BBC Television Centre has a special special place in British hearts and many of our best loved television shows were made there. But last week it closed its doors for good and will be handed over to the developers. Sometime in the future 3 of the studios will reopen so TV programmes will be shot there again, however it will not be a beating heart of TV production again.

TVC (as it’s called in the BBC) was opened for business (show business of course!) in 1960 as a Television Factory, the UK’s first. It’s famous shape was supposedly based on a question mark drawn on an envelope by the architect Graham Dawbarn when he was trying to think of how the building should look.

I worked for the BBC for 18 years and many of those were spent in TVC which was by far my favourite BBC building.  I was lucky enough to go to 2 events in its last month of operation: Red Nose day, the last big studio event; and, the BBC Club party, just 2 nights before the doors closed.   Red Nose day was a great evening full of celebrities, massive amounts of work to raise £75million for Comic Relief, a huge studio show and several parties. The Club event was current and former staff catching up with each other and saying goodbye to TVC and we seized the moment to sneak our own tour round the empty building.

I was sad to walk out for the last time, so many good times in this building famous throughout the UK. End of an era for so many of us but, enough nostalgia!  Instead let’s enjoy some photos from those nights:

The iconic entrance – going in for the last time…

The  famous ‘donut’ – central courtyard

Looking down on the entrance from the News block

A sneaky peak in the Match of the Day studio

This sort of thing can happen at TVC – me and David Tennant

Famous BBC corridors

Says it all…

Bye for now.
Sue
itsyourlondon.co.uk
@itsyourlondon