Here’s a question for you. What’s the link between Bananarama and Spitting Image?
Clue: the answer is not that Spitting Image did a parody of them. Let’s take a look at this video for “Rough Justice”, released in May 1984, and featuring Peter Woods being very funny:
I’m obviously going to be a sucker for any music video which shows a pop group TAKING OVER TELEVISION. But the immediate question comes to mind – my mind, anyway – is: where exactly was this video shot? Was it in a real television studio? Or did they just set up a recreation on a film stage somewhere?
The answer can be found by a careful examination of the television cameras we can see in the video. Shots like these:
Oh, hello there. What’s that green logo on the side? I recognise that from somewhere…
Ah, Limehouse Studios. An independent TV studio in the Docklands, in operation from 1983 to 1989, it’s exactly the kind of enterprise which a) was hugely important at the time, and b) is virtually never talked about any more by anyone outside the industry. Places like TV Centre, the London Studios, even Teddington to an extent are remembered. But I don’t think Limehouse really is. And yet it was home to all kinds of shows: Treasure Hunt, Food and Drink, Whose Line is it Anyway?, Network 7… the list goes on.
Here isn’t the place to tell the complete tale of Limehouse Studios, and its sad demise. For that, I recommend Martin Kempton’s brilliant entry on the studios for his site TV Studio History. But it seems worth noting that by all accounts, the studios were built and equipped to the highest possible standards:
“Each studio consisted of a sealed concrete box supported by giant springs in order to isolate it from extraneous noise. Technically, the company went to extraordinary lengths to ensure top quality. In order to make the right choice, every TV camera on the market was put in the same room and compared side by side. Vision engineers, LDs and cameramen all picked the Link 125. Even so, they asked Link to improve the design beyond the BBC spec, which they were happy to do.”
One thing that the Bananarama video accidentally achieves, is to provide a little time capsule of how these much-loved studios actually looked in 1984. Which feels a valuable thing to have regardless.
But there’s one other show which had a base at Limehouse, and that was a certain show called Spitting Image. They didn’t make the actual show there; that was recorded at Central’s Birmingham studios in Broad Street. Instead, Limehouse was the home of the show’s puppet workshop. This was more than just a practical factory; from Peter Fluck and Roger Law’s point of view at least, the puppets were obviously considered the satirical heart of the show.
As ever, Lewis Chester’s book Tooth and Claw: The Inside Story of Spitting Image is instructive here, in terms of how Fluck and Law felt about Limehouse:
“…the place was beginning to grow on them. The odd juxtaposition of a television studio, all hi-tech decor and plastic palm trees, with the solid dockland ghosts of cranes and tackle seemed to suggest an area where something extraordinary might happen, or perhaps be preserved. Law told Steve Bendelack1, ‘This place is going to be the last refuge of the sixties.’
The workshop itself was a large open space above the television studio and accorded well with Fluck and Law’s idea of a democratically run, slightly anarchic enterprise of free-spirited artists. In crisis Law could impose a regime as strict as any iron-founder’s, but it was the thought that counted. For Spitting Image’s first eleven workshop employees it was an exciting, if alarming time to be alive. Passionate discussions over the nature of caricature and satire easily shaded into research projects into which brand of tinned soup made the best vomit substitute for a drunken Scotsman puppet.”
An “us and them” mentality quickly developed between Birmingham and Limehouse. John Lloyd, in Tooth and Claw:
“It’s odd having two divided centres of production. When you’re in Brum it feels like a professional place, full of people who know what they’re doing, and Limehouse seems unreasonably dilatory. When you’re in Limehouse your view of Central tends to be of something stodgy, bureaucratic and bullying.”
All of which I could ponder all day about. But back to Bananarama. Getty Images have an amazing photo of the group shooting the “Rough Justice” video, with the gang bursting through a breakdown caption in the studio:
And the metadata for this picture states it was taken on the 4th May 1984. Which, if correct, means that was the actual day they shot the video. Given that it isn’t a dummy or default date2, it’s fairly likely to be correct, or at least only out by a few days.
Which is fun, as it’s bang in the middle of Spitting Image‘s first series. Episode 6 was broadcast on the 15th April 1984, and Episode 7 was on the 13th May 1984. In-between those dates was the Great Regime Change™, when Grant Naylor took over as lead writers of the show, and the series improved dramatically.
So there you have it. There’s the link between Bananarama and Spitting Image; they recorded their music video in the same place that the puppet workshop for Spitting Image was based, and at the same time.
OK, so fine, maybe that’s a bit unsatisfying. It sure would be nice to have a picture of the ‘Nanas messing around with some of the puppets, or something.
Ah, cheers.
Steve Bendelack has had a fascinating career. He was the very first puppet maker hired by Fluck and Law; he ended up directing Spitting Image, and then became a highly-regarded comedy director in his own right, perhaps most notably on The League of Gentlemen. He then ended up directing on the revival of Spitting Image for BritBox in 2021, completing the circle. ↩
“1st January” of any given year is always suspicious. ↩
9 comments
Billy Smart on 8 March 2023 @ 9pm
There’s an interesting section about Limehouse Studios in the Channel 4 chapter of Andy Beckett’s ‘Promised You A Miracle: Why 1980-82 Made Modern Britain’.
I went to a recording at Limehouse Studios! Who’s Line Is It Anyway?, Sunday 9 October 1988. The panelists were Graeme Garden, George McGrath, Jan Ravens and John Sessions. I was most excited to see Graeme Garden who had been a hero to me as a small child. Outside the Limehouse Studios we could see the lightshow from Jean Michelle Jarre’s concert at the Docklands arena. John Sessions commented on this in a French accent as if doing a Jarre impersonation.
Stephen on 8 March 2023 @ 11pm
Lovely article as ever.
I don’t remember the song or the video from the time. Interesting to see that the newsreader is Peter Woods, father of Justin Webb. He was famously in the Morecambe and Wise version of ‘There Is Nothing Like A Dame’. I think by this point he had left the BBC but was still sufficiently famous to play the role of a newsreader. I’ve just looked up his birth date and realised he would have been 54 in 1984, the same age I am now. He still looks ancient to me.
David Boothroyd on 8 March 2023 @ 11pm
There’s an interesting accidental tour of Limehouse studios in the Celebrity special episode of Treasure Hunt, transmitted 5 April 1985. For this special Ned Sherrin was the host, Kenneth and Annie the studio contestants, and various celebs were the skyrunners. Spoiler alert but the final clue led Kenny Lynch to the studio. It’s quite a surprise to hear the mention of ‘Canary Wharf’ before it was famous, and then to see it empty of tall buildings. Watch here: https://youtu.be/K1Upq7jWiJE?t=2416
John J. Hoare on 9 March 2023 @ 8am
Lovely stuff, thanks everyone. Particularly jealous of you going to that recording, Billy, it must have been amazing.
And cheers for the Treasure Hunt link, David. In fact I meant to mention it, if only in a footnote, and then entirely forgot about it. So glad that’s been mentioned!
Peter on the Beta on 9 March 2023 @ 10am
I worked for the exec producers of Network 7, as well as many of the production staff, a decade after that legendary show. I was young(ish) and they were all late30/40/50somethings. Our company was based in a square red-framed glass box on the Isle of Dogs, which was a remote enclave of building work, empty failing skyscrapers and scary run-down council blocks if you strayed the wrong way past the Asda.
There were many tales of adventure, debauchery, substances that enhanced one’s, er, energy levels to assist young eighties’ people be all yooffull and inyaface as was deemed necessary. Thanks to the DLR shutting at 8pm every day, chaotic traffic and no road links, they often bedded down on a Saturday night. The show prop of Magenta’s comedy caravan was the best place to sleep. There was a tale of the scariest night being a kegendarily difficult and grouchy person saying, at 4:30am as weary staff got into ssleeping bags, “I’m f**in’ horny”, met with a sea of fake snoring noises.
Sounds about right. I worked at L!VE TV in the tower, for the other big indie here, independently as well, and have live here for two decades. As they’d say state-side, go figure…
Andy Currington on 9 March 2023 @ 11am
Spitting Image wasn’t the only topical sketch show with a connection to Limehouse studios – it was also where they recorded Channel 4’s satirical Who Dares Wins.
I was obsessed with Who Dares Wins. I was fifteen when it started in 1983 and over its four series I taped each episode, watching them over and over. Eventually I wrote a letter to the Oracle (as ITV Teletext was called then) letters page saying how much I loved the show and was rewarded with a couple of tickets to the next recording. Trouble was I couldn’t find anyone else who wanted to go – and we lived in Bolton, so getting down to London wasn’t cheap or easy. Still, I set off on my own on a National Express and arrived about seven hours later in London armed with an A-Z and a copy of the Who Dares Wins tie-in book in case the opportunity presented itself to get autographs. I took my place in the audience (unfortunately too far back to be discernible on camera) and the show commenced.
As it transpired, this was the episode featuring Peter Cook. Part of it survives here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqUNS8f6f18. Sadly however, I had absolutely no idea who he was. At 17 I had no knowledge of Pete and Dud, and I was a couple of years off discovering Derek and Clive. I hadn’t the faintest idea that he was practically the most revered and legendary British comedian on the planet.
So after the show, after the audience had departed and dispersed and I was left sitting in the studio reception area waiting for my taxi to Victoria bus station, it simply did not occur to me to talk to the only other person there apart from the receptionist – Peter Cook. Two seats away from me. For a whole fifteen minutes. All to myself. Comedy legend. Sitting there. Didn’t even bother to get an autograph.
He left.
John J. Hoare on 13 March 2023 @ 7am
Cheers, Peter and Andy. Stuff like this is why I still bother with comments on here!
Gareth Randall on 2 April 2023 @ 11pm
My friend Paula was a huge comedy buff and got us tickets for multiple first- and second-series recordings of Whose Line Is It Anyway? It was taped on Sundays, and I remember it was a colossal faff to get to Limehouse if you didn’t drive (which none of us did then, all being aged 16) as at that time, the DLR didn’t run on Sundays. I have vague memories of getting off the then-notorious Misery Line at Limehouse and then walking for what seemed like miles until we ended up in a sort of bomb site with the studios in the middle of it.
The first recording we saw was show 5 (Sessions, Merton, Lawrence, Pryce). By chance Paula and I ended up in the seating behind the desk, and Paula is visible in her red top in almost all the mid-shots of Clive. There’s one shot where you can see me, during Sessions’ rather flat folk song about a television set; when he realises that it’s going down like a lead balloon he quickly throws in the word “wanker” and we all perk up and start laughing. You can also see a white dot on my red jumper, which is a Blue Peter badge that I’m wearing for no reason that I can remember now (I won it in 1983 for an “interesting letter”).
In a show 11 (Sessions, Lawrence, Fry, Reitel), there’s an edit that you’d never know about unless you were there for the recording. The round was “World’s Worst Person to Meet The Queen”, and Stephen stepped forward, cupped his hands round his groin and said “Whop some skull on that, bitch!”
There was a moment of silence and then it absolutely took the roof off the place, but in the actual transmitted show we can’t see Stephen’s hands and the end of “bitch” has been obscured by pulling up the original laugh a bit earlier.
And finally Esther, in all the recordings we went to there was only ever one instance I can recall of someone asking to start again because their bit just wasn’t working. It was Josie Lawrence in a song about brushing her teeth. She restarted with a different topic and that one worked.
John J. Hoare on 4 April 2023 @ 11am
This thread makes me think there’s an entire site to be had, just with people giving their memories of comedy recordings. Hmmmmm.
I’m bloody awful at remembering stuff. I went to see an episode of Hippies recorded in 1999, and I remembered there was a cut scene with a couple of CIA men – the ones mentioned as hiding in someone’s beard at the end of the episode. But until I investigated the paperwork on a whim a year or so back, I’d forgotten that they were played by Linehan and Mathews!
Which is very interesting, because they’d stopped writing together by then…
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