Did you know that there was a BBC studio at Coventry Cathedral? In his recent e-news, Martin Williams, Chair of the Friends of Coventry Cathedral, tells us about a recent find there. Martin writes….
The only film that survives of an episode from the BBC TV series “Lance At Large” has been rescued from the former BBC Studio in the Cathedral undercroft.
It is unusual for any Cathedral to have a BBC Studio, but the undercroft rooms were a gift from the BBC in time for Coventry Cathedral’s consecration in 1962.
They were regularly used for radio and television filming until the BBC launched BBC CWR with its own studios. In the early years Geoffrey Green would turn up on Saturday afternoons to broadcast the Midlands football results from the Cathedral’s undercroft studio while Choral Evensong continued upstairs.
Lance Percival (the star of “Lance At Large”) rose to fame on the Saturday night satirical programme “That Was The Week That Was”. The discovered episode also features Fred Emney, Hugh Paddick and Diana Chappell. There was just one series of “Lance at Large” and all the recordings were later wiped by the BBC. The newly-discovered film is the only episode to survive.
The film was originally broadcast on 10th September 1964. Its contents do not relate to Coventry, so its presence here is quite a mystery. The cannister had an Australian label, so it may have been sent to the ABC to be shown. It was returned to someone at the BBC and somehow ended up at the Coventry Cathedral studio.
This story was recently featured on BBC TV Midlands Today.