The inside track from the Proms TV series editor ...
Post categories: Proms
|11:19 UK Time, Friday, 18 September 2009
Brilliant Barry Manilow - but would he wreck the schedule?
The start of the eight-week Proms season is a bit like being at the top of ski run and launching yourself off not knowing if you are going to make it to the bottom unscathed. At least you hope you are going to be able to admire the view on the way down, or in this case enjoy some great music which we did in spades.
There have been some truly exhilarating televised concerts that will live long in the memory - The MGM Musicals Prom, Barenboim conducting the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and Harry Christophers with The Sixteen to name just a few. Of course our colleagues in Radio 3 have the Herculean task of broadcasting all the Proms throughout the season, but televising 25 concerts - 3 times a week for 2 months across 4 TV channels - BBC2, BBC4, BBC1 and BBCHD - is no mean feat either. New this year was the weekly Thursday/Friday pattern on BBC4 which happily has resulted in more viewers to the channel.
Together with our colleagues in BBCi we embarked on some real innovation this season with MaestroCam - five specially chosen concerts when 'red button' viewers could select a dedicated view of the conductor and listen either to the music alone, or a commentary by conducting experts. The first of these was something of a live pilot but listening to Matthew Rowe's commentary, on Sir Charles Mackerras ' masterly execution of Holst's Planets Suite played by the BBC Philharmonic, was both very informative and truly fascinating. On that first Maestro Cam there was some experimentation with the visual presentation which wasn't 100 percent successful but by the next one, Vasily Petrenko conducting the NYO, we had it gripped. So I hope we'll do more next season.
A TV Proms day varies according the Hall schedule but typically begins at 0930 with a production team meeting in our office back stage at the RAH and ends sometime after 2200 having debriefed and thanked the presenters and guests after the concert. Throughout the day we move between a series of small windowless rooms - the TV production office, the TV scanner outside door 11, the VT truck, the RAH staff canteen, the miniscule TV presenter dressing room for script-checks and briefing, and the Proms Office. It's in the latter where the last meeting of the day takes about 40 minutes before the concerts starts when the radio producer, TV producer, the concert manager, RAH show manager and orchestra manager go through the concert running order, checking timings and stage manoeuvres for the last time. So occasionally about 4pm when there's a lull in our preparations I like to go across to Kensington Gardens to get some fresh air - a 30 minute stroll when I try to see the parakeets which with their distinctive squawks you can always hear but can't always spot in their green camouflage.
Going live on air is always exciting, no more so than on the Last Night of the Proms - the most complex classical music production we do. This year I was in Hyde Park which was bulging at the seams with an enthusiastic crowd drawn by the line up including Kathryn Jenkins and Barry Manilow. The evening built steadily from Sir Terry Wogan's rapturous reception when he first came on stage to the electric performance given by Barry Manilow buoyed up by the crowd of 40,000. Great though it was our only concern was how long would Manilow be on stage - we had no idea how long his set would last and there was serious risk that our first link up with the RAH, the fifth response of the 'Fanfares for the Last Night', would be a phrase of 'Copacabana'. He could have played all night and nobody in the Hyde Park audience would have minded! But luckily he came off stage just in time for the crew to re-set the stage ready for the Fanfares which heralded the final sequence and climax of the Last Night of the Proms. So now with 'Land of Hope and Glory' and 'Jerusalem' still reverberating in our ears the debriefs begin together with planning what the TV offering might be for the next season in 2010.
Comment number 1.
At 14:40 19th Sep 2009, kleines c wrote:Out of interest, Oliver, do you think that Barry Manilow upstaged the Last Night of the Proms? Hyde Park is arguably more (populist) Radio 2 than (elitist) Radio 3. As well as Sir Terry and Barry Manilow, Katherine Jenkins made an interesting contrast to Sarah Connolly.
I personally preferred Sarah Connolly's four appearances in the Royal Albert Hall (Purcell, Mahler, Gershwin and Arne), although I would concede that both Barry Manilow and Katherine Jenkins have more popular appeal.
As for the television coverage in general, I guess that the success of these broadcasts is measured in ratings, and more cynically, through how much the BBC makes from selling such broadcasts around the world. The MaestroCam was an interesting innovation.
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Comment number 2.
At 17:47 19th Sep 2009, samaraginsberg wrote:Barry Manilow's teeth are terrifying in that photo! They seem to be emitting a radioactive glow.
But anyway, congrats on this year's TV coverage, fabulous as always.
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Comment number 3.
At 16:47 23rd Sep 2009, Graeme Kay wrote:Hello kleines
In response to your comment, Oliver says:
"No I don't think Barry Manilow upstaged the Last Night of the Proms. The Last Night is always a sell-out at the RAH and it will never be possible to fit into the Hall the 40,000 people who turn up for Proms in the Park in Hyde Park. Both Katherine Jenkins and Barry Manilow were great headline acts for the concert which is broadcast live on Radio 2. But Sarah Connolly had the last word with her rendition of 'Rule Britannia', which the audience in Hyde Park also enjoyed watching on big screens."
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