We've just spent some time with a major ITV name who owes his career to ATV. Arguably the biggest modern-day presenter to have come from the Broad Street studios, Chris Tarrant gave us revelations, anecdotes and frank opinions.
We couldn't have asked for more, but we got more any way! Yesterday's interview went so smoothly with the former Tiswas host, that we all went over the allotted time!
Naturally, Chris gave us plenty of stories about Tiswas to talk about, but we also obtained backstage stories about Crossroads, Stop Look & Listen, OTT and more. Plenty of fond memories about various ATV personnel, such as Shaw Taylor, Noele Gordon, Sally James, Paul Henry, etc.We've had this interview planned for ages now, thanks to Tony Clegg who did the necessary contact work to make it possible. We didn't envisage being given space at Elstree Studios to carry it out! We also found being given guest spots to that afternoon's recording of 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' to be the cherry on the cake! A massive thanks to my colleague Tony, who not only put us up for the night, he drove us down to Borehamwood and back. We couldn't publicly announce this interview in advance. Security is naturally a very big issue at Elstree.
We also managed to find time to have a look at the outside of BBC Elstree Centre. This is just a few minutes walk away, and although we had no planned visit, we had an interesting walk around the outside of the place, observing an ATV marking on the building that gave an indication to its former history as ATV's London-based studios.
For me, this little trip was an extension to the work I was doing on Monday, where I trudged around a very humid London, getting some shots of ATV-related buildings.
Wednesday was an incredibly productive day out for us, and we're very grateful for Chris Tarrant being so welcoming and enthusiastic about our project. We've got more planned interviews as you'd expect. It's getting busier for us, and we're having an ATVLand meet up pretty soon! Stay tuned to the ATVLand forums for details!
