Son of Rasputin

YSTV was approached by another YorkSoc, the Aardvark Society, who wanted to make a comedy sketch show of some ideas they had written down.

John Thompson assisted the Soc over a couple of weekends, to film enough footage for a 30-minute (or so) compilation (NB I have a copy of it all on VHS somewhere - JT).

This happened during the period YSTV were "sans-studio", and so the sketches were all on locations from Heslington (the Sassoon sketch) to Goodricke (pomegranate), by way of Langwith cafeteria (restaurant), toilets of Vanbrugh (pen-name) and the lake at Wentworth (yawning licence)... This also meant poor editing quality, as S-VHS had to be transferred onto Betamax for editing and splicing together. At least the new Sony S-VHS camera had automatic white-balancing and a built-in mic, and the tapes sat in the camera for recording, unlike that red JVC, the only other option!

NB Did we get paid for this by them?!

Useless Fact: JT appears as an extra in a few of the sketches - as "Soundman" in the Pomegranate sketch, the pole with the mic over his shoulder was only a prop and wasn't actually used for recording sound - the Sony's built-in mic did the job well enough (such modern technology!).

There appears to be a web prescence of sorts dedicated to the sketches at http://aaardvark.wackonet.net/things/multimedia.html.