It looks as if I can get quite a lot more to say about my experiences of working as a television walk-on. I'm trying not to make each post too long, as I realise it can be quite difficult reading large blocks of text on a computer screen, which is why I'm breaking it up in to more manageable chunks over several posts.
I did quite a few more bits and pieces on 'Campion.' I think the BBC were attempting to find a replacement for 'Miss Marple,' which probably had run it's course, although it seemed very popular with the television-viewing public. Marjorie Allingham, the author of the 'Campion' novels, would rank alongside Agatha Christie as one of the writers who produced work during what is known as the 'Golden' period of crime fiction during the inter-war years. I think this ran for two or three series. Each adaptation was done as two one-hour episodes and it was a co-production with the American network, P.B.S., which is their vaguely equivalent of the BBC. I'm not exactly sure how it's funded, but certainly not like the BBC, with a television licence.
One morning I got a call from Jaclyn, the agency I did most of my walk-on work with. They needed someone to take over from someone who had been booked for a day's work and couldn't now do it, on "Campion' and would I like to do the job? I immediately said 'yes' and I had to be at the location as soon as I could get there. It was in a village with a name I cannot forget, as it's so unusual. It was called Foxearth, which is between Bury St Edmonds and Ipswich and I had to drive away from Bedford towards Cambridge and drive along the A14 and then off near Bury. Another instance when it would have been handy to have a satnav, but, again, long before they were on the market.
I arrived at the location and was put into a policeman's costume. The scene involved Campion and Lugg (Peter Davidson and Brian Glover) in Campion's car, a fantastically restored period car, an open-top, a beautiful red colour. The scene involved a flock of sheep, who were being herded along a narrow road and they were holding up Campion's car, and I'm the local policeman, riding my bicycle. Well, you can imagine how difficult it was to get the sheep to do as they're told. The term 'never work with children and animals' comes to mind. Those sheep, although being herded by, presumably, a professional shepherd, would NOT obey what commands they were given. It meant the scene had to be re-shot several times. It was then that another problem arose. The vintage car which was used as Campion's vehicle didn't appreciate having to be left for long just idling with the motor running. It stalled, and refused to restart. It took several attempts to start it, which held up shooting even further. Just another example how filming television programmes can take so long and also, add to the expense to the whole thing.
They did some photography whilst I was on that location. I learned that some of these photographs would later be used for the covers of the tie-in Penguin books which went with the 'Campion' series. So when I eventually saw them on sale in our local W.H. Smith I could say that 'I was there' when the photographs were shot. Just something else to get a bit excited about because you don't often get the chance to be in at the actual shoot of these things.
There were a couple of night shoots I recollect for 'Campion.' In other episodes I was the henchman of one of the villains (I believe played by Ian Cuthbertson, a big Scottish actor renowned for playing 'heavies.') It seems amazing that I could be a policeman in one episode and a waiter in another and then be a henchman in yet another. I just hope viewers didn't look too closely otherwise it would have seemed odd to have a policeman tied up with such villainy!
One scene required me, as a henchman, to wear an eye-patch and sport a rather nasty scar across one of my cheeks. This was achieved by the make-up department applying some sort of rubber solution to my skin from a bottle rather like a nail-varnish bottle with a small brush. They put on one layer, in a line across my skin, and let it dry, each layer that was later applied over the first and subsequent layers dried out and made the skin stretch (or shrink, don't remember which) so that by the time they'd finished, I had a quite convincing scar. On location which was in a wood somewhere in darkest Suffolk, myself and one other walk-on, were supposed to be tracking Campion through the trees. Not very convincing, when I watch the scene on the DVD of this particular episode, but never mind. We are standing next to a fence, or was it a shed or something, in the depths of this wood, and we're keeping an eye on Campion in the distance through the trees. I have been given a match to pick my teeth with. Although they'd wanted me to smoke a cigarette and as the scene develops, throw the stub of the cigarette onto the ground. They'd also set up a track across the ground, for the camera to travel along, as the scene unfolded. At a certain point in the action, we were supposed to walk away from the fence, shed or whatever, and then stop, at a point which had been drawn on the ground for us, as a sort of cue. But, when we started the scene and it continued, when I was supposed to stop at the mark, I couldn't see this confounded mark, because of the eye-patch I was wearing! So much for eye-patch and match acting! Oh, the life of an actor-come television walk-on can be so difficult, but oh so much fun, and you get paid for it!
Having looked back at an earlier post on here, it seems I have mentioned a good deal of the stuff that is on this post on there. I do apologise to those who might have read that and then this and thought to themselves 'he's repeating a lot of material.' I've written it and posted it on here and I'm not going to delete these two posts as they've taken a long time to compose and I don't want them altered in any way.
There were a couple of night shoots I recollect for 'Campion.' In other episodes I was the henchman of one of the villains (I believe played by Ian Cuthbertson, a big Scottish actor renowned for playing 'heavies.') It seems amazing that I could be a policeman in one episode and a waiter in another and then be a henchman in yet another. I just hope viewers didn't look too closely otherwise it would have seemed odd to have a policeman tied up with such villainy!
One scene required me, as a henchman, to wear an eye-patch and sport a rather nasty scar across one of my cheeks. This was achieved by the make-up department applying some sort of rubber solution to my skin from a bottle rather like a nail-varnish bottle with a small brush. They put on one layer, in a line across my skin, and let it dry, each layer that was later applied over the first and subsequent layers dried out and made the skin stretch (or shrink, don't remember which) so that by the time they'd finished, I had a quite convincing scar. On location which was in a wood somewhere in darkest Suffolk, myself and one other walk-on, were supposed to be tracking Campion through the trees. Not very convincing, when I watch the scene on the DVD of this particular episode, but never mind. We are standing next to a fence, or was it a shed or something, in the depths of this wood, and we're keeping an eye on Campion in the distance through the trees. I have been given a match to pick my teeth with. Although they'd wanted me to smoke a cigarette and as the scene develops, throw the stub of the cigarette onto the ground. They'd also set up a track across the ground, for the camera to travel along, as the scene unfolded. At a certain point in the action, we were supposed to walk away from the fence, shed or whatever, and then stop, at a point which had been drawn on the ground for us, as a sort of cue. But, when we started the scene and it continued, when I was supposed to stop at the mark, I couldn't see this confounded mark, because of the eye-patch I was wearing! So much for eye-patch and match acting! Oh, the life of an actor-come television walk-on can be so difficult, but oh so much fun, and you get paid for it!
Having looked back at an earlier post on here, it seems I have mentioned a good deal of the stuff that is on this post on there. I do apologise to those who might have read that and then this and thought to themselves 'he's repeating a lot of material.' I've written it and posted it on here and I'm not going to delete these two posts as they've taken a long time to compose and I don't want them altered in any way.
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