IN Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and London the hunt goes on. The hunt for talent. It’s all part of ABC’s plan to present the best possible entertainers in Bid For Fame.

Auditions are given to everyone who applies. And to meet the demand, for 12 hours every day someone, somewhere, is conducting auditions.

With more than 2,000 applications before the series began, entries are still rolling in. Two hundred people are seen every week.

I went to an audition in a Birmingham hotel. Throughout the week, George Stanford, ABC senior studio manager, had patiently considered all the applicants. Out of the 200 acts he had seen, 20 had been asked to return on Friday evening to give a second performance before the critical eye of producer Eddie Kebbell.

I asked George Stanford, weary, and yet still urbane under the bright, naked light of the audition room, how he felt after so much entertainment.

He smiled, lit the umpteenth cigarette and replied: “If these people are willing to go through the ordeal of an audition, then it’s up to me to see them through. Each thinks he or she may have that indefinable something which could make him or her tomorrow’s ‘top of the bill’ star.

“Six in 100 of these acts will eventually be seen in the show. So even if they don’t come in the final placings, they’ll know they’ve enough talent to be seen by millions of viewers.”

Kebbell, who made the final choice, admitted that this was tough. He hates saying ‘No’ to youthful hopes.

“Many acts need a lot more training; lots more confidence. We tell them so. It may be hard to take, but we don’t hold out false hopes.

“This isn’t just another amateur talent show. Anyone can apply for an audition — whether semi-professional or professional. All we want is a slick, entertaining show. If a television appearance brings success to the performer, then they are happy — and so are we.”

Birmingham’s Bob Hatch, the comedian who won the finals of the last Bid For Fame series, came along to give encouragement to some of the local artists who were friends of his. He told me that his TV success had meant success in other spheres, such as sound radio.

Good comedians are hard to find. Most acts consist of singers and instrumentalists. There are “pop” singers by the score — and they all sing the hit song of the moment.

“There is a shortage of comedians and solo dancers,” said Kebbell. Two singers who did please him were Jimmy Grant and Pat Howard. They hadn’t applied for an audition but were discovered singing at a church concert on the outskirts of Birmingham. George Stanford had asked them to come along to give an audition for Kebbell.

Newcastle-born Jimmy Grant, who sang Granada in the best Mario Lanza fashion, is a carpenter. He was delighted at the thought of appearing in the show and couldn’t believe that he had been “discovered.”

Pat Howard, a housewife with an eight-month-old daughter, has a powerful voice — “She could be a second Anne Shelton,” said Kebbell.

Brenda Vickers of Loughborough and John Padbury of Oxford are clerks. They have been dancing together for only a few months.

“I’m going to suggest them for the Windmill Theatre,” said Kebbell. If he thinks there is scope for an artist in any other sphere, he is ready to pass on a recommendation.

Twenty-one-year-old Sylvia Cooper had travelled 50 miles from Nottingham. I shan’t be home until two in the morning,” she said, “but it was well worth it now I know I’ve passed my audition.”

It was nearly midnight. The week of auditions was over. For the many disappointments, there were just a few successes.

And for these happy people, the long road towards success is open.

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“I want to learn all I can about every aspect of show business,” she told me. “Perhaps one day my singing lessons might pay dividends.”

This year, too, 23-year-old Ann passed her driving test; was the subject of an oil painting which an admirer painted using an ordinary photograph as a guide; and was voted by technicians at the Alpha Studios in Birmingham as “The Girl I’d Most Like To Take Home To Mother.”

“It’s a flattering title,” said Ann, “but I wonder what their mothers would say?”

Probably mothers would be overjoyed, for Ann is a typical English beauty—fair, with a peaches and cream complexion, tall and elegantly dressed, quietly spoken yet with a gay personality.

Behind the charm lies an inquiring mind that has definite views about most things in life. At present its main object is set in furthering the career of Ann Taylor. And it has decided views on pin-ups.

“I have never liked posing for pin-up pictures,” said Ann (whose vital statistics are 36-23-37). “Now, I don’t pose at all.”

Other dislikes are “hypocrites, malicious gossip, intolerance, people who are cruel to animals and children, Brazil nuts and the sound of someone scratching nylons or silk.” Her likes include sunsets, outdoor life, beautiful scenery arid animals.

She likes housework, too. and shares this with the friend who lives with her in their London flat. Housework often keeps her up late at night—the best time of all for Ann.

“I get a kick out of staying up late, particularly when I don’t have to be up early next morning. It’s a sort of I’m-my-own-boss complex, yet in reality everybody is my boss.

“The great thing is that I work with such nice people. All the big stars I’ve met have all been most helpful, particularly the boys in The Army Game.”

Before she became well-known on television. Ann Taylor was a member of a TV dancing team. Then came cabaret work in the London West End and the urge to branch out on her own. She was engaged as the NAAFI girl in The Army Game, and this spot led to film work.

She was born in Stafford, and is the daughter of an architect. She was 13 when she went to a stage school in Hertfordshire. While studying there she made her professional stage debut in the pantomime The Sleeping Beauty at Salisbury. When she left four years later, she appeared in a summer show at Folkestone.

Earlier this year. Ann did a season of repertory at Cheltenham. She played in typical English comedies. “I was aching for a chance to play a bad girl, but they just didn’t think I was the type.”

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“I’m much too busy,” he declares. “I don’t have any romantic attachments at all.

“I’ve been combining teaching with announcing until Christmas, but now I’ve decided to concentrate on my television commitments.”

At present he is announcing from the Birmingham studios, but he hopes to go on to straight acting. He would also like to work on television for schools — he taught French at a London grammar school until he resigned to go full-time on television.

He has made such a big impact that he often has difficulty getting away from the studios. One Sunday so many girls were waiting for him he had to be smuggled out dressed as a labourer.

But one woman was more persistent. She waited each Saturday and Sunday; telephoned; wrote scores of letters. For weeks Edmunds managed to elude her.

“One day, she caught up with me,” he recalls. “It was a hurried conversation as I was rather late. But she still managed to explain her feelings for me. It was terribly embarrassing.”

Many of the letters are pathetic, but he answers them all. One came from a mother in the Midlands who told him that her daughter had been taking a more than usual interest in the announcing spots. “The fact is,” wrote the mother, “she hasn’t a clue what you’ve said when I ask her afterwards.”

“I did answer this letter,” says Edmunds, “but not as the mother would have wished. She wanted me to write and say that I was happily married with three children!”

When Edmunds was still teaching and announcing “it was a case of scowling during weekdays and smiling at weekends,” he laughed.

“My pupils knew nothing of my double life. Strange to think that millions of viewers in the Midlands, Lancashire and Yorkshire had seen me but none of my pupils knew what I did with my week-ends.”

A Welshman, Edmunds was educated at Aberystwyth and went to the university there, where he took a first class honours degree in modern languages. He had a strong leaning towards the stage in those days, and during university vacations spent several seasons in repertory and two summer seasons at a holiday camp.

One of his enterprises was his own student repertory company called “The Adventurers.”

A great lover of Shakespeare, he toured French schools and universities with his own production of Twelfth Night.

“After I had obtained my degree, the Royal Navy decided it was time to teach me something about seamanship. I was called up, and served for three years and three weeks.

“But the strange part is,” he recalls, “for three years I studied at a university on a special Russian language course. The odd three weeks? I spent those swabbing decks.”

When he isn’t in Birmingham, Edmunds shares a flat in London with Richard Baker, a BBC TV news reader. In his spare time he enjoys reading Shakespeare, playgoing and cooking.

“Working in Birmingham these past few months has made me into a really good cook,” he admits. “I’ve watched Philip Harben at work, and obtained quite a few tips from the master.

“Every Monday I try out a new recipe at home – probably that’s the reason why my friend Dick Baker always stays out on a Monday!”

But good cook or not, girls are out. Though Edmunds does admit that Jayne Mansfield is his idea of a perfect film actress.

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That is why, at least once a week, Benson visits a London studio for voice training from Jonathan Tremayne, an operatic bass. There he sings in a pleasing bass-baritone such typically English songs as Alice Where Art Thou? and Linden Lea.

“I don’t think I shall ever sing on television,” he admits, “but I want to go on talking on TV for a long time to come. This is one way of keeping my voice in trim. After all, a footballer has to train to keep fit for his job, so why shouldn’t I do the same?”

Sometimes, John Benson wishes he could sing to viewers when there is a gap to be filled. Recently, he had to ad-lib for one-and-a-half minutes. His worst-ever experience occurred when a film trailer appeared upside down during a promotion announcement. He had to talk for three minutes until it was corrected.

“This is a real testing time for an announcer,” he says. “I usually talk about programmes to come, and try to look as relaxed as possible.”

Benson is 28. His wife, Rita, and baby daughter, Sandra Jane, have also appeared in TV commercials. The whole family was used recently in an advertisement. Benson, who says his ambition is to become a successful TV compere, was in repertory before becoming an announcer.

Unlike Benson, Michell Raper had no repertory background. At Oxford University, he was a contemporary of Tony Richardson, the producer, and Robin Day, and decided to take up a career in show business. He worked on radio and films before joining television.

Apart from announcing, Raper writes poetry and plays. One of his plays has been broadcast on radio, and a children’s play has been televised. He is now working on his third play.

Four years ago, Mich Raper acquired a large and imposing flat on London’s Chelsea Embankment. A prized companion is Lulu, his Siamese cat.

Raper is unmarried. The lady of his choice must not mind “sharing me with my typewriter and Lulu.” She must also share his love of the theatre, literature and good music; his taste for old prints and modern originals. She must not complain if he spends the whole night working, or brings home friends, like last Christmas when he invited several Hungarian refugees to the flat for a party.

Other pointers in the Raper marriage dossier: “She must not be over-possessive; must not wear curlers at night; and she would need to have a sense of humour.”

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Now she is charming ABC’s week-end audiences in a different role! As a demonstrator in the Saturday advertising magazine Quick on the Draw, she shows how to use all kinds of things, from the latest cake mixture to a machine for cutting grass the easy way.

“I’ve learnt to much about housewifery I think I should make the most competent housewife ever,” she laughs.

But in case any male reader should consider himself a likely candidate for the role of husband, there’s nothing doing. Sheila is far too busy to think about boy friends.

“The programme takes up my whole week,” she says, “but I always have Sunday off – my one chance to have a good rest.”

Monday finds her checking with producer Eddie Kebbell on what clothes she will need for Saturday’s programme. If she hasn’t already got them in her extensive wardrobe, she goes out to buy them.

Tuesday she has a script conference with Eddie. Wednesday she has a hair do. If she has to learn something especially difficult for her demonstrations, she spends the rest of Wednesday practising. Thursday and Friday are rehearsal days.

There may also be a cabaret to do, or a broadcast, and as Sheila is primarily a singer and dancer, lessons have to be kept up.

When Eddie Kebbell – who also produced her in Friday’s Girl – wanted a vivacious personality for Quick on the Draw, he immediately thought of Sheila. “I think she is a great artist,” he says.

Sheila has no illusions about show business. “I’m the most impatient person in the world regarding my career,” she says. “Of course I would like to he a big star.”

But at 27, she admits there is still plenty of time to reach the top. She is sincere enough to agree that she doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life trying to attain that ambition.

Television presents its problems, says Sheila. Once, in Friday’s Girl, she forgot the words of a sing she was signing. She fitted-in with the first words which came into her head. No one noticed the difference!

She finds advertising products fun, but exhausting, too. Remembering trade names and their various uses can be nerve-racking. So far, she hasn’t slipped up.

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