn’t look agonised, it hardly shows at all.’
Just then came the cry of ‘Hold it—hold it, please,’ and the floor manager added, ‘He’s coming down.’
Everyone relaxed and waited for the producer to appear. He came down some steep iron steps into the studio, and went over to the actors taking part in the sketch. ‘No, what I mean is this…’ he began.
‘Now’s our chance,’ said Mr Manyweather. ‘Up we go.’
They went quickly up the stairs into the control room, which was dark and full of cigarette smoke. At first the children could see nothing but the silvery oblongs of the monitors.
‘May I just show these two the control room very briefly?’ asked Mr Manyweather of an elderly gentleman sitting at a desk in front of the monitors.
‘Yes, go ahead. But you’d better clear out when he comes back.’ The man jerked his head towards the producer down in the studio.
‘Sure,’ said Mr Manyweather, and as their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, after the bright lights of the studio, he explained to Eric and Maddy who everyone was.
‘The girl twiddling the knobs is the vision mixer; the producer sits beside her and tells her which camera he wants transmitted. The producer’s secretary sits at his other side, timing the show, and calling out the number of the shot, so that the cameramen and everyone know exactly where they are in the action of the programme. Then, at this other desk, sits the chief engineer, who is in charge of all the technical side of the programme, and the lighting engineer, and the make-up girl and wardrobe assistant. So they, too, can see just how everyone looks on the screen.’
Maddy stared longingly at the vision mixer’s panel and wished she could have a go.
‘How exactly does it work?’ asked Eric.
‘Show them, Clare, there’s a dear,’ said Mr Manyweather.
‘Well, I can cut—like this—from one camera to another,’ said the girl, pressing a button, so that one picture instantly replaced another on the transmission monitor in front of her. ‘Or I can mix—like this.’ One picture dissolved slowly into another as she pulled two little levers in opposite directions. ‘Or I can fade…’ She pulled one lever and the picture faded, leaving a blank screen.
‘What fun,’ cried Maddy. ‘D’you think I could just try it…’
‘No,’ said Mr Manyweather decidedly. ‘You’ve caused enough trouble already.’
‘Is this the young lady who walked across the sky on the B.P.?’ asked Clare, laughing. ‘I can’t tell you how funny it looked from here.’
While they were laughing Mr Manyweather said suddenly, ‘Sh. He’s coming back. We’d better go.’
They slipped out of the vision control room, into the sound control room, where the ‘gram’ girl, as Mr Manyweather described her, was putting records on to a long bank of revolving turntables, and a young man was twiddling knobs under another row of monitors.
‘He’s the sound mixer,’ Mr Manyweather told them. ‘He does with the sound what the vision mixer does with the pictures.’
Just then the producer strode past them. ‘Hullo, old boy,’ said Mr Manyweather. ‘I’ve been showing two young visitors over the place; you don’t mind, do you…’
‘No, no—not at all,’ said the producer vaguely, without even looking at them.
‘He does look worried,’ said Maddy.
‘So would I be,’ said Mr Manyweather, ‘if I’d got to get this show on tonight.’
When they had reached the studio again the floor manager shouted suddenly, ‘Break for tea’, and instantly the studio became deserted. The lights were switched out, and the cameramen and everybody surged through the doors.
‘Well,’ said Eric, ‘that was quick.’
It gave them a chance to have a close look at some of the equipment. Eric was particularly interested in the cameras, and climbed up on the seat of one of them to look through the lens.
Maddy went on to one of the sets and started singing in what she hoped was an operatic fashion, imitating the soprano who had just been singing.
‘For goodness’ sake, Maddy,’ Mr Manyweather implored her, ‘come on, let’s go and have some tea, like everyone else.’
They walked through endless corridors and scenery docks to the canteen, where a long queue was curling from the door to the counter.
‘Heavens, we’ll never get served,’ said Mr Manyweather, but Eric and Maddy found it interesting enough just to stand in the queue and look around. Most of the people appeared to be technicians and secretaries, but here and there were splashes of colour where actors and singers and dancers in costume were sitting, drinking tea and chatting. Maddy looked curiously at the costumes—there were ballet dancers, cavaliers, and some children dressed up as birds, their headpieces pushed back on to their shoulders, so that they could eat.
‘After tea can we look at the wardrobe and the make-up places?’ Maddy asked Mr Manyweather.
‘Yes, I’d been planning to take you there.’
At last they collected their tea and a plate of sticky buns, and sat down at a table. All sorts of people kept coming up to talk to Mr Manyweather, and he introduced Maddy and Eric to everybody as ‘two young friends’. It was impossible to tell who was what, as they addressed each other by their Christian names.
‘That was the assistant controller,’ said Mr Manyweather airily, as one gentleman departed.
‘And who’s that?’ asked Eric, indicating a smart young man who looked like a band leader.
‘Him? Oh, he’s a call-boy.’
Maddy was thrilled to recognise an announcer who had been on the programme that they had watched at Snooks’s house.
‘Isn’t she lovely,’ she said. ‘She hasn’t got much make-up on, has she? It’s not a bit like stage or film make-up.’
‘No,’ agreed Mr Manyweather, ‘it’s much more delicate. The television cameras see everything in such detail that make-up has to be light—hardly more than a woman wears ordinarily.’
Maddy was so anxious to see the make-up department that she could hardly eat her tea. When they had finished, Mr Manyweather led them down to the basement, into a room lined with mirrors, each surrounded by very bright electric lights. There was a lovely smell of cosmetics, and lots of wigs were arranged on wooden stands shaped like bald heads. Maddy picked one up and perched it on top of her head.
‘Look, I’m Little Lord Fauntleroy…’
‘Put it down!’ cried Eric and Mr Manyweather in one voice.
‘Don’t touch a thing,’ Mr Manyweather said. ‘I’ve got to leave you here for a few minutes, while I go to see the controller. If you touch anything you’ll get thrown out. Darling,’ he called to a pretty girl in a blue overall, whose name he had obviously forgotten, ‘may I leave these two with you for a few minutes? Just let them watch you make up an artiste, will you? They’re in the business—two of my schoolchildren.’
‘Yes, of course, Leon. Come this way,’ said the girl pleasantly to Maddy and Eric.
Under a white cape sat an unidentifiable figure wearing a white turban, and as they watched, the girl began to rub cream into the face.
‘Is it going to be a man or a woman?’ Maddy demanded loudly.
Eric trod heavily on her toe, and made a fierce face at her. The girl and the figure under the cape both laughed.
‘It’s a lady,’ the make-up girl answered Maddy. And sure enough, when the make-up was finished they recognised a very pretty dancer who had been in the show they had watched rehearsed.
Then Mr Manyweather reappeared, a
nd took them to the wardrobe, where costumes of every description hung on long rails, and men and women in white overalls with needles and thread stuck in their lapels raced about putting in a stitch here and a tuck there, sewing on a ribbon somewhere else. ‘Isn’t it lovely!’ cried Maddy, sniffing the smell of clothes being pressed.
‘We mustn’t stay, they’re so busy,’ said Mr Manyweather. ‘Although most of the costumes are hired, they do make a considerable number themselves, and there are always several shows in rehearsal at once, all needing attention.’
‘Where can we go now?’ demanded Maddy as they went out into the corridor again.
‘Well, you haven’t seen everything by a long chalk,’ said Mr Manyweather, ‘but I’m afraid it’s all for today, because I’ve got to dash off.’
As they climbed into ‘Agatha’ Eric said, ‘Thanks most awfully, Mr Manyweather. It’s been jolly interesting.’
‘Rather,’ said Maddy as ‘Agatha’ started up with a series of explosions. ‘I’ve quite decided I don’t want to act in the theatre or on the films. I want to be in television.’
4
MRS BOSHAM
One day, in the fifth week of term, Rosalind rushed into the ‘Babies’ classroom crying, ‘What do you think? Glorious news—I’ve just seen Mrs Seymore, and she says that Mr Whitfield’s buying a television set—to go in the common room—it’s being installed tomorrow, and anyone will be able to watch it.’
‘How heavenly! Wizard!’ came glad cries from all those who had not sets at home.
‘Anyone will be able to watch—even us?’ asked Maddy suspiciously.
They were used to the ‘Babies’ being excluded from certain activities on the grounds that they were ‘not old enough’.
‘Well—Mrs Seymore said we could watch in the afternoons sometimes. I don’t know whether that means we can’t in the evenings.’
When the ‘Babies’ told him about the set Mr Manyweather was delighted to hear the news.
‘Now, don’t just sit in front of it like a lot of morons, letting it lap over you. You must watch from a professional point of view. Consider the technique of the acting—see who you think is good and who isn’t, and why.’
Every day as soon as lessons were over, the ‘Babies’ assembled in the common room and watched the children’s programme. Then Maddy and Zillah would fly back to Fitzherbert Street for their evening meal, and back again to the Academy, where there were always some seniors watching—generally a play they particularly wanted to see, or a programme in which a friend was appearing. Maddy and Zillah would creep into the darkened room and curl up on the floor, and stay there until it was so late that even Mrs Bosham’s conscience was uneasy about them. When their eyes were smarting and their backs aching, they would slip out very quietly, for they were still not quite sure that the juniors were allowed to watch after the children’s programme was over.
Drinking cocoa in Mrs Bosham’s basement, Maddy would tell her all that they had just seen, while Mrs Bosham interjected cries of ‘Well, I never’ and ‘She didn’t!’
And every evening the conversation finished on the same line.
‘It’s no good, I’ll have to get a telly on the never-never.’
The effect of Mr Manyweather’s television lessons on the acting of the Academy was most marked. At first the other instructors were distraught because in their classes all the students were underacting and using too little voice. ‘You’ll never fill a theatre with that voice,’ cried Mrs Seymore in despair. ‘Too small—it’s all too small,’ stormed Mr Whitfield, after the top class had done their first public performance of the term. The seniors who were in their last year had to put on a play every three weeks, to accustom them to the rate of work outside in the professional world.
Poor Mr Manyweather began to feel quite worried.
‘They’re all blaming me,’ he said to Maddy’s class, ‘because you can’t keep to two separate techniques. You’ve got to learn to be able to switch over. You mustn’t ruin your chances for the theatre just because you hope to act on television. It’s ridiculous.’
So Mr Manyweather would keep saying in his lessons, ‘Show me how you’d do it for the theatre,’ then, ‘and now, for television.’
He arrived one day carrying some parcels even bulkier than usual. These when unwrapped turned out to contain large, rough models of television cameras. ‘Mock-ups’ of cameras he called them.
These mock-ups were fixed on to the backs of chairs and pushed about the room, to give the students the feeling of playing to different cameras all the time. There was quite a lot of competition among the boys to be ‘cameramen’.
‘Ooh, I’ve got a lovely close-up of Maddy,’ Colin would cry, looking through the imitation lens. ‘She does look funny…’
This did a great deal to make them less conscious of the cameras.
‘It’s to give you a sense of television,’ Mr Manyweather was always telling them. ‘I want you to be conscious of the camera, but not camera-conscious, if you see what I mean. A good television actor knows exactly which camera’s taking him at any given moment, and how long the shot is. He knows he’s got to give more on the long shot than in the close-ups, but he never lets the viewer suspect for a moment that there’s even a camera in sight.’
The television mania swept the whole Academy. The ‘Babies’ even enjoyed the advertisement spots on commercial television, and played at acting them individually, but leaving out the name of the product for the others to guess. The seniors were allowed to plan whole television productions, with one of the students as producer, and Mr Manyweather watched them and criticised them as seriously as if they were the real thing.
Every week the two best pupils in the ‘Babies’ television class were taken to the studios to watch a rehearsal, and Mr Manyweather managed to arrange matters so that a different couple came top each week. Poor Zillah was still so nervous that she never got through a speech without drying, but one day he said to her, ‘Well, you know, that was so sincere—at least the bit you remembered was—and you looked so enchanting that I think the viewers might forgive the dries, so you’d better come on Saturday and bring Armand with you.’
Armand was a French boy, who spoke very little English; his father was in the diplomatic service, and had just been posted to London. Armand had no ambition to become an actor, but his parents thought that more attention would be paid to his speech at the Academy than at an ordinary school. He was hampered by his lack of English to such a degree that he lagged behind in all subjects except French, where, of course, his accent put everyone else to shame.
‘What with Zillah’s accent and Armand’s, they’ll wonder at the studios what the Academy’s coming to,’ Snooks giggled to Maddy.
‘We can’t all be Cockneys,’ Maddy crushed her as usual.
Zillah came back marvelling at the many wonders of the television studio, and as anxious as everyone else to do some acting on the small screen.
During the following week some free seats were sent to the Academy for a commercial television quiz programme, which was to be televised with a live audience from a theatre in South London. A certain number of tickets were allotted to each class, and Zillah and Maddy were both fortunate enough to be given one. Each ticket admitted two people to the show, but anyone under seventeen had to be accompanied by an adult.
‘Bags I Mrs Bosham,’ cried Maddy.
‘But—but then I shan’t have a grown-up,’ wailed Zillah.
‘Well,’ Maddy racked her brains, ‘there’s Mr Manyweather—or Mrs Seymore,’ she added doubtfully.
‘I could never ask them,’ cried Zillah.
‘Well then, ask one of the seniors who’s over seventeen,’ said Maddy.
‘Oh, I daren’t.’
‘I’ll find someone for you,’ promised Maddy, ‘even if I have to stop and ask a passer-by in the street.’
‘No, no,’ cried Zillah, terrified that Maddy might do as she threatened.
But in the
end Snooks came to the rescue.
‘You can have my father,’ she offered largely. ‘Both my parents want to come, so he’ll be glad to share your ticket.’
Mrs Bosham, too, was thrilled with the idea. She couldn’t quite gather what it was they were going to do, but knew it was something to do with the ‘telly’, and that it would make an outing. She deliberated at length on which hat she should wear, until Maddy had to assure her that she wouldn’t necessarily be seen by the cameras.
‘Of course, they do sometimes show a few of the people in the audience,’ Maddy admitted. ‘But not very often.’
‘Still, there’s your friend’s Mum and Dad to think about,’ went on Mrs Bosham. ‘We don’t want to let them down, do we?’
Maddy was sure that Mrs Snooks would be horrified by Mrs Bosham’s hat, but she didn’t really care. It was so exciting to be going to a real television show, of a type so different from the one she had watched before.
They arranged to meet outside the theatre, and Maddy and Zillah and Mrs Bosham were there in good time.
When the Snooks family turned up Maddy thought that Mrs Snooks’s hat was just as ridiculous as Mrs Bosham’s, only obviously more expensive. They all jabbered excitedly and then made their way into the theatre, with a stream of other people.
It was a beautiful old theatre that had been a music hall until it had been bought by the commercial television company. Outside it was rather shabby, but inside it was very ornate and had been redecorated; the gilded and scrolled balconies gleamed, and the red plush seats had been newly upholstered.
‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ breathed Maddy.
‘Is this a theatre?’ asked Zillah. ‘I like it better than the cinemas.’
Of course everyone laughed at this, but it seemed terrible to think that Zillah’s first visit to a real theatre was to see a television show.
The television cameras were placed at various vantage points in the theatre, one of them being on a ramp running down the centre of the auditorium. ‘I do hope our seats aren’t directly behind the camera,’ said Mrs Snooks, ‘or we shan’t see anything.’
