Madhouse On Castle Street - Junking

Junking

As was the usual method of BBC television drama production at the time, the play was produced in a multi-camera electronic studio on video cameras, although it was recorded as a 35 mm film telerecording rather than on videotape. This 35mm master was released for junking in 1968, and no copy of the play is known to exist. This was common practice in British television of the era. Contracts with the actors' union, Equity, and other trade bodies meant that only a certain number of repeat broadcasts of a production were allowed, and then only within a five-year period. Once the ability to re-use a programme had expired, if it were of no further value it would be usually be destroyed, as was the case with Madhouse on Castle Street. Furthermore, the BBC was in the midst of moving to a colour television standard, whereas Castle Street had been recorded in black and white.

No other copies are believed to have been made from the original master, as these would usually only be produced for overseas sales purposes by BBC Enterprises, who are not believed to have requested any copies of the programme, even after Dylan's rise to fame. This is by no means a unique situation, as thousands of hours of television programming – including performances by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones on Top of the Pops – were disposed of by the BBC in this manner until the junking policy was halted in 1978. By that stage the ability to further exploit programmes with the new medium of home videocassette recorders was becoming apparent, and the idea that programmes should in any case be preserved for posterity and historical and cultural reasons was also coming to be realised.

Still photographs and scripts for the production survive, as do some amateur off-air reel-to-reel audio tape recordings of four of Dylan's songs. In 2005 the BBC launched a search for a video recording of the play, uncovering some audio recordings of the songs, but it seems that a full off-air audio copy does not exist, and it seems highly unlikely that a telerecording copy will ever be recovered. In April 2007, BBC Four broadcast a documentary about the making of the play in the Arena strand, featuring interviews with Saville, Jones, Martin Carthy, Peggy Seeger, Dylan collector Ian Woodward, and the first re-broadcast of the songs from the play. In November 2008, BBC Radio 2 broadcast a documentary, narrated by Bob Harris, about Dylan's visit to London and the making of the play.