John Wyver writes: Just before 10.30pm on Friday 23 June 1939, pianist Phyllis Sellick closed out the evening transmission from AP with 'Jeux d'eau' by Ravel and Liszt's 'La Campanella' arranged by Ferruccio Busoni. Programmes by this more
John Wyver writes: On the afternoon of Thursday 22 June 1939 one of the BBC's mobile control units was stationed at Waterloo while the other was by the Victoria Memorial close to Buckingham Palace. Six weeks or so before more
John Wyver writes: On Monday 21 June 1937, at 3.03pm for just 15 minutes, and then again at 3.42pm for a further 10 minutes, the Television service broadcast a live OB from the Wimbledon Championships for the very first time. more
John Wyver writes: On the evening of Tuesday 20 June 1933 Eustace Robb, producer of the BBC's 30-line television service, achieved a considerable coup by persauding in front of the camera for the first time the great Russian dancer more
John Wyver writes: Mid evening on Monday 19 June 1939 AP offered episode 3 of Rough Island Story, a six-part history of Britain with Harold Nicolson and J.F. Horrabin, who we have already encountered in these blog posts as more
John Wyver writes: The afternoon of Friday 18 June 1937 saw television's first incarnation of Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot when George More O'Farrell staged her short play The Wasp's Nest. Entrusted with the role of the Belgian sleuth was more
John Wyver writes: 'Hurrah for Big Bill Campbell!', wrote Listener critic Grace Wyndham Goldie after seeing the singer host the third edition of Western Cabaret on the afternoon of Saturday 17 June 1939. 'What speed! What verve! What vivacityI What more
John Wyver writes: On 16 June 1939 the Daily Telegraph ran the following news story, which I reproduce here in its entirety. This is the first reference I have found to television being used in schools, 18 years before both more
John Wyver writes: There are notes about pre-war television broadcasts when a historian looking back can only respond with an exclamation of something like 'WTF'. One of those has to be a 12-minute studio talk on the evening of Tuesday more
John Wyver writes: Monday 14 June saw two studio performances of the second part of James Elroy Flecker’s Hassan, following on from the previous Tuesday's opener. The staging was the next recognised television drama landmark after the December 1936 more