John Mead (standing) with Euryn Ogwen Williams and Peter Walker
Television Producer John Mead has worked in broadcasting for more than 50 years, and on 9th December he presented a very amusing evening at Chapter Arts Centre, based on his recently published book, which featured some very funny stories and accounts of disasters beyond belief. He was aided and abetted by former BBC Wales Sports Journalist and former Glamorgan Cricket Captain, Peter Walker MBE, and independent media consultant, Euryn Ogwen Williams.
John started his television career as an announcer at Granada Television, and was one of the first voices to be heard on the station. However, on the opening night on 3 May 1956, as later recalled by Dennis Foreman in a documentary clip shown by John, the main presenter, Canadian journalist Quentin Reynolds (a personal friend of Sidney Bernstein) was 'grossly inebriated' as he presented an alarming visual tour of Granada's studios and facilities. John also explained how, due to huge communications problems between the Cardiff and Bristol studios, HTV's opening night, in May 1968, was also one of the greatest and funniest television catastrophes of all time, but, mysteriously, no recordings of it remain. But John did have a very entertaining clip of the opening night of HTV's new television centre at Culverhouse Cross in Cardiff in the early 80s, which featured ex-pat Welsh singer Jack Jones, then based in America, along with live inserts from San Francisco, Paris and Tokyo, a 30 piece orchestra, and 28 dancers led by a then-unknown choreographer Nigel Lythgoe.
John also recalled how, during his time at Granada, he met Colin Clark (the son of eminent historian and broadcaster Kenneth Clark) who claimed that he had spent a week with Marilyn Monroe while her then husband, Arthur Miller, was away in the States. Although John did not believe him at the time, following Colin's sad early death a few years later, his story was verified, and was recently the subject of the feature film, "My Week With Marilyn", staring Emma Watson and Dame Judi Dench.
John's fascinating talk also featured stories about veteran broadcaster Wynford Vaughan Thomas, and a clip, not seen for almost 50 years, of possibly one of actor Emlyn Williams's last television performances - a reading of 'Captain Murder', a grisly children's story by Charles Dickens. The sequence remains a television gem, having been recorded in a single hour-and-a-half-long take in front of a live audience, who were captivated by his word-perfect performance, an incredible feat for an 80 year old actor.