Further TV Walk-On

I'm just thinking of any more walk-on or supporting work I might have done. I had to drive a car in the opening sequence of 'Joint Account' which was a sitcom shown on BBC1 in the early 1990s, starring Hannah Gordon and Peter Egan. The sequence was filmed in a village somewhere near Stratford-Upon-Avon. Myself and another walk-on were supposed to be bailiffs repossessing two cars and had to go to the front door and take the keys from Hannah Gordon and then go to the cars which were parked in the road outside and then drive off. Unfortunately the car I had to drive was an  car with automatic gearbox, and I'v never driven an automatic car so they had to swap the cars round. When the show was eventually aired I was seen clearly on screen. This must have been in the early 1990's.

I used to do a lot of work on the ITV show 'The Bill.' It was at the time I was with an agency based at Shepperton Studios, called Screenlite. I think one of the ladies who ran the agency had a daughter who was a production assistant on the show or something, so Screenlite seemed to get most, if not all, the Walk-On and Supporting work. I was a SOCO on one episode (Scene of Crime Officer) and a solicitor in another (in a court scene). Most of this show was filmed in and around Merton in south London. You would be assigned to one of the two units working on the show, Red or Blue, so it was vital that you knew which one you were on. I imagine it was because it was filmed more or less like a factory production line and was being filmed on a sort of rota basis. They moved the production base across London, because I remember doing some work on 'The Bill' somewhere near Wormwood Scrubs, on a sort of out-door lot, with streets and houses which were used for various locations. Also, somewhere in Battersea, and the unit was set up alongside the Battersea Arts Centre. I don't remember exactly what we were filming. It might have been in a pub nearby, but I simply can't remember.

I worked on something which was filmed in London ( I did a good deal of television walk-on work in and around London.) But this one in particular, I'm not sure where exactly. It was supposed to be a lecture hall or something. We were the audience. We were given ear protectors. Someone on the stage or platform was delivering a speech or perhaps it was a political meeting. I think it was set in the 1940s or 1950's so we would have been dressed accordingly. I believe it was an extremely hot day but, being dressed in very thick suits, woollen and uncomfortable, which didn't help with the extreme heat. Someone burst into the hall and aimed a pistol at the man on stage. As soon as the shot was fired we (the audience) had to fall on the floor and hide under the chairs. I'm not entirely sure what was going on or what television programme it was for and don't even know whether it was ever broadcast. I think it was in the centre of London somewhere, but to this day I can't recall. The whole sequence was repeated a couple of times and then we were all released to go home. But, because we had ear protectors, it was extremely difficult to hear directions, or even the 'bang' of the shot which was fired. I suppose I could discover more about what this was if I do a search on Google or even look on I.M.D.B. which is a very good source of information on television and film production.

The Jaclyn Agency sent me to do a job in Colchester. I think it was some housing estate. A group of us were put in overalls. It was for a television commercial for H.E.A.T Electric or something. The camera was on  a sort of cherry picker or access platform. On cue we were supposed to jump in the air and wave our hands above our heads (strange, I know.) The director didn't know how to shout 'action' or 'cut.' We did the sequence several times. It took no more than an hour. It paid quite nicely for the time it took, and at the end I just drove home.

The two ladies who ran Jaclyn were so nice, Julie and Marilyn. Whenever they rang to find out my availability for work, they would always chat. They even came to some of the locations, which must have been quite an effort, when you think of the distance they would have to drive from the village they were based in near Norwich, often turning up at 6-7 a.m. on some shoots. When I joined Jaclyn I just sent my details and a couple of photographs for their books and never met these two ladies until they turned up on the set of something or other and it was odd when they just said 'Hi John!' and the fact I had only spoken to them on the phone and they only knew me from a couple of photographs. I think they came to the location when we were filming 'Lovejoy' in Lavenham or a village somewhere in deepest, darkest Suffolk. It's that sort of personal detail that's missing from walk-on and Supporting work.

 Everything is now done on the internet, you upload your details and a couple of photographs. If you get selected for work you don't get a phone call (except in a very few cases.) and probably get a text message or email to say 'you've been put forward.' The chances of actually being used is so remote. I was used to being called for 'availability' when you say 'yes' or 'no' and then just being given details of where the location is and then the time you have to be there and just go on the specific day.

More About Working as a Television Walk-On- Part 2

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.