OTD in early British television: 8 July 1937
John Wyver writes: In its first month of operation the Television service from Alexandra Palace presented extracts from a theatre production of T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. But the new medium’s real engagement with the major playwrights of the time began on 8 July 1937 when George More O’Ferrall presented George Bernard Shaw’s comic three-hander, How He Lied to Her Husband.
Shaw travelled to Alexandra Palace to watch this 1905 play on a monitor, standing alongside Gerald Cock. In the wonderful header image, Shaw can be seen seated with producer George More O’Ferrall on the floor, along with actors Greer Garson, Derek Williams and D.A Clark Smith.
’While vision was still being broadcast to the whole London area,’ journalist L. Marsland Gander recorded,
Mr Shaw peered round a property door back stage and then advanced towards the camera… “You might not suppose it from my veteran appearance,” said Mr Shaw, “but the truth is that I am the author of that ridiculous little play you have just heard.”
“This is a very special occasion because. as a writer of plays. I never come before the curtain and accept a call But. you see. on this occasion you have not called me. You are not like tbe unfortunate people in the theatre who. no matter how much they may be bored. cannot get up and go away.
“You who are still listening show that you are interested by that very fact. .. I myself very nearly went to sleep during the play.”
Gander’s account continued:
Afterwards I spoke to Mr Shaw, who said tersely that the particular version broadcast by the BBC ought to be burned… When I asked if he were impressed by television he replied, as might have been expected, “Not in the very least!” His jocular tone, however, neutralised the acidity of his remarks and he showed great interest in the equipment, transmitters, and studio.
The broadcast, of course, had been live, and so no copy existed to be ‘burned’ as Shaw suggested. Would, however, that we had a recording of both the drama and the playwright’s appearance today!
[OTD post no. 203; part of a long-running series leading up to the publication of my book Magic Rays of Light: The Early Years of Television in Britain in January 2026.]
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