To: Lee
From: Toby Fricker
Email: toby@rawtelevision.co.uk

Message:

Dear Lee

I am contacting you from Raw TV Ltd (http://www.rawtelevision.co.uk), an Independent Television Production Company, who has a reputation as one of the UK's leading producers of factual and current affairs television.

We have been commissioned by Channel Five to produce a documentary about Sandra Gregory, a British woman who was arrested in 1993 for attempting to smuggle heroin out of Thailand. The programme follows Sandra's story from when she moved to Bangkok in 1990 up until today. She's just graduated from Oxford University with a degree in geography.
This is not an investigative programme it is purely Sandra's story told by her and illustrated by drama reconstruction.

The reason I am getting in touch with you is that we are looking to film a few scenes in the UK and are looking for Thai people as extras. I was wondering whether there was anyway that you could post a note on your website or somehow get the word out to the Thai community in the UK. We are looking to film in the first two weeks of January, I don't have exact dates at the moment. The filming will take place in the London area.

I would be very grateful if you could help in anyway. If you do know of anyone who might be interested then I ask them to email jenny@rawtelevision.co.uk with theircontact details.

Thank you very much

Regards

Toby Fricker

Tel: 020 7284 6861
Mob: 07973 930 207

ok, so I emailed these guys and sent off Pee's picture (without mentioning it... woops!) Luckily for me, when they asked him to go to London he was down with it! Phew...

They were making a low budget documentary called Banged up Abroad based on the true story of Sandra Gregory who spent a considerable amount of time in jail in Thailand. Her book's called Forget you had a Daughter and Pee was gonna be an extra (or so he thought so)...

.....the day before they emailed us to say his role had developed somewhat and he was now required to be a security guard and arrest somebody trying to escape with drugs, and had he any acting/extra experience before (which is something they never asked for in the beginning!). "Oh, he'll be fine" I replied...

We had to be at Stanstead Airport at 10.30am together with our passports (how I wished I was really jetting off somewhere!) Apparently, they'd been filming in Thailand before Xmas (Bangkok and Koh Samet) but had to finish off the final scene in the UK coz of lack of funds.

Everybody was really friendly and made us welcome and I think Pee was looking forward to hanging out with some Thai people. There were 2 ladies and 1 guy who looked as though they could be Thai(?!) so Pee bounded straight over and introduced himself. It turned out none of them were Thai - a Vietnamese/Chinese lady and the guy was Korean with a proper Cockney accent which I always find quite amusing. He was looking at Pee with bemusement when he was chuntering on in Thai - ha ha.

So Pee gets changes into his security guard outfit together with handcuffs and dodgy shades and comes alive and actually thinks he's a movie star. It was hilarious! He had to do 3 scenes in the end and be quite aggressive with the girl (which he loved) and some of them quite a few takes!

We were all fed and watered throughout the day and Pee was paid £100 for about 5 hours of easy work plus all our travel expenses.

The funny thing was, this part of the documentary was supposed to be filmed at Don Muang! Mmmm, DM v Stansted - I cant exactly see any similarities myself... I hope they do some serious editing as there were shots with WHS and a red pillar box in the background. Also, they asked me to walk across one shot and Id got boots and a woollie jumper on (how unauthentic!!). Oh well, it is a low budget documentary after all.

The other Extras seemed very competitive and kept asking Pee which agency he was with. When we explained we'd seen the advertisement on the Thai/UK website and it was his first time and that he wasnt a professional Extra at all, they kept pestering us as to how much he was getting paid. They were all mad because they had to speak in some shots which apparently should be agreed beforehand with their agents as they get paid a whole lot more. It turned out they were paid exactly the same as Pee (less 15% agency fee) and some of them had been doing Extra work for years!!

So we had a really fun day and made a weekend of it in London and Pee's still referring to it as "my movie".

Think it's gonna be shown in March sometime so we'll keep you posted (or maybe not....)

Karen and Pee

There is at least one other "film star" on the site,who appeared in the Bridget Jones sequel partly based in Thailand. I won't embarrass her by naming her ,but she is a regular attendee at group meetings.

Karen and Pee,

Thank you so much for a wonderful report of what sounds like a great day. I really enjoyed the read; thank you!



(When is the deadline for Oscar nominations? )

Excellent.

Ask Pee can I have his autograph

Thanks for sharing.

Lee & Tar

Has this program been aired in the UK?

Would be interested to know as it may have been on while I was in Thailand. If not, then would like to see it when it airs.

R

I applied for my wife on that one, we got email replies back , no phone calls heard nothing else. Up to them!

They told us it would go on air April or May. When you go onto the website it still says "In Progress". Ive called them recently and they said to check the TV Times every week. To date, still nothing listed.

At long last they've updated their website...

http://www.rawtelevision.co.uk/Bangedup.html

Banged up Abroad 4 part documentary due to start Monday, September 25, 10-11pm on Channel 5.

Karen

Don't forget to remind us again nearer the time too. (I'm sure to forget!)

The Sandra Gregory episode is due to be aired on channel 5 on 2nd October at 10pm