VISITORS to the BBC film studios in Ealing last week may have found themselves appearing live on daytime television as a backdrop to presenters Jayne Irving and Eamonn Holmes.
As BBC staff members and friends were given a preview of the exhibitions open to the public at the weekend, a camera crew followed Miss Irving past the huge water tank. built to film Ealing Studios' epics like The Cruel Sea, to the set of a massive costume drama about novelist Vita Sackville West, where the Open Air team were settled around a Victorian dining table. The cameras swung round to the demonstration make-up table, where Wendy Richards (Pauline in EastEnders) was waiting to do a piece about the early days of television drama. Eamonn Holmes, normally so calm and urbane, three a little tantrum over the late arrival of guests, and any visitor who happened to be in the way was shooed away by an imperious floor manager as the massive studio cameras were wheeled through the crowd
The studios have changed very little in the last 60 years — the only significant change since the BBC took over is the conversion of the original Stage 1 into offices. But the massive diesel generators are still used to power the lights on the stages.
This is the second series of open days the BBC has held in the last ten years, but the first to be open to the public. It would be nice to think they could become a regular feature. keeping viewers in touch with the television world.
Caption: A monster hit ... the open day brought a chance to see the creatures from Dr Who. Below Eamonn Holmes briefs Wendy Richards
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