The Alchemists of Sound

TV Movie
2003
58m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

A documentary about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, responsible for creating some of the most memorable television and radio music in British popular culture, including "The Hitchhiker's Guide... Read allA documentary about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, responsible for creating some of the most memorable television and radio music in British popular culture, including "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and Doctor Who (1963).A documentary about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, responsible for creating some of the most memorable television and radio music in British popular culture, including "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and Doctor Who (1963).

Director
- Roger Pomphrey
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

8.2/10

YOUR RATING

Director
- Roger Pomphrey
Stars

1User review

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos

Top Cast25

Oliver Postgate

Self - Narrator
(voice)

Roger Limb

Self

Mark Ayres

Self
(as Mark Ayers)

Brian Hodgson

Self

Desmond Briscoe

Self

Maddalena Fagandini

Self

Dick Mills

Self

Adrian Utley

Self

David Cain

Self

Delia Derbyshire

Self
(archive footage)

Malcolm Clarke

Self

Sonic Boom

Self
(as Peter Kember)

John Baker

Self
(archive footage)

Milton Babbitt

Self
(archive footage)

Huw Wheldon

Self
(archive footage)

Robert Popper

Self

Peter Serafinowicz

Self

Wendy Carlos

Self
(archive footage)
(as Walter Carlos)

User reviews1

8.283

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Music

Storyline

Did you know

Trivia
In many shots there is a clock which shows the time as 19:58. This represents the year in which the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was founded (1958).

Quotes
[after the Radiophonic Workshop closed, Mark Ayres was made curator of the tapes]
Oliver Postgate - Narrator: One day, he learned to his horror that all the tapes recorded after 1983 had simply been thrown away.
Mark Ayres: So I hit the roof, and then spent a couple of weeks opening every door in Maida Vale and saying "Where would these tapes have gone? What was the process by which these tapes were skipped?" And they said "Well, we get a guy in. He'd move the tapes out and then he'd order the skip." "Where would he put the tapes before they were moved out?" "Oh, in an ante-room somewhere." Eventually I found a room which was the Band Store - the BBC Symphony Orchestra Band Store - and there were all these tapes in piles. And it was a brilliant piece of BBC inefficiency because they'd thrown all these tapes out but nobody had ordered the skip.