... Armchair Theatre CHANNEL 4 IN THE EARLY days of TV drama every director's nightmare was that an actor would be taken ill during a live transmission. But Ted Kotcheff, one of the pioneers of Armchair Theatre, recalled an even worse occurrence in this all-too-brief documentary about Armchair Theatre. In the middle of a play about London in the aftermath of an H-bomb, one of the leading actors, ...

... Dying to be funny James Green on a geriatric response to The Young Ones CHANNEL 4 Never Say Die AND taking a cue from the show title of this new sit-com series, a geriatric response to The Young Ones, don't let's say it yet. The temptation is to write oft the experiment after just one program me but that has to be resisted because since the show has ele ments of a serial it deserves to be ...

... BBC 1 Aliens in the Family MANY young children may well believe by now that the word 'alien' is only used to describe a visitor from another planet, so it is interesting to see it also revert to its more general connotation in this new serial, in the person of Jacqueline, or Jake, as she prefers to be called Jake (Sophie Bold) is the daughter of a broken marriage, sent to stay for a short ...

... BECTU HEADS FOR STORMY WATERS By ANGUS TOWLER BROADCASTING and entertainment union BECTU this week looked set for a stormy round of negotiations with the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television over the agreement covering its free-lance members who work in the independent production sector. BECTU's existing agreement with PACT came into effect at the start of 1992 and was the result of ...

... FREELANCES FACE A TAXING FUTURE By SUZAN LEAVY A TAX shock awaits the growing army of redundant television workers forced to scrape a living as 'freelances' by the recent franchise auctions. In addition to losing their jobs, production workers could find themselves hit by the taxman whc will treat them as if in regulat employment if they work on one- off films for television made b> ...

... Radio stations merge THE DEEP economic recession this week forced two Independent Local Radio stations in the South West of England to merge. Devon Air Radio, wholly owned by London's Capital Radio, and Ply mouth Sound, a subsidiary of the Great Western Radio Group, will join forces under the banner of a new com pany set up by Capital and GWR, which they will own and control equally. Richard ...

... Anglia plans ahead ANGLIA Television, the ITV contractor for the East of England, is developing new drama projects for 1993 and beyond, which it believes will appeal to broadcasters, regardless of whether it retains its franchise or not. They include Framed, a new script from Lynda La Plante, who wrote this year's highly acclaimed Prime Suspect, and adaptations of two best-selling Jilly Cooper ...

... In My Defence BBC2 FOLLOWING the runaway success of Alan Bennett's solo artist series, Talking Heads, the BBC have decided to go with the same technique, i.e. the monologue to camera, but with a different format, namely the portrayal of real-life characters, who faced death or other punishment for their often troversial beliefs. The first of this series of six, I Will Show You Mercy, ...

... A rebuilding operation WHILE BBC 1 controller Jonathan Powell's decision to increase Casualty's run by another ten episodes was clearly a sign of the esteem in which he held the hospital drama, it sent script editors Sally Haynes and Laura Mackie back to square one with their plans for what they had expected to be a normal 14-week season. It was obviously a compliment to the quality of the ...

... The Importance Of Being Earnest York JON Morrell's sets are simplicity, Arctic whiter than whatever gives the whitest wash, even the furnishings. The cast, whose team performance is brilliant, is dressed in bright and cheerful colours, some day-glo, but in period. Is this really Oscar Wilde? Within minutes you have no doubts. If he is spinning in his grave it will be in sheer ecstasy. Who ...

... Stripped Off British talent THE Josephine Baker Story, shown on ITV on May 24, was hailed as Anglia Television's award-winning film. Although the two-and-a-half hour musical drama was enter taining enough, with David Puttnam as executive producer for Anglia, one wonders why the ITV company bothered to say that it was involved at all. The Josephine Baker Story was filmed over three months on ...

... Jazz FM hits back LONDON incremental radio station Jazz FM has hit back at allegations from the Musicians' Union that it is failing performers and not doing enough to promote British jazz. Concern at the ML stems trom changes taking place in commercial radio. According to new regulations, stations are no longer required to spend three per cent of their advertis ing revenue on live music or if ...