What do you want from a televised Prom?

[Beef Oven!]

I want the fountain back in the middle for Prom 54.

Noooo!

[seabright]

I just came across a 1985 TV documentary celebrating the first 100 years of the Proms and the question of televised Proms came up towards the end, particularly in respect of the Last Night. John Drummond railed against the "ludicrous exhibitionism" that had been made much worse by television, whilst Gerald Kaufman castigated as "disgusting" the Last Night's "orgy of exhibitionist chauvinism."

Incidentally, You Tube seems to have become a significant archive of interesting TV documentaries that have never been seen again after their initial one-off transmission and this Proms Centenary programme is a case in point. It features many great names and bits of film (Boult, Barbirolli, Sargent, Britten, etc.) as well as interviewees who include Andrew Davis, Colin Davis, Pierre Boulez, Leopold Stokowski, Edward Heath, Moura Lympany, William Glock and many others. Well worth checking out! ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owFpdCVcgI

[Sir Velo]

Thanks Seabright. You're right; YouTube is a mine which puts the BBC to shame. Many of the progs are in HD as well though clearly not this one!

[Stanley Stewart]

Strongly tempted by a 6 DVD boxset, Classic BBC Proms - Oct budget? on Ica Classics label. Loughran, Temirkanov, Solti, Rozhdestvensky, Susskind; a joy to view a Viennese Night at The Proms again. Have a feeling that it could match the BBC Legends, 20 CDs boxset, always
a reliable treasure trove on an evening of dire scheduling!

[PhilipT]

I just came across a 1985 TV documentary celebrating the first 100 years of the Proms ..

I think there's some confusion here. The centenary season was 1995, and I have a mug to prove it. Colonel Danby, who posts here occasionally, is clearly visible in the front row at the start of the clip. Perhaps he can enlighten us about the true date.

[Petrushka]

I think there's some confusion here. The centenary season was 1995, and I have a mug to prove it. Colonel Danby, who posts here occasionally, is clearly visible in the front row at the start of the clip. Perhaps he can enlighten us about the true date.

I remember this programme very well and it is indeed 1995. How wonderful to see again some of those Prommers who were at virtually every concert I went to at that time and whose names, Ken Johnson apart, I never knew. Presumably many of them are now in the great Arena in the sky? Another regular Prommer I remember well is Steve Follows who was captain of one of the winning University Challenge teams in the late 1980s.

[seabright]

I remember this programme very well and it is indeed 1995. How wonderful to see again some of those Prommers who were at virtually every concert I went to at that time and whose names, Ken Johnson apart, I never knew. Presumably many of them are now in the great Arena in the sky? Another regular Prommer I remember well is Steve Follows who was captain of one of the winning University Challenge teams in the late 1980s.

You'll be pleased to know of the extent of this forum's influence ... The date has already been changed to 1995!

Incidentally, the same uploader has added another fascinating TV documentary about "Conductors and Conducting" that features interviews with a number of Proms conductors, including Maazel, Solti, Mehta, Welser-Most, Slatkin and so on. This is another one-off transmission from the past that has fully deserved a You Tube revival ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPSqRqcB6I4

[seabright]

Strongly tempted by a 6 DVD boxset, Classic BBC Proms - Oct budget? on Ica Classics label. Loughran, Temirkanov, Solti, Rozhdestvensky, Susskind; a joy to view a Viennese Night at The Proms again. Have a feeling that it could match the BBC Legends, 20 CDs boxset, always
a reliable treasure trove on an evening of dire scheduling!

This sounds interesting. I wonder how far back the BBC's Proms TV archive stretches? The "Proms Centenary" documentary featured a clip from the Previn "Carmina Burana" Prom in which Thomas Allen fainted from the heat during one of his solos and had to be carried off. A budding baritone in the arena, score in hand, promptly went back stage and sang the rest of the performance to great acclaim. That would be fun to see again. Did anyone video it?

http://www.icaclassics.com/dvd/classic-bbc-proms-5-dvds

[Petrushka]

This sounds interesting. I wonder how far back the BBC's Proms TV archive stretches? The "Proms Centenary" documentary featured a clip from the Previn "Carmina Burana" Prom in which Thomas Allen fainted from the heat during one of his solos and had to be carried off. A budding baritone in the arena, score in hand, promptly went back stage and sang the rest of the performance to great acclaim. That would be fun to see again. Did anyone video it?

http://www.icaclassics.com/dvd/classic-bbc-proms-5-dvds

Remember the Thomas Allen incident very well from listening live on the radio and the subsequent TV broadcast but doubt if video recorders were around in 1974. I think (may be wrong) that they appeared for domestic use in 1982 while I had my first one in 1986.

[Richard Tarleton]

We've seen it recently - was it in a documentary about Andre Previn? It included Previn's take on the episode.

[pastoralguy]

We've seen it recently - was it in a documentary about Andre Previn? It included Previn's take on the episode.

It's available on YouTube.

[Petrushka]

We've seen it recently - was it in a documentary about Andre Previn? It included Previn's take on the episode.

I imagine that seabright was after the entire performance rather than the snippets that appeared in the Previn documentary. At least we do know that it exists in the BBC archive.

I can't see why the BBC can't upload Prom performances, whether radio or TV, and attach them to the relevant Proms Archive entry though perhaps the rights issue is too complicated to make it practical.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

At least we do know that it exists in the BBC archive.

Not necessarily - the rest of the performance may well have been wiped, with only the "sensational" bit kept for "snippet"-type programmes.