John Wyver writes: ‘We certainly live in a marvellous age,’ Amanda reflects to Elyot in the second act of Noel Coward's Private Lives. ‘Too marvellous,’ replies Elyot, noting, somewhat ambivalently, that among the marvels of the age are bovine gland more
John Wyver writes: In the afternoon and the evening of Tuesday 16 February 1937, Philip Thornton presented the fourth of six talks under the heading The Orchestra and its Instruments. 'Hybrid Winds', as the programme was subtitled, featured the perhaps more
John Wyver writes: Looking through the schedules of 1938-39 there is little sense that television was strongly 'war-minded'. The newsreels would have relayed the worsening situation in Europe but there appears to have only a minimal concern for preparing viewers more
John Wyver writes: A late-night treat (which in those days meant scheduling at 10pm) on Monday 14 February 1938 was the 13-minute Bridge Demonstration hosted by Hubert Phillips (above). Members of the Welsh (male) team that had taken on more
John Wyver writes: On the morning of Monday 13 February 1939 Alexandra Palace offered a 6-minute glimpse of studio rehearsals for George More O'Ferrall's presentation, to be shown that afternoon, of the comic drama The Royal Family of Broadway more
John Wyver writes: The afternoon schedule on Sunday 12 February 1939 began with two caption cards accompanied by Bing Crosby (on record) singing 'Please' and, I assume, some words from on-duty announcer Elizabeth Cowell. That morning's Sunday Times explained more
John Wyver writes: The range of plays produced at Alexandra Palace between 1936 and 1939 is truly remarkable. Of the 400 or so stagings, many were of popular potboilers, but there were also numerous classics from the tradition of English more
John Wyver writes: The evening schedule on Friday 10 February 1939 began with ten minutes of the closest that transmissions from Alexandra Palace got to breaking news. First, there was an unannounced 90 seconds of British Movietonenews footage reporting the more
John Wyver writes: Welcome to a new index of the earliest group of my daily posts about an aspect of British television before the Second World War. Listed below are the posts that ran from late November through December. As more
John Wyver writes: the evening of Thursday 9 February 1939 saw a 40-minute edition of Contrasts, which was a catch-all title for juxtapositions of variety artists from differing traditions. This was a particularly eclectic line-up featuring dancers from Java and more