BACKSTAGE AT THE ALEXANDRA PALACE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25088, 21 January 1947, Page 6

BACKSTAGE AT THE ALEXANDRA PALACE

TELEVISION

(Specially Written for “The Press.”) [By T. J. WILLJAMS.]

“Stand by. Quiet, please!” says the man with the headphones, “Two minutes to go!” A panel high up on the wall begins to glow with red light and cautionary words flicker rhythmically on the glass, first one, then the other, for half a minute. “Vision on. Sound on. Vision on. Sound on.” Conversation in the room thins down to a whisper. Those who have to move go on tip-toe. * From the adjoining studio, through a wall of concrete and fibre-board. Domes the muted tinkling of a piano as the current programme concludes. We can see what is going on in there by a glance at the television receiving set in the corner near the giant instrument board. A negro is performing. He grins at his audience from the concave disc of frosted glass, his woolly black hair and gleaming face sharp against the white radiance of a floodlit background. Like an animated photograph he nods his head to the rhythm -of the music and his hands plunge at the keys outside our vision. Music ends, the dark face fades, and our compere is saying urgently: “Ready now, please!” And then in miniature he appears on the domed screen not 10 yards away from his actual presence. Twenty thousand television sets in Greater London are receiving the same picture through the air. Our show is on. Ticklish Work A television studio resembles backstage in a theatre. To view the set from behind the squat arc lamps is like looking out at a lighted stage from the wings. The same batons of lights overhead; the same confusion of men and instruments. Scene shifters wait to dash through a rapid change; the electrician stands by his “spots”; costumed performers, garish with makeup, nervously tense for their cues. But it is backstage with a difference. Four cameras, each with its own operator, face the set so as to command different angles and divide the work among them. The man wearing headphones silently indicates with a sweep of his arm the fade-in from one instrument to another. He is the “mixer,?’ whose job is to carry on the continuity of the scene, using the variety of approaches at his disposal. Working simultaneously with him the sounds man swings hlsmicrophOne over each new speaker. The mike is suspended from what looks like a long steel fishingrod pivoted on a metal axis and balanced with adjustable weights at its far end. The structure on which it rests moves easily in any direction on four rubber wheels.

Shooting a television programme is ticklish work, it seems. There can be no retakes as in film production; yet the scene must keep moving and changing smoothly. Like the Three Grey Sisters of mythology, the cameras have only one eye among them and have to be pretty smart in passing it round.

-Lack of space is a sore point with the 8.8. C. Television Service. At Alexandra Palace there are only two studios at present, which means that, while the programme is going on in one studio, carpenters are hastily erecting a new set in the other. Performers are rarely able to have a studio rehearsal until the morning .of their production.- pff-the-set rehearsals are conducted in other premises for weeks before the show The burden of this Box and Cox situation is considerably lightened, however, .by the activities of the outside staff responsible for broadcasting from’ sports grounds, theatres, and streets. They

are, in fact, roving cameramen who present the news of the moment at the moment. t In spite of this division of duties television programmes are limited to short hours. From 10 in the morning until 8 at night is the average length of a working day. Lack of finance on top of other difficulties, may well explain these restricted programmes. There are only 20,000 television sets in Great Britain. Until manufacturers are able to supply all those in demand the 8.8. C. will have to keep its junior service going on a limited revenue. A further restraint is the short range of television. Reception is, with certain exceptions, confined to an area within a 40-mile radius from Alexandra Palace. The problem of increasing range is taxing the brains of radio engineers. There are two schools of thought. One believes in linking up main towns with co-axial cables, ■ which would carry light and sound impulses direct from the studio, second school opposes that scheme on the ground that it would entail enormous expense and advocates a system of cross-country broadcasting 'stations to amplify and redirect the waves, Whatever the solution arrived at, it fc clear that television will be an exp®, sive baby to rear. Those who araftg. tunate enough to own a set, hoimyer say “Confound the cost.” TelevlW as they rate it, is the supreme enter, tainment. In appearance a receiving set resembles an ordinary radio cabinet with a window about 8 inches by 19 occupying the position of the loudspeaker grille. The window or scree is made of opaque glass and is slighter rounded like the bottom of an eTectdl light bulb. It is, in fact, the end of the cathode-ray tube which, roughly the size and shape of a marrow, is seated horizontally in the cabinet. Looking closely at the picture on the screen, you can see that it is mad** up of threads of light, varying in intensity, so that the whole has the texture of coarse linen. From a distance the scene is as sharp and clear cut as a good photograph. Varied Entertainment The 8.8. C. presents a varied programme: cooking lessons demonstrated by a bearded chef over an electric stove; films and variety shows; cartoons and visits to the zoo. You can watch the progress of the studio-gar-den from day to day while the horticultural expert chats about flowers and vegetables. Seated in your armchair, yon can follow round the course that horse you backed at Ascot. You epn attend first nights at theatres, get an intimate look at Royalty, peer into football scrums, and have a clown’s eye view of the circus. In the studio you meet celebrities and entertaineis of all kinds. Recently an “escapologist” released himself from a. strait-jacket while hanging by his feet from the 600-foot tower of Alexandra Palace: the camera recorded every movement. A hypnotist put to sleep three out of five volunteers . who appeared in the studio with him. Later, two persons were found in a trance in the next studio; they had been watching proceedings through the receiving set! It is not known how many televiewers are still in a glassyeyed state in their own homes. Broadly speaking, television is still in its infancy, or at least early childhood, and there are many problems to be solved; but when the studio panel begins to wink and the camera-men bend over their silent boxes, there is something worth-while coming over the air for the lucky few.