John Wyver writes: Although we have next-to-know moving image records of pre-war television programmes, almost all of which were transmitted live, we do have elements of the transmissions in the form of the twice-weekly newsreels and the documentary films that more
John Wyver writes: Afternoon transmissions on Monday 4 April 1938 were mostly taken up by a 45-minute 'feature' about Sir Christopher Wren. This dramatised presentation was scripted by playwright Christine Hahlo, whose only other credit I can find is more
John Wyver writes: On 3 April 1933 the BBC's 30-line producer Eustace Robb, who had been overseeing transmissions since the previous summer, mounted his most expansive musical production to date. Transmitted from the tiny studio BB at Broadcasting House, achieved more
John Wyver writes: Television on the afternoon of Sunday 2nd April was mostly occupied by the 40-minute feature Leviathan, described as 'a survey of sea-monsters, past and present'. A discussion between Lt-Commander R.T. Gould, author of The Case for the more
John Wyver writes: At 9.06pm on Thursday 31 March 1938, AP presented The Hogarth Puppet Grostesques, produced and manipulated (along with Ann Hogarth and Kitty Tyzack) by Jan Bussell (above). On the programme were performances of 'The Puppet more
John Wyver writes: To the South Pole on the evening of Tuesday 30 March 1937 marked the 25th anniversary of the death of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his companions in the Antarctic. The half-hour studio programme brought together 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: The Sunday evening play on 26 March 1939 was a production by Desmond Davis of Oliver Goldsmith’s eighteenth-century comedy She Stoops to Conquer. Morris Harvey and Renée le Vaux played Mr and Mrs Hardcastle, with James Hayter as more