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OTD in early British television: 21 August 1938

21st August 2025

John Wyver writes: In 1938 and 1939 there were only two regular commentators on television’s output from Alexandra Palace. Anonymous writers for The Times contributed reviews, as on occasion did L. Marsland Gander for the Telegraph and Jonah Barrington for the Daily Express. But both of the latter writers were newsmen more than critics, and it was left to Grace Wyndham Goldie in The Listener and ‘E.H.R.’ for the Observer to pen weekly columns of plaudits, brickbats and occasional sustained analysis.

Wyndham Goldie was by far the more intellectual of the pair, and also the tougher, although she could rise to heights of enthusiasm on occasion. E.H.R. was reflective, measured, somewhat superficial and broadly supportive of the new medium. We have read quite a lot of G.W.G in these posts over the past months, and I thought it might be interesting to consider by way of comparison a full column of her Sunday colleague. More or less at random, I have chosen the one published on Sunday 21 August 1938.

As always, E.H.R.’s column appeared under the bare headline ‘Television’ beneath the more than twice as long radio review by Joyce Grenfell. (Nancy Astor was one of her aunts and the future monologuist, still only in her late-20s, was apparently offered the role by the paper’s editor, J.L. Garvin, when she was entertaining guests at a Cliveden luncheon.)

E.H.R chose to lead with a gentle grumble about the challenge of watching a foreign arthouse film on a small, 405-line monochrome screen. Executives at AP agreed in their private deliberations that this was far from ideal, but the British film industry had closed off the possibility of accessing both home-grown titles and mainstream Hollywood fare.

Films designed and made for the cinema theatre are not suitable for showing on the home television screen, and recently we have been having altogether too many of them. Whilst that old time “Western ” –Aces Wild – put in a suddenly disorganised programme on Wednesday evening was good enough fun. the German film, The Student of Prague, which occupied the whole of the Sunday evening programme, was disappointing. Most of the detail of the beautiful settings was lost and the English captions were printed so small that they could hardly be read.

We are resigned to seeeing the same newsreels night after night, but we might be spared more than one showing of commonplace documentary films. Cartoon films seem to come through well and are always welcome as an interlude whilst studio changes are being made between items.

E.H.R. broke up his columns into four or occasionally five sections, separated by an asterisk, and rarely with any attempt to make a link between the distinct thoughts. So next he praised a popular German singer who had appeared during the week.

Marcella Salzer is at her very best when she appears before the television camera. Nothing of the minute particularisation of her art is lost, for we are within a foot or so of her vivid face and speaking hands – every finger tells a story. On Wednesday she gave us ‘The Bombardon’ and some of the better known of her songs. We have seen it all before and are willing to see it again whenever Miss Salzer cares to give it.

E.H.R. was always happier with praise than with critique, and he then enthused about two other appearances during the week, as well as offering a thought about how certain speakers might be more effec tive on screen.

There were two other individual triumphs last week. One was Mr. C. B. Fry talking of cricket in the pre-War days. He managed to impart a real thrill to the tales and facts he told in a deliberate voice, with ample pauses for his points to reach home. Moreover – younger speakers please note – he did not think it necessary to play with a pipe or cigarette whilst he was talking. The other highlight was Eileen Joyce at the piano. She is a good executant and well worth watching.

Finally, he turned to one of the week’s plays, but typically his words had little of the considered engagement that Grace Wyndham Goldie brought to her variant of the critic’s task.

Who Killed Cock Robin, which I missed the week before last, was repeated on Monday afternoon. It held me for an hour and a half, and I hope all viewers managed to see one or other of the performances. In case you don’t know, it is a tale of back-stage murder and the audience is kept guessing until the end. It should be repeated, for it is well worth seeing twice.

Below E.H.R.’s words ran, as they did each week, two expansive columns of the day’s radio programmes, both at home and from Europe, with just four lines right at the bottom of the bare details of the night’s transmissions from AP.

[OTD post no. 247; part of a long-running series leading up to the publication on 8 January 2026 of my book Magic Rays of Light: The Early Years of Television in Britain, which can now be pre-ordered from Bloomsbury here.]