LITMIR.BIZ

      Outdoor Roadshows started in the late 1990s, and since then scenes like this have come to define the modern programme.

      THE ATTRIBUTES OF A ROADSHOW EXPERT

      From that small band of experts recruited for that pilot programme in Hereford has grown a remarkable team of knowledgeable and enthusiastic men and women drawn from all areas of the world of art and antiques. An expert on the Roadshow has to possess several attributes. Knowledge, and the ability to present that knowledge in an accessible manner is key, but they also have to be great team players and always ready to share their knowledge. They must have great patience and be willing to talk for hours to owners about their objects, not all of which will be very exciting. In short, they should like people and enjoy engaging with them. They must remain friendly and enthusiastic throughout a long and sometime challenging day, often with very few breaks. Most importantly, they have to be ambassadors for the programme and the BBC. At most Roadshows there will be a team of twenty to twenty-five experts on duty, covering all the disciplines, but the make-up of the team will vary from show to show.

      Today, the Roadshow has around fifty-six experts in the team, but this number has never been consistent. In the days when more programmes were filmed for each series, the team reached over eighty to ensure that every discipline could be fully represented at each event. In the current team there is one expert, David Battie, who was present at that first Hereford programme, but many others joined soon after. Indeed, the Roadshow is remarkable for the longevity of its experts, with well over half the team having served twenty years or more. At the same time, new experts join each year, usually recruited either by the production team or by experts who sometimes act as informal talent scouts.

      MOVING WITH THE TIMES

      During its long life, the Roadshow has had three executive producers: Robin Drake; Christopher Lewis; and Simon Shaw. Longevity has also been a feature of the programme’s production team, with many working on the show for years. Making the Roadshow is an immensely complex process, and planning can take months or even years. Every show is dependent upon the great skills of the production, technical and support teams.

      There have been changes during the last forty years, but these have generally been introduced in a gentle and unobtrusive way. Most obvious are the titles. Having been changed or developed every few years, these have now gone through several versions. For the first few years, the theme music was an electronic version of Bach’s Third Brandenberg Concerto, but this was replaced by the now globally familiar tune, a specially commissioned piece written by Paul Reade and Tim Gibson. The most important change has been a gradual shift in emphasis away from the antiques and their values towards the owners and their stories. This is partly reflective of significant changes in the world of antiques itself, as the interest in traditional antiques diminishes, replaced by new enthusiasms for more modern items. The Roadshow has now entertained more than two generations of viewers, and the tastes of the modern viewer are not the same as those who watched the programme in the late 1970s and 1980s. In its own leisurely way, the Antiques Roadshow has had to move with the times.

A WILLIAM BURGES BOTTLE

      ‘I was very lucky to be able to film something so important at a relatively early stage in my Roadshow career. It is still one of the best things I have ever seen.’

      Paul Atterbury

      Near the end of a busy day in October 1996 at the Embassy Centre in Skegness, Lincolnshire, Paul Atterbury had taken a break from his table to have a cup of tea in the Centre’s restaurant. As he sat down, one of the show’s receptionists came over to him clutching a shopping basket in which lay a silver-mounted bottle. For Paul, it was a moment of magic, as he knew at once that he was looking at a long-lost treasure designed by the great Victorian architect, William Burges.

      Paul rushed back to the hall to show the bottle to his friend, colleague and fellow Victorian enthusiast David Battie, and they agreed at once that it had to be filmed. Schedules, which at that point in the day were full as usual, were rearranged and, unusually, it was agreed that Paul and David should film it together, in conversation with the owner.

      WILLIAM BURGES

      A bizarre and eccentric figure, William Burges (1827–1881), was one of the greatest architect/designers of the latter part of the Victorian period. Drawing inspiration from many sources – including High Gothic and Tudor styles, French illuminated manuscripts, the Middle East and various worlds of myth and fantasy – Burges created extraordinary buildings and interiors, along with furniture, metalwork, jewellery and wallpapers. His great friend and major client was John Crichton-Stuart, the 3rd Marquess of Bute, and then one of the richest men in Britain, for whom he created Castell Coch near Cardiff, and extravagantly rebuilt Cardiff Castle. Burges was a consummate colourist and his legacy is a Victorian vision of magnificent splendour and richness.

      Burges is known to have designed a wide range of decorative objects in silver and other metals, mostly for his own use at his extraordinary house in Melbury Road, West London, which was full of such treasures. Many are now lost, though they were recorded in a series of photographs taken in the 1880s and mounted in an album that is now in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

      Paul and David were able to establish quite quickly that this bottle was one of those lost pieces, not seen for over a hundred years. The bottle itself, only about seven inches high, is eighteenth century Chinese porcelain with a coffee-coloured glaze, in itself not exceptional but made so by Burges’ mounts – organic tendrils in jewel-mounted gilded silver – that encase it. The cover is crowned with a pearl-set spider and Burges’ name and the date, 1864, are carried on a band of enamel around the base. In Europe, the tradition of enriching Chinese porcelain with jewelled mounts goes back to the Elizabethan era, an historical reference typical of Burges.

       Hugh Scully, David Battie and Paul Atterbury after filming the William Burges bottle.

      AN EXTRAORDINARY FIND

      During the filming, the lady owner was asked about the background to the bottle. All she knew was that her father, a travelling salesman, had bought it in about 1950 from an antique shop somewhere along the Great North Road. She explained that her father, who had an extraordinary eye and great curiosity, often came home with strange things that he had found on his travels. She remembered that the bottle was one of the most unusual things he found and that he had paid £100 for it, which at the time had seemed a huge amount of money. Having recovered from her shock at the cost, she had forgotten about it, only finding it again after her father’s death.

      She revealed that she had never looked at it in detail and had not seen the signature on the enamel band. When it was pointed out to her, she said it meant nothing to her as she had never heard of Burges. Bringing it to the Roadshow had been a last-minute decision, and she said she had very nearly not bothered to come.

      AN AUCTION-STYLE VALUATION

      Paul and David did the valuation in the form of an auction, taking it in turns to bid until the price reached £30,000. The owner was amazed, but said immediately that it was going back in the sideboard where it lived. Since then, it has never been seen again. Attempts to trace the owner and the bottle during the preparation of this book were unsuccessful. It has not appeared on the market, although similar metalwork by Burges has been sold. It would be a tragedy if this great treasure, lost for a century before its brief Roadshow

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