My (late) mother (Sheila Payne) appeared in a UK version of "What's my line" in approx. 1958/59. Her job was to do with driving horses - imagine a "stagecoach", if you will, with 4+ horses pulling one carriage. Her job would have been driving the horses, or playing the brass instrument to warn other road users, or some other support role. In essence, it was more or less a period re-enactment of times gone by. Funded, I'm certain, by the late Johnson Matthey.

I am posting here in hope that sombody on this BBS can put me in touch with someone who has a copy of that 1958/59 recording of my mother 'nervously' appearing on "What's my line"!

Apologies for the completely random post but this *is* the Empegbbs!

Edit: Fixed typo in subject line.

Interesting! I wonder if the shows were broadcast live, or shot on film, or broadcast live and kinescope recorded? Either way, any recording will be in the BBC archives and you would need to get a copy from them. I can't find any specific details about getting this, except at this link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/help.shtml#copy

And the mention of £105.75 on another website.

My aunt appeared in the 1984-1990 ITV run, she was a truck driver at the time.

The BBC probably don't have it themselves. They used to wipe and reuse tape until sometime in the 1980s.

When I first read your post I thought, no chance, it went out live: As the senior member(arguably), of the Empeg site, I can remember watching it regularly and I remember the gaffes and long silences etc. of live broadcasting - in those days the whole family gathered round the set and these lapses gave us something to laugh/talk about..
As to video tapes, the BBC took delivery of their first Ampex in October 1958, so the programme(Which has been revived on a number of occasions) probably predates the record and wipe money saving era, which became prevalent by the mid 60's (Hence the missing Dad's Army episodes etc.).
However I was heartened to find two of the celebrity spots on youtube, so footage must exist: I would, therefore, certainly try contacting the BBC, but also the posters on youtube to see if they have further material.

The bbc has a 'backstage' site - and more importantly, email list.

One topic that comes up regularly is access to their archive material. There are a lot of initiatives and their willingness to provide it is clear.

Certainly that would be an excellent place to look for contacts...

http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/

this tells you a great deal about it, although not answering your specific question.

If the programme was sold internationally then it's more likely that copies exist. This was certainly the case for popular shows like Doctor Who. In fact there was some really cool projects where they took the luminance information from film and the colour from old NTSC tapes an American station still had.

My stupidity dawned on me in the small hours: The clips on youtube were from the American show, I return to thinking that in 58/59 the show was transmitted live in front of a studio audience. Sorry to have raised your hopes - might still be worth contacting the Beeb though.