15th December 2024
John Wyver writes: Saturday 15 December 1928, 96 years ago today, is a milestone date in the history of early television in Britain. Or at least it should be, since the day saw the transmission of the first television drama in Britain, a version of John Maddison Morton’s Box and Cox. The accolade of this ‘first’ is invariably given to the 1930 Baird Company/BBC transmission of Luigi Pirandello’s The Man with the Flower in his Mouth. Yet the medium’s long tradition of drama began with a demotic comedy, not a fragment of anguished modernism.
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14th December 2024
John Wyver writes: Nothing. No television broadcasts from Alexandra Palace on Monday 14 December 1936, and only an apologetic mid-evening sound announcement. A fierce gale had damaged the transmission mast and taken the service off-air. A contributor to the January 1937 issue of Television and Short-wave World takes up the story:
The horizontal arms which carry the aerial arrays are hinged in the centre and these appeared to be bent upwards owing to the stays having broken. Efforts were immediately made to remedy the defect, and the ordinary B.B.C. engineers in spite of the high winds climbed the mast to make an inspection of the damage and actually sucteeded in repairing the lower aerial, which is used for the sound transmissions, so that an announcement could be put out at 9 p.m.
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13th December 2024
John Wyver writes: Presented on the afternoon of Monday 13 December 1937 was the most ambitious television ballet to date, act 2 of, as it was billed, Le lac des cygnes, or Swan Lake to the rest of us. The troupe was the Vic-Wells Ballet Company, from which chrysalis the Royal Ballet would emerge post-war, and this was their production that had premiered in November 1934. Studio manager and now producer D.H. Munro was at the control desk.
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12th December 2024
John Wyver writes: the afternoon and evening of Saturday 12 December 1936, just six weeks into the BBC Television service from Alexandra Palace, witnessed a spectacular demonstration on the terrace just outside the studio. Celebrated First World War pilot and now producer Cecil Lewis had been charged with organising ‘local’ outside broadcasts. With the enthusiasm of a true believer, he arranged with the Territorial Army for the Battalion 61st (11th London) Anti-Aircraft Brigade, R.A., and the 36th Middlesex Anti-Aircraft, R.E., to be put through their paces.
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11th December 2024
John Wyver writes: the evening of Saturday 11 December 1937 featured an ambitious half-hour broadcast of act 3 of Verdi’s Aida given by the Matania Operatic Society. Opera was an important element of the transmissions from Alexandra Palace, although this broadcast under producer Dallas Bower, a little over a year into the service, was one of the first presentations of ‘grand’ opera.
Gwaladys Garside (Amneris), Dorothy Stanton (Aida), Alec John (Radames) and Joseph Satariano (Amonasro), reputable singers all, led the cast of ten and the ever-versatile BBC Television Orchestra under Hyam (‘Bumps’) Greenbaum was augmented by seven additional players. As for the Matania Operatic Company, I’ve found not a single archival trace, so if anyone can give me a lead to who or what they were I would be most grateful. (For the avoidance of doubt, the image is NOT from the television broadcast, but rather – and simply because I liked it – of the Bolshoi Theatre Aida in 1957; more details below.)
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10th December 2024
John Wyver writes: this day in early British television might be celebrated for the Thursday afternoon in 1936 which featured the first relay of a sound broadcast on the Alexandra Palace service. At 15.59 that day the National Programme announcement was carried of the abdication of King Edward VIII. But I’ve chosen to focus on the troubles a year earlier of an earlier, fictional king, Macbeth. The Friday afternoon of 10 December 1937 saw the broadcast of Scenes from Macbeth, a brief transfer from the Old Vic of part of Michel Saint-Denis’ production with Laurence Olivier and Judith Anderson (above).
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9th December 2024
John Wyver writes: The Christmas quotient of programming was ramped up on the evening of Friday 9 December 1938 with a 10-minute broadcast, Presents for the Children no 1, presented by the well-regarded painter Edward Halliday. The artist recommended a number of prints that were appropriate for the room that the middle-classes still called the nursery, including Tristram Hiller’s 1936 slightly surreal (and glorious) poster ‘Tourists Prefer Shell’ (above).
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8th December 2024
John Wyver writes: a second selection, after too long a break, of articles, video and audio that have especially engaged me over the past week and more.
• Advent Sunday in old money – day 7: professional designer Martin Cater is one of many creating an online Advent calendar, and in his case he is writing delightfully and in a very personal way about different aspects of the popular culture of Christmas. Over the first week, he has cast his eye over tins of biscuits, artificial Christmas trees, fairy lights, sweets, decorations, baubles, and yesterday’s link is about visits to Santa’s grotto – for those of us of a certain age there’s so much here to enjoy (with thanks to Billy Smart for the tip).
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8th December 2024
John Wyver writes: We might celebrate the television of 8 December 1937 for the one and only appearance of the Trapp Family Singers led by George von Trapp. Formed after winning a singing competition in Salzburg the previous year, the siblings and their father were now on a European tour. They would flee Austria in 1938, settle in the United States, and eventually inspire the 1959 Broadway hit The Sound of Music and the spectacularly successfui film six years later.
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7th December 2024
John Wyver writes: On this day, Tuesday 7 December 1937, Harry Rutherford squeezed himself into a corner of the crowded Studio A at Alexandra Palace, or so I believe, and made preliminary sketches for his painting ‘Starlight’, the most vivid and alluring image of pre-war television (above).
The contrast between the brightly illuminated elegance of the costumed couple, and the dark mysteries of the dolly-mounted Emitron, the delicate fishing-rod mic, and the looming lamps, is perfectly judged. The finished painting currently graces the reading room of the BBC Written Archives Centre at Caversham, although I fear it fails to receive the attention that it deserves from researchers focussed on their scholarly missions.
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