OTD in early British television: 20 December 1938
John Wyver writes: The evening line-up from Alexandra Palace on Tuesday 20 December 1938 featured a News Map talk about Poland, a concert by Eric Wild and his Band, and what was billed as Tactile Bee, in which blindfolded celebs of the day, including John Betjeman and Secrets of Life filmmaker Mary Field, identified objects by touch. Just before 10.30pm an unscheduled 11-minute outside broadcast took the viewer to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane for a preview of the following day’s broadcast of ‘King of Pantomime’ Tom Arnold’s spectacular Babes in the Wood (above).
Babes in the Wood was itself a last-minute change of plan for the mobile unit, since only a month before Radio Times was promising lookers-in that a highlight of the Christmas schedule would be Covent Garden’s pantomime Red Riding-Hood. ‘You will see the company rehearsing on Christmas Eve,’ diarist ‘The Scanner’ promised, ‘and a part of the actual performance on Boxing Day.’ (18 November 1938) There was a presumably a breakdown in the discussions about rights and permissions, and so the OB unit was instead parked around the corner ready for Babes in the Wood.
The long-running pantomime blog It’s Behind You dot com – Green Room has a comprehensive post from about the panto itself (from which the image above and the programme page following come):
This pantomime marked a return of panto to its ancestral home- Drury Lane. It was presented by Tom Arnold for Julian Wylie Productions… This pantomime was a huge success And ran from December 24th 1929 to March 1st 1930. It starred Fay Compton, GS Melvin and Jack Edge… It featured a star cast, the country’s top speciality act, and the flying skills of Kirby, and a large number of sibling performers- Ganjou Brothers, Arnaut Brothers and the Chevalier Brothers!
It’s Behind You has a wonderful selection of photographs about the various acts, and on a linked page an extraordinarily detailed history of Julian Wylie productions – all of which is a rabbit-hole well-worth falling into.
As for the broadcasts, the preview featured shots in the wings and interviews as well as fragments of performance. The noted dame G.S. Melvin and the production’s chorus conjured up the Platonic physical virtues in ‘Health, Strength and Beauty’, ‘Babes’ Beryl May and Pat Warner were interviewed by Tod Rich, OB producer Philip Dorté introduced stage director William Abingdon (presumably the English actor who played in silent films in the United States), and thrillingly there was a glimpse of novelty act, The Eight Betty Hobbs Globe Girls (this is another irresistible image from It’s Behind You).
The next day, the main outside broadcast from Drury Lane ran for nearly an hour from 3.18pm, although there a technical fault caused a break in vision for around three minutes a half-hour in. This was the stage show’s dress rehearsal, and from the theatre’s prompt corner Abingdon and dance director Ralph Reader introduced generous extracts from act 2 in addition to further interviews with the cast.
As the Daily Telegraph reported the next day:
The transmission began at the opening of the second act, when Fay Compton, the principal boy, sang ‘When the Circus Comes to Town’. Then came G.S. Melvin, the dame, and 100 girls in gymnasium dress forming, and singing about, a league of ‘Health, Strength and Beauty’. Viewers also saw Greta Fayne, Moya Macqueen-Pope, the Fairy Queen, and Jack Edge, besides an ineffable horse made by the Agar Young duo.
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