Back in January we gave you the heads-up about a new TV series called Britain by Bike presented by Clare Balding. Well tonight, the episode featuring the Isle of Wight, is finally appearing on BBC4 at 8:30pm.
The series is based around a book of the same name written by keen cyclist and author Harold Briercliffe describing various areas of the UK.
To illustrate how strange and elongated the world of TV can be, Clare and the two-person TV crew from Lion TV – Alison Pinkney and Amber Comerford – came down to the Island a year ago, back in August 2009, to shoot the episode.
VB … happy to help
They got in touch with VentnorBlog when planning the shoot, looking for tips on good people to speak to, in order to get the character of the Island. We were happy to help.
Sections were filmed around the Island over a few days including some in the West, at the Buddle Inn and up on the Downs in Ventnor.
It was originally expected that the programme series was to be broadcast at the start of 2010, but those in control at BBC4 liked the series so much, they decided to hold it back and make a big splash about it – hence it just showing now.
In Clare’s words
While up shooting on the Downs, VB chatted to Clare about the filming and what she thought of the Island.
Have a listen to it – she’s a convert.
[audio:http://otw-audio.s3.amazonaws.com/clare-balding-ventnor-downs.mp3]
Tune in tonight
The County Press did a little (read three sentence!) story about this too. Depending on what actually appears on screen tonight (rather than the cutting room floor), it might turn out that the CP might be a little bit surprised as to the content :)
UPDATE 4.Aug.10: Guess that didn’t work out. Very strangely they referred to me as an ‘Historian'(!), not VentnorBlog as we’d agreed.
Tune in tonight at 8:30pm to see.
You can buy the book from Waterstone’s in Newport. If you live off the Island, you can buy it from Amazon and support VentnorBlog in the process.
