bbc

Madhouse on Castle Street is a British television play, broadcast by BBC Television on the evening of 13 January 1963, as part of the Sunday Night Play strand. It was written by Evan Jones and directed by Philip Saville. The production featured the young American folk music singer Bob Dylan, who soon became a major musical star.

The play was made with electronic video cameras, although recorded onto film rather than tape. The only known copy of the play was junked in 1968, as was the standard practice of the time, despite the fact that Dylan and lead actor David Warner were by then famous. Although extensive searches have been made by the BBC, only partial audio recordings of four songs sung by Dylan survive. (Full article...)

Bernard Cribbins and Freema Agyeman feature as Old Jack and Shelly Periwinkle in the CBeebies series Old Jack's Boat.

The British documentary series Chartjackers ran for a single season of eleven weekly episodes during the autumn of 2009. The series documents the lives of four teenage video bloggers—Alex Day, Johnny Haggart, Jimmy Hill, and Charlie McDonnell—from the video-sharing website YouTube as they attempt to write, record and release a pop song by crowdsourcing through social media in ten weeks. When initially aired, the first ten episodes of Chartjackers, each five minutes in length, detailed the events of the previous seven days. The final episode, broadcast on 21 November 2009, compiled highlights from the previous ten weeks into one 30-minute episode, which was narrated by British DJ MistaJam. All eleven episodes were produced by Adam King and Jonathan Davenport of the production company Hat Trick Productions.

Chartjackers was devised in 2009 by Davenport and Andy Mettam of Hat Trick Productions, and was commissioned for development by Geoffrey Goodwin and Jo Twist of BBC Switch. Alongside the programmes Off the Hook and The Cut, it was featured as part of a season of multi-platform content designed to appeal to teenagers. The show was also directly linked to the 2009 annual appeal for the British charity Children in Need – profits from sales of the completed pop song were donated to the charity. Chartjackers aired weekly at approximately 1:10 p.m. on Saturday afternoons on BBC Two, with the first episode premiering on 12 September 2009 during the channel's two-hour long BBC Switch segment. The series garnered a viewing figures peak of almost half a million with its final episode and was critically panned by reviewers. Each episode was streamed online through BBC iPlayer to UK residents for seven days after its initial airing. The series was not broadcast outside the UK and, , is not available to buy on DVD. (Full article...)

Alan Graham Johnston (born 17 May 1962) is a British journalist working for the BBC. He has been the BBC's correspondent in Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, the Gaza Strip and Italy. He is based in London.

Johnston was kidnapped in the Gaza Strip on 12 March 2007 by the militant group Army of Islam. He was unconditionally released on 4 July, nearly four months later, after much pressure was put on the group by the now-dominant Hamas. (Full article...)

Specially built for the BBC and opened in 1960, BBC Television Centre in London was home to much of the BBC's television output until 2013. Studio TC1, at 995 square metres, is the second largest television studio in Britain.

Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know

• ... that despite attracting the highest ratings ever for a comedy show debut on BBC Three, Horne & Corden was described by one critic as, "about as funny as credit default swaps"?

• ... that Blackadder Goes Forth, the final series of the BBC situation comedy Blackadder, is noted for its sensitive depiction of World War I trench warfare and was placed 16th in the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes by the British Film Institute?

• ... that BBC traffic reporter Sally Traffic has also narrated poetry albums for the blind?

• ... that Private Passions, a weekly classical music programme on BBC Radio 3, has occasionally featured interviews with hoax characters played by comedian John Sessions?

• ... that the BBC Sound Archive was founded in 1936 by Marie Slocombe while she was working as a temporary secretary disposing of sound recordings?

• ... that François Glorieux was a Belgian pianist and improvisor, conductor of the BBC Radio Orchestra and Stan Kenton's band, and arranger for Michael Jackson?
• ... that in 2014, BBC Three cancelled a debate on being gay and Muslim featuring Asifa Lahore, a Muslim drag queen, citing security concerns at the mosque where it was filmed?
• ... that the BBC commissioned a painting of a 1987 Bullingdon Club photograph featuring David Cameron and Boris Johnson to circumvent copyright protection?
• ... that throughout the Cold War, "subversive" persons at the BBC had their files marked with a "Christmas tree"?