Showing posts with label Richard Handford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richard Handford. Show all posts

Friday 26 June 2009

Uttered In The '80s Part 7: "P*SS OFF!"

Ah, the 1980s! The man from Del Monte, he say Yes, Frankie, they say Relax, the Scotch Skeleton he say Re-Record, Not Fade Away (more here), and the man from Beckindale's local quarry, he say PISS OFF!

Harry Mowlam (Godfrey James) blasted into Emmerdale Farm in late 1983, the early months of Richard Handford's stint as producer. And he was trouble. In fact, you can give that "trouble" a capital 'T'.

Harry was rude to Dolly, dumped a load of stones in the Emmerdale farmyard, and mistreated his dog.

Richard Handford was giving the show a shake-up, and there is no doubt that this shake-up was influenced by Brookside's debut. Emmerdale Farm had never been as cosy as some believe (indeed, in 1981, Pat Merrick had been hit and bruised by her soon-to-be-ex-husband Tom) but under Richard Handford's leadership in 1983 the pace gathered speed, scenes grew shorter, and a real baddie arrived...

The breath-taking Harry Mowlam. The awe-inspiring Harry Mowlam. The terror-inducing Harry Mowlam.

And, via Harry, Emmerdale Farm followed in Brookside's 1982 footsteps by letting fly some verbal naughtiness in 1983.

Brookside supremo, Phil Redmond, had wanted down-to-earth language to feature in the new serial from its beginning in November 1982. He'd wanted a few choice words and phrases sprinkled into the dialogue. Like real life. But the audience hated the swearing, and Redmond dropped it, puzzled over the fact that, whilst people swore in their everyday lives, and knew they did, they seemed to have a deep-seated need to be offended by hearing it on the telly.

In late 1983, as Beckindale's thoughts turned towards Christmas, Matt Skilbeck (Frederick Pyne) witnessed Harry Mowlam abusing his dog and stole it away from him.

Harry was furious, and when young Mike (Martin Barrass) made a joke about the sorry state of the dog's kennel, Harry asked him what he knew about the dog?

"Nothing, it's just a joke, that's all," said Mike.

"Piss off!" said Harry.

In homes across the land, mouths dropped open... knives and forks clattered onto plates from suddenly nerveless fingers...

And then a howl of "WELL REALLY, HOW DISGUSTING!" (probably followed by torrents of outraged expletives), went up from houses all round the United Kingdom.

Toke Townley (Sam Pearson) once recounted a conversation with an Emmerdale Farm fan who told him that the show, for her, did not represent how life was, but how it should be.

It seems that, by 1983, this was changing...

Harry Mowlam didn't stick around that long initially... but he later returned...

Read all about him here.

Thursday 3 July 2008

Richard Handford And Stuart Doughty - Two Producers Of 1980s Emmerdale Farm

The producers of Emmerdale Farm in the 1980s were as follows:

Anne W. Gibbons (1979 to 1983)

Richard Handford (1983 to 1986)

Michael Russell (1986 to 1988)

Stuart Doughty (1988 to 1991)

Here we present the views of two Emmerdale Farm producers of the 1980s - Richard Handford is first, in an article from the Yorkshire Evening Post 1985 supplement, Emmerdale Farm 1,000!

IT’S NOT A SOAP OPERA IT’S DRAMA - SAYS THE PRODUCER

“Emmerdale Farm” is more than just another time-consuming soap opera. Ever since its conception by time-honoured writer Kevin Laffan, the series has had a message to give to its millions of fans.

That message, says producer Richard Handford, latest in 13 years to wear the mantle, is that it should always be “warm and caring.”

“Most of the characters,” he says, “adhere to moral values. And it’s bound to stay that way.”

Richard, who read English at Cambridge and spent nearly every night at the cinema, is the sixth producer of “Emmerdale” and has been responsible for 200 of the 1,000 episodes.

He admits that there has been a hardening of the storylines from the cosy fireside yarns and sheep shearing shots that introduced Beckindale to a nation obviously gasping for a breath of fresh country air.

“At one time everybody was good,” he says. “Now we are challenging traditional values.”

Challenging these values has meant introducing such modern traits which obviously effect both urban and rural communities, as extra-marital affairs. The sort of thing that makes Annie Sugden clank her pans on the solid-fuel kitchen range.

But it’s only done to reflect life as it really is, Richard insists.

“I don’t do it to pull in viewers,” he says. “Jack’s affair was a good story that we could deal with well. And I wanted to show that life isn’t all that easy

“It can happen to anyone. It’s just that some of us are lucky, but we can’t hide away from the fact that some aren’t.”

Jack’s little romp - a great departure for the clean-cut Sugdens - surprised the “Emmerdale” team by bringing “very few” compaints. “I think there were about twelve,” Richard recalls.

The changes in modern values must come through in the programme, he says. “For instance, nobody now expects their children to be virtous until marriage.

“Annie, who sets ther moral tone for her family, has had to be challenged with these problems.”

When Richard looks to the future, he says it would be impossible to predict what’s going to happen In the next 1,000 episodes. “Why change the tone for the sake of it,” he says.

But one thing is certain. It will always be a happy programme.

“It always has been, both on and off the set,” says Richard. “It shows in the way the artistes keep coming back for more.”

“People will bust a gut for the programme. They really believe in it, seriously and passionately.
“We’re not a soap opera. We believe we’re a long-running drama.”

And on to Stuart Doughty - an article from the Hotten Courier, Yorkshire Television's Emmerdale Farm programme publicity, summer 1988:

No big shake-up says the farm’s new boss

Former “Brookside” producer Stuart Doughty has crossed the Pennines to join Yorkshire Television’s top serial, “Emmerdale Farm”.

But Stuart, who took over the reins in January, has no wish to turn life down on the farm into a “rural ‘Brookside’”.

“I haven’t any plans to urbanise it and fill ‘Emmerdale’ full of social problems,” says Stuart.

During his two-and-a-half-year spell on the Channel 4 series, set in Liverpool, storylines included a fatal gun siege, rape, suicide and the first AIDS sufferer in a British soap.

But, though he won’t radically alter the formula that has made “Emmerdale Farm” a TV favourite, with a regular 12 million viewers per episode, Stuart admits he doesn’t want to see things standing still.

He sees the future as one of evolution rather than revolution. “Any serial has got to move with the times. If it stops it will become old-fashioned and out of touch with its viewers,” he says.

“Soaps must reflect life. They have to keep in touch with real life, otherwise viewers regard them as fantasy.”

He certainly believes it would be wrong for British soaps to become as escapist as “Dallas” or “Dynasty”, in which the characters are unbelievably rich and beautiful.

“British soaps tend to portray ordinary people in everyday situations,” he says.

Stuart, 38, has a varied broadcasting background. After university, he joined the BBC’s Overseas Service.

Then, after a brief spell as an actor - when he worked with Andrew Burt, who played the original Jack Sugden - he began supplying quiz questions for “University Challenge”.

This eventually led to a job with Granada as a researcher.

Moving on, Stuart became an associate producer at Granada, responsible for dramas like “Crown Court”, “A Kind Of Loving” and “The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes”. In 1985, he went to Mersey Television to become Bookside’s producer.

Now, Stuart believes he’s the first soap producer to make the move from one serial to another.

Friday 14 December 2007

The History Of Grandad Pearson...

Photograph by Harold Hanscomb

This young actor is Toke Townley - appearing as Willie the houseboy in the 1952 John Paddy Carstairs film comedy Treasure Hunt. The blurb on the back of the original print informs us that Toke was then a "newcomer to the screen". Toke played both the flute and the recorder, and his talents were sometimes made use of on-screen....

... as seen here in this early 1980s scene from Emmerdale Farm. Toke's role as Grandad Sam Pearson evolved, as is the way with most soap characters - the Sam Pearson who first appeared in 1972 was not of quite the same temperament as the Sam Pearson of a couple of years later.
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The opposite of confirmed son-of-the-soil Sam, Toke had no love for the country life, but his playing of the character was utterly convincing. Sometimes testy, sometimes downright grumpy, Sam was a strongly religious man who cared deeply for his family. The materialisatic and promiscuous ways of the modern world were beyond his understanding.
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In the early 1980s, the character was put to excellent use as Anne W Gibbons increased the regular cast and the household at Emmerdale Farm expanded, with the additions of Jack's new wife, Pat, and newly discovered son, Jackie, and Pat's daughter, Sandie.
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To see Sam confronting the modern ways the incomers brought with them - including one memorable scene featuring fish fingers - added further interest to the character. Grandad Pearson was never boring!
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Sam was deeply distressed when young Sandie became pregnant out of wedlock and was not backwards in speaking up, but he did not act out of unkindness, rather concern for Sandie and his fears about the way the world was going.
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Grandad Pearson entertains at the Beckindale Christmas Show, 1983.
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Sam remained an integral part of the Beckindale community until 1984 when Toke Townley died. His final appearance on screen was in November of that year. Sam's final storyline involved his pumpkin winning first prize in the village's annual show, so the character had an upbeat ending.
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In 1985, Richard Handford, the producer of Emmerdale Farm, paid tribute to Toke:
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"He was a very special member of the cast and we still miss him. On his own admission he was a loner. He spent most of his life living out of suitcases and he didn't really have a home; he preferred to live in a hotel. He was quite happy in his own company, yet he was a very sociable man. Toke was the one who knew the christian names of every commissionaire and canteen lady at Yorkshire Television.
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"And when I went to an expensive restaurant in Leeds recently, I discovered he'd been on first name terms with all the waiters and waitresses there as well.
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"Toke lived a simple life. He didn't drink or smoke and his main relaxation was music.
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"He was very good company and a true professional. There was no question of finding another actor to play Sam Pearson. Toke Townley was irreplaceable."