Here is the twenty-year-old story of BBC television told in pictures.
It is a story of small beginnings, many changes, great progress. It starts at No. 16 Portland Place, London, W.1, and then moves up to a hill in North London. It continues in the roominess of Lime Grove at Shepherds Bush. Someday, soon, White City will be Television City serving the whole nation.
The Play – then and now
In 1930 a Nevinson drawing for a backcloth, a plain curtain behind.
In 1950, elaborate sets, skilled lighting, depth, atmosphere, favourites of the West End; a recent production of The Chiltern Hundreds.
Among the beginners in television drama was gladys young who was to become, during and after the war, the Great Lady of Radio. The boy holding the disc for ‘fading-in’ the artist is george inns, now a variety producer in sound broadcasting.
(Left) Miss Young in a 1950 production of Corinth House, a play by Pamela Hansford Johnson. Her reappearance before the cameras in a long and exacting part was generally acclaimed.
To the television screens of the early 30’s came the favourite entertainers of the day, measuring their talents in a strange new world.
(Above) sandy powell and company brought the End of the Pier with them to Portland Place.
Now there is a two-way traffic between the West End and the Television Studios. Fame today may first come from appearances before bbc cameras. These in turn have gone out, wherever possible, to the theatres themselves.
(Left) Camera and crew soar high above the heads of a youthful audience whilst cecil landeau‘s Christmas Party is performed at the Cambridge Theatre in January 1950.
Between 1932 (above) and 1950 (below) fashions have changed. So, and just as spectacularly, has the way in which they have been shown to viewers. Then the mannequin pirouetted in and out of ubiquitous apparatus to the tinkle of a piano. Now the setting is sophisticated, and the camera moves forward to pick out the detail of the dress worn by the famous post-war model, Barbara, which is made from a fabric unknown to the early ’30’s – rayon.
(Above) The Prince and Cinderella sing the latest song hit of 1939.
(Left) The story is eternally the same. The presentation changes. The cameras follow Cinderella’s coach over the ice to the ball, at the Empress Stadium in 1949.
In November 1936, Television moved up to Alexandra Palace and became a Service. From the bigger (but still cramped) studios the cameras recorded the opening ceremony by
Major the rt. hon. george clement tryon, His Majesty’s Postmaster-General.
Installed in its new home, Television also went out and about to bring great national events into the homes of the people…
(Left) The Royal Coach bearing Their Majesties, passes the television cameras at Apsley Gate on the Coronation Route.
(Below) Mr. george bernard shaw attends a rehearsal of his play, How he lied to her husband in 1937, and holds forth to the cast which includes Miss greer garson. The producer, sitting on the floor, was george more o’ferrall, who in 1950 presented Othello.
Out and about, further, oftener, to meet the news…
(Above) Varnishing Day at the Royal Academy in 1937.
(Right) Picture Page (the television programme with the longest run in the world) went with leslie mitchell to visit ‘Comet’ the elephant at Chessington Zoo.
The stately pageantry of the ceremony of Trooping the Colour on Horse Guards Parade, and the swift ponies on the polo fields of Hurlingham were presented to a new and vaster audience than could collect on the parade ground or in the stands.
A Prime Minister came home. An anxious nation waited. Television was there.
On 16 September 1938, when Mr. neville chamberlain returned from Germany after his talks with Hitler, the cameras went to Heston Airport. A little less than a year later Television went off the air and remained so for the duration. It had a different job to do.
‘Good evening. This is the B B C Television Station from Alexandra Palace.’ This was the familiar greeting from Miss elizabeth cowell (left) and Miss jasmine bligh (right) who shared announcing duties with Leslie Mitchell.
At home the screens were dark. No television comics, dance bands, cabaret, pageantry; no trips to the zoo… Instead, the cathode tubes in aircraft, at sea, under the sea, and on land, gave out visual signals and squeaking ‘blip-blips’ to guide fighters and pinpoint the enemy.
(Left) Radar masts. (Below) Radar screen in an aircraft.
The Cameras took up the task of presenting history in the making
The Royal Wedding, 1947. Princess Elizabeth’s coach on the way to Westminster Abbey. Viewers also saw the scenes outside Buckingham Palace, including the Royal Party on the balcony, and the evening’s news-reel portrayed the ceremony in the Abbey itself.
(Left) Miss sylvia peters and (below) Miss mary malcolm, who, with MacDonald Hobley, introduce today’s programmes with: ‘This is the B B C Television Service.”
From the two Studios at Alexandra Palace come a hundred plays a year; drama in all its forms. One evening the realistic presentation of life on a transatlantic waterfront. On another, the forth of small talk in a Mayfair drawing room.
(Above) The Gentle People by Irwin Shaw set in a Brooklyn slum.
(Left) The Eternal Triangle set in London’s West End.
macdonald hobley (right centre), whose smile is familiar to every viewer, demonstrates, with a rare frown, that he is also an actor of talent.
Familiar favourites adapted to Television’s special needs; many thousands of new ballet-lovers won; world-famous choreographers creating original themes.
This is the tale of the five years 1946-1950.
(Right) nijinsky, the Master, visits Alexandra Palace a few days before his death to see his famous pupil Serge Lifar at a dress rehearsal.
(Below) Salome. One of the first first [sic] special ballets, which Celia Franca devised and danced.
(Above) 1948. Suite de Blanc, by Serge Lifar. Danced by Yvette Chauvire and Company of the Theatre National de Opera de Paris.
(Right) 1947. Designs with Strings; Svetlana Beriosova and the Metropolitan Ballet.
The first programme to come from the new television studios at Lime Grove in the summer of 1950 was a Children’s Hour. This was a sign that for the children nothing but the best that Television can offer will do.
the announcer – Jennifer Gay, who is 14, introduces the Children’s Programme.
the clown – The famous Keele entertains the children at Christmas.
the film star – John Mills brings his own children to the Studio.
the radio uncle – The beloved Derek McCulloch (Uncle Mac), reads to children from the Dominions gathered in the Studio.
Wilfred Pickles is building a new reputation. He makes the children laugh when he joins their programmes, and the grown-ups too, when he appears in such plays as Hobson’s Choice, a classic of the North Country from which he hails.
Tips for the smallholder, hints for the novice, demonstrations on what to do, what not to do and why, by fred streeter the viewers’ own gardener in Television’s own backyard garden at Alexandra Palace.
Another unit goes out to cover another news event.
(Below) Arrived on the site, the producers, engineers, and technicians inside the mobile control van wait for the screens to light up and the transmission to begin.
(Above) Sir stafford cripps is interviewed by the B B C Television Newsreel camera. A commentator (right) records a sequence for London Town. Sound is added to this and similar items in Television’s own theatre at Alexandra Palace. Behind him, in the glass-enclosed ‘mixing room’, the engineers regulate the sound and add music and effects.
High above the great arena, the cameras swing from end to end of the spectacular processions, focus on the finishing tapes, and bring the athletes to talk about themselves in close-up.
(Below) maureen gardener interviewed just after she and Mrs. Blankers-Koen of Holland had broken the 80 metres hurdles record.
To see the R.A.F. at home, to look at the latest in aircraft and to talk to the nation’s flyers about their work and (below), to the Oval for a Test Match, the crowds, the world-famous gasometer and batsmen so near you feel you could touch them.
Long after midnight, Television was still there recording the drama as the crowd, packed in Trafalgar Square, greeted the results flashed to them from a screen above. Back in the studio, experts analysed the results, telling viewers who won, who lost, when and where.
Cafe Continental is an institution but the bill it offers is always new. Dancers, singers, acrobats, tumblers, funny men, and music-makers from the capitals of Europe make their bow to British audiences here.
The Casa d’Esalta so the programme said, was ‘somewhere in South America’, where the music is a tango, or a samba or a conga, and the love songs are sultry.
As if the viewer was within splashing distance of the oars. The Oxford and Cambridge boat race on the Television screen. These pictures, together with those above and below, were photographed directly from a television screen.
Close-up:
Into the foyer of Covent Garden Opera House on the occasion of the visit of a Royal Party including president and mme. auriol of France…
This music stand, the only one of its kind in the world was invented by eric robinson, the Conductor of the Television Orchestra and enables him to syncronize his music with action taking place in another studio.
Mrs. attlee, wife of the Prime Minister, visits Muffin the Mule, her favourite Television character, and meets, too, Muffin’s creator, Miss annette mills.
An idea is born and discussed. A date is fixed, transmission time allotted.
At the weekly General Programme Conference held at Alexandra Palace every aspect of a production – time, costs, space, studio details – are arranged many weeks ahead.
Here the heads of departments plan all the ramifications of OTHELLO, under the chairmanship of Mr. cecil mcgivern (facing camera, centre), head of television programmes.
The complete cast meet for a first general reading. The producer is in the centre, with his leading man on his right, and models of the sets in front of him.
The Producer, his assistant, the Studio Manager, the Lighting Engineer, and other production staff use these scale models to work out detail in the early stages.
Leading man and leading lady rehearse their great scene (below).
She then retires to a quiet corner to concentrate on her lines (left).
‘This is how it should be done’, suggests the Producer…
…and this is how they did it on the night.
Hampers from the theatrical costumiers must be checked by the wardrobe mistresses and if necessary, alterations made to the costumes.
Swords and daggers must be ordered from the ‘prop room’.
In the studio the sets grow steadily from confusion into some semblance of order. The lighting engineer tries out his ideas.
High up on the gantry an electrician watches for instructions on how his lamps are to be placed and where they are to shine.
The Carpenter assembles the bed.
The scene painter puts the finishing touches to the sets. ‘Stock stuff’ is used wherever available. A wall that once did for a London Underground Station looks out of place as backing for a Shakespearean play…
…but from the font, on the night, it looks completely ‘in period’.
Rehearsal. The Cameraman, the Producer and Othello discuss an awkward camera angle.
Othello grew his own beard.
…but the make-up deparment darkened his beard and hair, and stained his skin to turn him into the dusky Moor.
While the viewer turns to his Radio Times…
…Cassio assumes doublet and hose…
…the call-boy knocks, and…
…OTHELLO is on the air.
Cassio greets Emilia and Iago replies…
‘Sir, would she give you so much of her lips, As of her tongue she oft bestows on me, You’ld have enough…’
Desdemona pleads with the Duke to let her accompany Othello to Cyprus.
…’That I did love the Moor to live with him, My downright violence and scorn of fortunes May trumpet to the world: my heart’s subdu’d Even to the very quality of my lord…’
The Final Scene: ‘…O lady, speak again! Sweet Desdemona, O sweet mistress, speak!’