In 1992 long standing Space Patrol fan, and presenter for BBC Radio Wiltshire, Gerry Hughes interviewed producer Arthur Provis at his home. Gerry had planned for the interview to be broadcast but a change of circumstance meant it was never transmitted. Martin Hutchinson was able to use soundbites from the interview in his Cult TV feature but here, for the first time, is a complete transcript of the interview: Arthur Provis - in conversation with Gerry Hughes Introduction by Gerry Hughes: With the revival of programmes like Thunderbirds and Stingray being reshown on BBC2 just recently, it’s reopened an interest, I suppose, in puppets and indeed in Gerry Anderson and his productions. But, of course, how many people remember the days of Twizzle, Torchy the Battery Boy and Four Feather Falls? Well, if you do remember it very well, you’ll remember the company who made it was AP Films. Well, “A”, stood for “Anderson” but “P” was for “Provis”, and that was Arthur Provis, Gerry Anderson’s original partner. Gerry Hughes: Arthur, it’s nice to meet you. First of all let me take you right back: how did you get involved in cameras and film work and so on? Arthur Provis: Well, I came out of the Navy - I was a photographer in the Navy - and I got a job as a trainee rostrum cameraman in Wardour Street. Then I progressed to doing live-action shooting, and one day - I can’t quite remember how - I met Gerry and we were asked to do a series called You’ve Never Seen This all over Europe, with unusual acts like a man sitting on a billiard cue on top of a building in Hamburg. All sorts of strange things. I can’t remember... - oh, a man was in a bottle for a year. Supposedly scientifically, but it was all crazy stuff. All unusual theatrical acts. Gerry and I made this series together - it was called Pete Collins Says 'You’ve Never Seen This'. We got friendly and we then formed a small production company to make commercials or whatever we could get. Roberta Leigh turned up one day and asked us to make a puppet film for her, called Twizzle. I think the budget was something like a thousand pounds for fifty-two episodes, so it gives you an idea of how crazy it was. I think we ended up making fifty quid out of it. But it gave us a lot of experience, and then we started to make another series, in conjunction with her - as a partner really - called Torchy the Battery Boy. GH: Because you’d progressed a bit, hadn’t you. The mistakes you’d learned from Twizzle... AP: Yes, we progressed and we learnt all the time. We made half of that series and we fell out with Roberta. I can’t really remember the reasons now but we did. Then Gerry and I made a pilot called Four Feather Falls. GH: Now, that was financed by Granada Television. AP: We took the pilot and a brochure to - it wasn’t Sidney Bernstein, but it was his second-in-command in those days - and they bought twenty-six episodes and went on to make thirty-nine. After that Gerry and I - we didn’t exactly have a quarrel, but he bought me out because [he prefered] running things a different way. GH: But the name of AP Films carried on through to Thunderbirds. AP: Carried on for a while, right on to Thunderbirds. I then met with Roberta Leigh again and we made Sara and Hoppity, which was a very simple series. GH: That was very much in the Torchy/Twizzle vein, wasn’t it. AP: Yes. It was a little bit better. GH: About a little girl who had a toy from a Goblin ring. She used to put the key in and wind him up, and he used to get into all sorts of mischief. AP: That’s right. We made that - I think that was for Associated Redifussion. And then we made Space Patrol, which was a much bigger operation. GH: Yes, now that was a twenty-five minute per episode space series, wasn’t it? AP: Yes, and we made fifty-two of those, which took us about two years, I think. GH: That was thirty years ago, wasn’t it? AP: It frightens me to think that! GH: It was around about 1963. Tell us a little bit about making Space Patrol because, as you say, that was quite a big series. Where did you make it, first of all? AP: We rented a church in Harlesden High Street. It was a very, very old church with six-foot-thick walls. They used the church hall for the church purposes and we rented this huge place. It had an organ in it, which we had removed - it was the most huge thing you’ve ever seen. It took them three days to get it out. And all the pews - we cleared it all. It was 4,000 square feet, this church. We built a bridge in there and built a series of one-and-a-half foot stages, and built sets on the stages so that we could wheel them under the bridge, and the puppeteers would operate from over the top. GH: Which, of course, Gerry Anderson and his team continued. AP: Well, yes, we sort of all did that. We didn’t go in for electronic lip-sync. I never really believed in it that much. I preferred the natural way of moving the mouth, either with a morse key and a solenoid or with a string. GH: So you actually, literally have the actors there while you filmed some scenes. AP: No, no. We played back. We always did it to playback. We’d cut the sound to length before we started shooting. This saved an awful lot of film - we’d shoot on about a one-and-a-half to one ratio, instead of about five to one. GH: One of the favourite things I personally remember about Space Patrol was you had these wonderful, metallic robots. And they had an amazing walk, I remember... AP: That’s right. I thought that puppets don’t really walk, although most puppeteers would disagree. So I tried to make a walking mechanism - I didn’t make it but I had it made. We spent a lot of money on it. But, of course, when we tried to operate it we realised you needed a lot of skill from the bridge because there’s no gravity in a puppet, and it swung itself about. So you had to counteract the swing when you pressed the button for the mechanical mechanism to work. GH: It certainly looked very impressive. AP: It looked good on the robot but wasn’t so good on the life-like puppets. GH: Was that actually used on the life-like puppets as well or was it just the robots? AP: That was what we originally tried to do but it didn’t work, so we gave it up. We tried to cut round any walking. GH: How big were the actual puppets? AP: Between twenty and twenty-four inches high - about a third of life-size. GH: So they were actually bigger than the Gerry Anderson ones. AP: No, they’re about the same. Not much in it. Some were smaller - maybe eighteen, twenty, twenty-two inches. GH: The sad thing is that this particular series appears to have been lost. That’s why we haven’t seen it for a long, long time. Do we have any idea where it could be? AP: Roberta Leigh would have it I would think, probably at her house. I haven’t seen her since when I split with her, so I can’t really tell you. GH: But you progressed from that onto a colour series, didn’t you, which was a bit like James Bond. AP: Well, we did a thing called Paul Starr, but we only ever made a pilot. We had rubber faces and actually I thought it was very good, but it didn’t take off. I don’t know whether the license fees came up again and threw everything at that stage - I can’t remember. Something happened, and nobody wanted to buy anything. Of course, it’s all happened again twice since then. GH: Well, maybe we’ll get the chance to see that pilot one day, wherever it is. AP: Yes. I honestly don’t know where it is. But it was probably one of the best things we did. GH: But, Arthur, when you look back and you see the success of Gerry Anderson and his team - they went on to do Supercar and Fireball XL5 and Thunderbirds, right through to the Stanley Unwin thing and beyond - those are immensely popular and they’re finding new life again on video and on television. Do you have any regrets at all that you weren’t involved with those now, looking back? AP: I don’t think I do. I’ve always taken a rather easier way of life than Gerry. I’m not really a... I don’t know what the word is... but it worries me a lot if I’m under a lot of pressure. I can only really work well if I know that there’s money in the pot to do it. I don’t like taking risks, which is probably the wrong way but it’s just the way I am. It’s my nature not to really go into the heavy stuff. If somebody asks me to make a film or a puppet series or anything, I’m delighted to do it, but I prefer to be in that capacity rather than running it and finding finance and arguing with people. I find it very difficult to do that. GH: Well, bringing up to today - what are you actually doing these days? AP: Well, I’m really retired now. I still do an odd job or an odd commercial if somebody happens to ring me up. I’m not really working in the true sense of the word. GH: Have we seen any of your stuff on television lately? AP: Not lately, no. I’ve just done a commercial for Germany, for a cat food, but that’s about all. GH: Well let’s hope we see some more of your stuff in the future, and let’s hope that things like Space Patrol and Paul Starr get an airing again, or indeed, get a new lease of life on video. Arthur Provis, many thanks for talking to us. AP: Pleasure. Space Patrol - The Website would like to thank Gerry Hughes, Arthur and Barbara Provis for permission to reproduce the interview, and Martin Hutchinson for arranging a copy for transcription.