From Noele Gordon to Stingray
ATV Midland Daily Serial
BIRMINGHAM MAIL, AUGUST 1964
A DAILY serial to be shown in the Midlands, a Saturday night satirical show, and screenings of some of the best known feature films by Sam Goldwyn are among the forthcoming programmes which were announced by Lew Grade, managing director of ATV, on Tuesday.
He also announced that ATV has organised and is the central body in an international film series A Day of Peace which is scheduled to begin in the spring of 1965.
Each participating country will produce a half-hour film “expressing its individual vision of the positive human values and aspirations which motive its people.”
Paul Tabori, who has joined ATV to co-ordinate the project, is travelling between the countries who are involved. The United Kingdom contribution will be produced for ATV by Denis Mitchell.
The countries participating are France, Yugoslavia, Holland, Hungary, Algeria, Poland, Sweden, Senegal and the UK – Italy and Spain are expected to join shortly.
Compact writers Hazel Adair and Peter Ling will start off the daily serial which begins in the Midlands on November 2.
The serial, which so far has no title, will later be handed over to a team of Midland writers It is set in a Midlands town and the action centres around two sisters and their families.
With the exception of Noele Gordon, who plays one of the sisters, none of the characters has yet been cast. Reg Watson is its producer.
Ray Galton and Alan Simpson are writing four special programmes for Spike Milligan called Milligan’s Wake, which will be shown in the four-week break between Nicholas Tomalin’s One Jump Ahead and the return of Bernard Braden.
Sir Kenneth Clark and a film unit will go to Venice in Spetember to film a one-hour feature on San Marco. This will be the first of a series of programmes in which Sir Kenneth will present the great temples of the world.
The first British television film series to be produced in colour is Stingray – a puppet show made by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, the creators of Fireball XL5. This starts on October 4th in London and on October 6th in the Midlands.
Among the Sam Goldwyn films to be shown by ATV are: The Best Years of Our Lives, The Little Foxes, Wuthering Heights and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
Birmingham Mail, August 1964
Item courtesy of Reg Watson