On Thursday BBC Radio 4 will be broadcasting Cheque Book and Pen, a fictional drama on how Les Dawson might have got to host Blankety Blank. Working with Woolyback Productions I recorded on location, edited, tracked and mixed this production which will be the afternoon play on 16th Dec 2010 at 2:15pm.
Johnny Vegas pays tribute to the legendary Les Dawson in a comic flight of fancy. Les has a way with words but is northern, rather crumpled, a little shambolic and an unknown quantity, and delightfully unpredictable when he is faced with representing a national institution. Nicholas Parsons is Farson, a resplendent foil for Dawson. Farson embraces and embodies the hammiest forces of the ‘traditional BBC’. A nemesis to Les and all he stands for and aims to subvert. This homage is a pure joyous farce, taking full artistic license in imagining how the BBC might have engaged the iconic Les to become a game show great in its eighties flagship, Blankety Blank.
Cast:
Les ….. Johnny Vegas
Farson ….. Nicholas Parsons
Helen ….. Shobna Gulati
Dave Parkins ….. Mick Miller
BBC Executive ….. Mark Chatterton
Number Two …… Paul Foot
Doris (Barmaid) ….. Catherine Kinsella
Other parts ….. Peter Slater (and cast).Written by Andrew Lynch and Johnny Vegas.
Sound Design: Mike Thornton
Directed by Jim Poyser
Producer: Sally Harrison
A Woolyback Production for BBC Radio 4.
I have had great fun working on this production with challenges like a scene in a Manchester club where Les is on stage doing his act whilst the BBC executives were in the audience commenting on his performance. Another scene, that took a few goes to get right, was a montage of agents all ringing the BBC offering their clients for the new presenter of Blankety Blank. Also look out for Shobna Gulati playing a lovely cameo part as the queen phoning the BBC exec to complain.
We were unable to get the original Blankety Blank theme clean but we did get Les’s first show from the BBC archive and I was able to weave that into this production. If you don’t get to listen to Cheque Book and Pen on Thursday then do go to iPlayer and listen to it from there.
AIR Users Blog ProToolerBlog
Mike is Pro Tools genius and an award winning ‘audiomeister’, defined as ‘a person of great skill and authority in sound’. His vast array of credits include music (from classical to rock), drama and documentaries across all the BBC Radio networks, as well as audio post production for video and TV, ‘new media’, live sound, commercial CDs, DVDs and podcasts, helping clients tell their stories with sound. He has been described as "an oasis of calm in a stormy creative world"; "quick, creative & easy to work with"; "always going the extra mile"; and "invests himself in the success of your project"’.
show me less content in the footer
show me more content in the footer
Seven radio producers – all based in the north of England – have joined forces to launch a new co-operative venture – ‘Radio Wizards’. It’s equally remarkable that their aim now is to work together on every kind of sound production... except radio!
"It’s taken over a year to get to this point," says ‘wizard’ Mike Thornton, "but now we’ve got a viable business plan, we’ve launched our website and we’re already starting to attract commissions. As a facilities provider we decided to facilitate this partnership and set them up with a web site to help kickstart this excellent partnership."
