We're both really excited as we've got tickets for the revival of the I.T.V. show 'Sunday Night at the Palladium.' I've been signed up for quite a while with an on-line company which issues free tickets to a very wide range of television shows. We've been to see several things being recorded, notably the television version of 'Dead Ringers' which was recorded at Television Centre and two radio shows, one a panel show called 'The Write Stuff' and a sitcom 'Clement Doesn't Live Here Any More.' Both were broadcast on BBC Radio 4. These were both recorded at The Drill Hall near the British Museum. It was interesting to see how radio shows are made and in particular the sitcom as I've always been intrigued by how they do the sound effects. When I worked in stage management I quite often had to operate the sound system and cue in pre-recorded sound effects as well as music and we sometimes had to produce live or 'practical' sound effects, usually off-stage, such as door slams, glass crashes or gun-shots.
If you go to see television show being recorded you have to bear in mind that it won't be like going to see a play in a theatre as you don't always see directly onto all of the sets as some are obscured by bits of other scenery, cameras and equipment gets in the way and you often have to watch pre-recorded segments on television sets or monitors and there are often quite long breaks in the recording when actors have costume changes, bits of scenery is moved about and sometimes when there is a technical problem. Also, they might do several 'takes' or a scene or an actor forgets his lines or they want the audience to applause or perhaps not. Then they have a warm-up man or woman come on and keep the audience entertained until the set move is changed or the costume change completed. A half-hour show can take over two hours to complete and with radio they usually record two half-hour episodes on the same evening and the audience has a break in between the recordings.
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