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LOCATIONS FOCUS: RIVERSIDE TV STUDIOS
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What is the history of your location?
Originally an industrial site in the 1800s, The Triumph Film Company bought the factory in 1933 beginning a long tradition of film and TV production at Riverside. Triumph transformed the engineering works into two large film studios to break into the latest fad: talking pictures.
The first film shot at Riverside was The Double Event, a risqué comedy made in 1934. The first major success for the studios came in 1937 with The Beauty And The Barge, starring the young Jack Hawkins and Margaret Rutherford. However, the film’s success didn’t stop the studios from halting production a year later. For two years the studios were leased for the production of ‘quoto quickies’: low-budget films designed as ‘B’ features to fulfill the statutory minimum proportion of British-made material that was shown in UK cinemas.
In 1939 the studios were bought by Jack Buchanan, a song-and-dance man of the 20s and 30s. In 1940, with the war raging, Riverside studios was bursting with projects and well-known stars of the day. The first wartime film produced was the comedy Tilly Of Bloomsbury.
In 1946, Sydney and Muriel Box produced at Riverside one of the greatest commercial successes in British filmmaking history: The Seventh Veil, starring Ann Todd, Herbert Lom and James Mason.
The BBC later purchased the studios and began a renovation process that would make them the jewel in the BBC TV crown for 15 years, leading many to hail Riverside as the finest TV centre in the world. It was there that some of the earliest experiments with colour were filmed and broadcast. Previously used as a scoring stage by RCA to record music in stereo for some of the early CinemaScope films, the BBC started to use the recording theatre as a dubbing theatre.
The studios, officially launched in 1956, were used as a location to film entertainment for a generation, and the show list read like a who’s who! However, by the early 70s the BBC had opened their new studios at Shepherd’s Bush and Riverside became surplus to requirements. Playschool was one of the last and longest running shows regularly filmed at the studios, with Prince Andrew and Viscount Linley even coming along to celebrate the 500th episode.
But Riverside’s connection with film and TV didn’t end with the BBC moving out. In the mid 1980s the Riverside Trust made a formal decision to hire out Studio2 for TV and film production. Throughout the 80s and early 90s the studios were used to film a range of arts, dance and cultural programmes.
The purpose-built cinema opened in 1987 and immediately established itself as one of London’s leading repertory programmes. Now the last wholly repertory programme in the capital, famous for its double bills and international festivals, the cinema at Riverside continues to be one of the best in the UK.
In 1995 the award-winning TFI Friday made Riverside its regular home. More recently Top Of The Pops, CD:UK, and Popworld have been recorded there, echoing the youth music shows of the 1960s.
In 2002 a new company, Riverside TV Studios Ltd, was formed to run the broadcast operation within the building and it is currently thriving. The studios are in continuous use, with recent hits including The Apprentice and C4’s T4. Today Riverside is unique – a truly internationalist venue and still the only place in the UK where the best contemporary theatre, film and TV sit alongside one another.
What makes it so attractive as a filming location?
Many clients find our location unbeatable. Just ten minutes from TV Centre and twenty minutes from Heathrow Airport, public transport is equally well connected with the District, Piccadilly and Hammersmith tube lines at the end of the road. Our riverside terrace has been used for countless productions with various sized, fully equipped conventional studios just meters away, all connected via fibre to the BT Tower and then onwards to anywhere in the world.
What do you like the most about it?
The arts centre atmosphere makes it unique in broadcasting. Each day the cast, crew and audience gather in the central bar. One person might have seen a performance of Hamlet in Studio2, whilst another might have come from Paul Weller’s Album launch in Studio1, or perhaps the Polish Film Festival in the cinema - you’ll rarely find a mix of people like it.
What is your favourite piece of trivia about your location?
It’s alleged that the Blue Peter elephant incident took place in Studio1. It certainly makes sense as I can’t imagine them getting an elephant up the lifts in Lime Grove.
I often think about it when I’m locking up!
If the building's walls could talk, what do you hope they would reveal?
What exactly happened when Lembit Öpik MP first met the Cheeky Girls in dressing room 3…
www.riversidetv.co.uk
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