John Wyver writes: The first half-hour of the afternoon transmission on Tuesday 25 April 1939 was graced with the second performance of a production J.M. Barrie's one act, and according to the author 'unfinished', Shall We Join the more
John Wyver writes: The afternoon of Saturday 22 April 1939 saw the first performance of Dallas Bower's production of Katharine and Petruchio, a radically shortened 'acting version' of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew that had originally been more
John Wyver writes: On Monday 19 April 1937 Alexandra Palace hosted a troupe billed as the Margaret Morris Dancers, who performed in both the afternoon and evening. Their first 13-minute slot featured seven short works, performed to Beethoven and Chopin more
22 February 1933 John Wyver writes: As I am on holiday this week, I am presenting again some of my favourite OTD posts, exactly as they first appeared... Today's post is a melancholy little tale of a short, vibrant life in which more
John Wyver writes: In mid-March 1939, Alexandra Palace rolled out a metaphorical red carpet for the state visit of France’s President and Madame Lebrun. Alongside an outside broadcast of the King and Queen greeting the visitors at Victoria Station, more
John Wyver writes: 28 March appears to be another unremarkable date in each year of pre-war television, and as a consequence it offers the opportunity to compile another subject index to my 113 original posts to date. The format is more
John Wyver writes: On Monday 27 March 1939 television visited His Majesty’s Theatre, Haymarket, for a three-hour relay, produced by Dallas Bower, of Magyar Melody, a romance set in Hungary with book and music co-written by the BBC’s former director more
John Wyver writes: On the afternoon of Friday 25 March 1938, The Mercury Ballet, by this point also known as Ballet Rambert, gave the second screen performance of the 19-minute Bar Aux Folies-Bergère, choreographed by Ninette de more
John Wyver writes: The afternoon of Tuesday 22 March 1938 was graced with the first performance of Dallas Bower's 75-minute production of Henry IV by Luigi Pirandello. As Wikipedia says, the drama is 'a study on madness with comic and more
John Wyver writes: On the evening of Wednesday 15 March 1933, in a programme that alkso featured popular singer Maisie Seneshall and Danish musical comedy star Eric Bertner, the celebrated dancer Adeline Genée (above, 36 years before, dancing La Camargo) more