John Wyver writes: Intimate Interlude on the evening of Tuesday 8 August 1939 offered a bill featuring Mexican magician Kantu and Polish dancers Halima and Konarski, along with the mime artist Sherkot. As a vaudevillian whose act was almost entirely more
John Wyver writes: You can sense from Alexandra Palace's schedules that August was the cruellest month for those running the service in 1938 and 1939 (and remember that Television shut down for three weeks in 1937). Producers and crews more
John Wyver writes: The evening of the next day was to be devoted to the Russian ballet, and so the week's headline drama was played on Saturday 6 August 1938, rather than the traditional Sabbath. The play was J.B. Priestley's more
John Wyver writes: Nearly three years on from the first 405-line broadcasts from Alexandra Palace to Radiolympia, the levels of creative ambition and achievement were exceptionally high. The producers were creating innovative drama, mounting complex OBs and, as yesterday's more
John Wyver writes: On the evening of Thursday 4 August 1938 Alexandra Palace offered a feature programme with the somewhat unweildy title Exhibition: A Panorama Paris 1797-Glasgow 1938. Devised by Reginald Beckwith and Andrew Cruikshank, and produced by more
John Wyver writes: Sandwiched between a newsreel and a cartoon on the evening of Thursday 3 August was a quintessential example of television as a public service - and arguably further evidence of the BBC preparing the audience for the more
John Wyver writes: Nearly a year on from the BBC having taken over 30-line television, producer Eustace Robb was keen to produce increasingly ambitious broadcasts. One example was Looking at London by Television, a 35-minute original revue screened in the more
John Wyver writes: In the weeks just after The Man with the Flower in his Mouth (see earlier post), John Logie Baird’s campaign to extend awareness of the potential of television next took to the stage of the more
John Wyver writes: Radio Times's 'The Scanner' was enthusiastic ahead of a presentation of Lionel Brown's new play Fox in the Morning which was shown on Sunday 30 July 1939. Brown penned moderately successful comedies that were staples of the more
John Wyver writes: The afternoon of Friday 29 July 1938 saw the second presentation of a new half-hour opera, Nocturne in Palermo. With music by A. Davies-Adams, this was based on a 1924 text by the prolific and rather fascinating more