John Wyver writes: One of the things I love about researching early television is how bare programme listings can lead down the strangest and most unlikely rabbit holes. Take the line-ups for the two Picture Page editions on Tuesday 5 more
John Wyver writes: the afternoon of Tuesday 4 January 1938 saw the first outside broadcast visit to Bertram Mills's Circus at Olympia (above), from where broadcasts would be shown across the next five days. This first transmission featured the opening more
John Wyver writes: the evening of Tuesday 3 January 1939 saw a studio repeat presentation of Denis Johnston's contemporary comedy The Moon in the Yellow River, produced for the cameras by the author himself. The satire had been first more
John Wyver writes: 'ls the 'straight from the theatre' stuff going to be satisfactory?' That was the question Grace Wyndham Goldie posed following the live broadcast of Twelfth Night from the Phoenix Theatre (above) on the evening of 2 more
John Wyver writes: a heavy between times cold prevented a posting last Sunday, and travel to Italy (more on that to come) may interfere with one for next (although I'm aiming still to keep up the early television OTDs), so more
John Wyver writes: In keeping with the aspirational tenor of Alexandra Palace's lifestyle programming for its professional middle-class viewers, each winter there was at least one studio broadcast for those looking forward to, or dreaming about, a ski-ing holiday across more
John Wyver writes: New Year's Eve 1938 saw one of BBC Television's two outside broadcast units parked round the corner from Grosvenor House on London's Park Lane. For 35 minutes from 11.30pm, from the swanky ballroom there Leslie Mitchell hosted more
John Wyver writes: The conventional forms of conventional politics on television are absent from the pre-war Alexandra Palace service. There was no television news, and Panorama, the first regular current affairs magazine show would not debut until 1953. But there more
John Wyver writes: 'Are you wondering whether to get a television set or not?,' critic Grace Wyndham Goldie (above, c. 1937) asked in her Listener review-of-the-year column dated Thursday 29 December 1938. 'Then let me assure you,' she continued, 'that more
John Wyver writes: the fourth reprise selection, presented in chronological order, for my blog posts over the past month highlighting some of the research for my forthcoming book about British television between the war, Magic Rays of Light. The more