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Old February 6th 06, 04:48 PM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london,rec.arts.drwho
Graeme Wall Graeme Wall is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Jul 2003
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Default Early Doctor Who not recorded live [Was: "Death Line" 1972 (Film)

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"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote:

Graeme Wall wrote:

It is an urban myth that Doctor Who ever went out live.


It certainly went out live in the very early years


Oh no it didn't (and I've read more than enough books on the topic to
prove it). 'Quatermass' and various plays went out live but 'Doctor
Who' never did.


I must check with a cooleague who worked on the early episodes. Can't
contact him at the moment as he is somewhere in Brazil!


I wouldn't believe everything you read in books about Dr Who...


Given that many are written by researchers who have accessed the BBC's
files, checking and cross checking the studio dates, internal memos and so
forth. The recording schedules are in existance, the tape usages are, a few
of the early episodes transmitted from film recordings still exist in the
Film Library. The evidence is overwhelming.



Given I appear in at least one of those books, I can vouch for there being
certain rather dodgy items in some of them :-)

The point about film recording is that it was often used to archive live
programmes, and for resale to countries that didn't have VT machines. The
existence of a film recording is no guarantee the original programme was
either txed live or recorded first.

I tried asking on a forum of my colleagues and got the following answer: What
is live... time is just another dimension in space.

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html