20th Century TV, Radio, Theatre and Cinema
Picture credits: Practical Wireless and Matthew Lloyd
COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: The following article is reprinted from 'Notes for the
Month' by F J Camm (editor), in the July 1946 edition of Practical Wireless magazine.
B. B. C. Programme Plans
Those interested in television are to have at least two full-length plays each week and schedules are now being planned at Alexandra Palace. The service which began on June 7th has already given viewers an indication of the lines on which the service will be planned at least for the next few months. To give viewers the chance of seeing them, plays first televised during the evening will be given a second performance a day or two later in the afternoon and vice versa. In the case of transmissions of outstanding interest a second repeat may be given.
The general aim of the programme architects is something for everybody including the children, who will have frequent shows of their own on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, although a regular children's feature will be difficult to arrange because transmission times clash with school times. The outside television unit will transmit direct from the zoo.
The weekly television programme, "Picture Page," which had such a large following before the war, now takes place on Thursday afternoons and evenings.
Fixtures for the mobile units include visits to Wimbledon tennis for the Wightman Cup and to Lords for the Test Match.
Besides the outside broadcasts viewers will see a nunber of O. B.'s from Alexandra Park with visits to the television garden which has been kept in good condition during most of the war.
The early programme plans cover items like fashion displays and cookery demonstrations, television quizzes, guest nights and regular appearances of well-known dance bands.
Mr. Donald Hobley (sic!) has been appointed temporarily as a television announcer at the Alexandra Palace and will share duties with Miss Jasmine Bligh and Miss Winifred Shotter.
Other posts, it is thought, will be available later.
Those were the days! No 'Big Brother' or other 'reality'shows, no constant stream of 'celebrities' plugging their ghost-written books, no wall-to-wall foul language . . . and the announcers had to wear evening dress and speak V E R Y C L E A R L Y in good English.
As far as repeats were concerned the author was careful to say 'will be given a second performance' because it was all live. Filmed repeats were only possible later, when the technology for developing, editing and transmitting the footage had reached an acceptable standard; magnetic recordings came much later and digitial is a comparative newcomer. And does anyone remember the excitement in the late 1960s when colour transmissions began?
Mind you, I still think the pictures were better in the days of sound radio, when we didn't have to sit and stare at the damned box!
Arthur Loosley. June 2005.
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| Winifred Shotter, star of stage and screen, chosen as one of the first TV announcers. |
Closed circuit tests were carried out at Alexandra Palace for an audience of manufacturers and dealers prior to restarting the service in June, 1946. |
©BBC, reprinted from Popular Wireless magazine, July 1946
"Television is Here Again"
A film with this title produced by the BBC featuring many well-known
stars was used for trade transmissions sent out each morning.
ACCUMULATORS for the Battery Radio
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I am sure that many people will remember the lead-acid accumulators like the one featured on this front cover. It was just one of the three essential power sources for wireless listening in the 'good old days' before mains powered receivers were available, and provided the 2 volts needed for the valve filaments (heaters). It was my job, like so many other children, to take these dangerous breakable glass jars containing plates of lead oxide suspended in sulphuric acid, to the local garage to be recharged when they began to run low. (The same technology is still used for modern car batteries!) |
required. It contained eighty 1.5 volt dry cells (as in cheap zinc-acid batteries
today) embedded in pitch, to provide an output of 110 volts. A third battery
was also needed, to provide the 'grid bias'. There's no need explain the
technical terms here, but many people may remember seeing these batteries.
They were about the size of a paperback book, with six brass terminals along
pne of the long edges.
Perhaps these notes say something about the ingenuity of allied POWs who
listened to the BBC in their captivity inside Europe, on secretly constructed
wireless sets made from corned beef tins, razor blades and any other scrap
materials that came their way. Wow, I'm getting really nostalgic now!
©Arthur Loosley, June 2005
Theatre memories from the mid 20th Century
I have never been the greatest fan of ‘Variety’ shows and I’m just too far out of touch to appreciate them now. Old time music halls, yes, because they could be superficial, funny and cheerful at the same time, but hordes of ‘nearly‘ entertainers since then, straining to give their all, have not inspired me to become a regular variety show visitor.
My disenchantment probably began when I was dragged by my parents to so many shows at the old
What offended me most was the way the audience, sycophants to the last, applauded every act as if it were the greatest entertainment ever. They had paid their half-a-crown (25 pence in today’s play-money) to enjoy themselves, and enjoy themselves they jolly well would, come what may.
I recall the excitement of some performers, however, including Max Miller, because he was ’dirty’ and I a grubby adolescent. Delightful too, was the great Max Wall, with his funny walk, but top of the crop, for me, were the hilarious antics of Wilson, Kepple and Betty, those stone-faced exponents of the Egyptian ‘sand dance‘. They don’t make ’em like that any more - a fact for which modern masses will undoubtedly give thanks.
Better things were to follow: Brighton, at the mid-point of the twentieth century, was the testing ground for shows destined to become smash hits in the West End and I found myself in a privileged position, as a raw junior on the Brighton and Hove Herald, having virtual carte blanche to visit backstage at all of the Brighton entertainment houses
The British film industry was also at its peak in the post-war years until television brought entertainment into out living rooms. There were about a dozen cinemas in the town, some of them 'flea pits' patrolled by usherettes armed with 'Flit' sprays but all the major chains were there too.
The theatre-going public had the choice of the Hippodrome, the Grand, the Theatre Royal and the New Theatre, all attracting national stars. My first successful attempt at theatrical front-of-house photography was for Michael Hall’s production of ‘Toad of Toad Hall’ at the Theatre Royal in the early ’fifties, while back at the Hippodrome, a new musical, ‘Carousel’ was enjoying huge success, with Edmund Hockeridge in the lead role of Billy Bigelow and my photographs displayed outside. I became immersed in the backstage shenanigans as a not-exactly-invited but not altogether unwanted guest. I still feel strong emotion whenever I hear "When I Walk Through a Storm", as I did, a few months back, when an unmissable performance was held at The Regent Theatre, Ipswich. Never was a box of Kleenex tissues put to better use!
On the last night of Carousel’s Brighton run, some of the cast and production team went back to a flat on the sea front for drinkies. I don’t know if I was invited but in showbiz circles such niceties don’t really matter. I was there, anyway, and clearly remember that little basement dwelling, with its small paved courtyard at the back, half-roofed with glass. The actress, Dora Bryan, lived next door.
A few years ago, some 40 years after the event, my youngest son telephoned me at my then London home to say that he had taken a job in Brighton and had a flat on the sea front. He described it, and I asked him if it has a glass-roofed back yard. No, he told me, but there were some metal brackets high up on the wall. "And did a now-famous actress once live there?" I wanted to know. She did, and still owned the house, he was able to confirm.
But I digress. This did not start out as a name-dropping exercise (‘why not?’, you may ask - it is show business!) but to gather my thoughts on the subject of popular entertainment. My own views, probably not shared by many, but it’s a free world (apparently) and I am permitted my feel a tinge of sadness when I scroll through the showbiz obituaries of the last half century and see the names of so many people, some of them unknown or forgotten today, who hold personal memories for me. Names such as John Mills, Max Wall, Arthur Askey, Bob Monkhouse, A E Matthews, Jessie Matthews, Eric Portman, Yehudi Menhuin and, of course, the unforgettable Judy Garland.
My theatrical connections ended many years ago and I am now quite out of touch (and out of step) with the more recent entertainers.
Last week I accidentally switched on the television while The Royal Variety Show was being screened. A woman was straining to hit the right notes for a song I did not recognize, and she looked in such distress that I felt sure she would run off the stage in despair at any moment, but she bravely stuck it through to the end and received the obligatory rapturous applause. I switched off at that point, and later learned that the lady’s name was Liza Minelli, a star of some repute. I met her mother, once.
It just goes to show how out-of-touch one can get.
© Arthur Loosley,
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The Show goes on . . . and on . . .
My thanks to Mitch Chase, of
The Decatur Daily, Alabama, for the following list of stars of the 40s and 50s who have reached a grand old age: (Details correct when published on February 15, 2005)Eddie Albert, 96, who co-starred with Eva Gabor in the classic television comedy "Green Acres," Eva Gabor and her sister, Zsa Zsa, were among the most beautiful women in the world. Eva died in 1995 at 76, but her older sister earlier this month celebrated her 88th birthday.
Frankie Laine, 91, a jazzy singer whose renditions of "Mule Train" and the theme from the "Rawhide" television western are unforgettable.
Tony Martin, the popular 1940s and '50s crooner who starred in several movie musicals, also 91.
Richard Widmark, 90, the star of numerous action films during the 1950s and '60s action films including "The Halls of Montezuma," "Destination Gobi," "The Alamo" and "How the West Was Won."
Mitch Miller, 93, a bandleader and music company executive who hosted the hugely popular 1960s television show "Sing Along With Mitch."
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I am indebted to Mr Matthew Lloyd for providing this evocative programme from his own collection. His website, www.arthurlloyd.co.uk - the Music Hall site dedicated to the singer Arthur Lloyd, 1839-1904, provides a wealth of information for all who are interested in the history of British variety theatres. The following is a short excerpt:"The Hippodrome in Brighton was originally built in 1897 as an Ice Rink, but was converted to a theatre in 1900 by Frank Matcham. It is now probably the best surviving example of a circus - variety theatre in Britain. Currently the theatre is used as a Bingo hall but step into its foyer and you are greeted with much the same sight as you would have seen a hundred years ago".
Copyright © Matthew Lloyd -
| The Bob Hope Theatre, Eltham. (Bob Hope - 1903-2003) |
Right: Bob's unmistakable 'ski-slope' profile adorns the front of the theatre. |
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I recently visited the Bob Hope Theatre in Eltham, near my former home in south-east London, where Bob was born in 1903.
The theatre was closed on the day of my visit but I received a warm welcome from staff who reminded me of the support they received over the last two decades from the famous entertainer, who sadly died last year.
The Eltham Little Theatre Company was in financial difficulties and about to close when Bob Hope first visited in 1980, but a donation of £58,000 (about $80,000) raised by the Bob Hope Classic British Golf Tournaments in 1980-81, which enabled them to buy the old church hall where they had been staging their productions and refurbish it as ‘The Bob Hope Theatre’.
The star attended the naming ceremony in 1982 and visited again in 1991, when he donated a further £28,000 ($45,000) - this time from a London Palladium performance - which paid for the building of a bar extension and other refurbishment.
In 1998 Queen Elizabeth II conferred on Bob Hope the honour of Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire - the highest award for a citizen of another country - which he received at a ceremony at the British Embassy in Washington on May 17th 1998, attended by Jim Shepherd, Honorary Secretary of the theatre, who was invited by the family.
Members of Bob’s family and staff continued to visit Eltham whenever they were in London and the news of his death was received with sadness here, as in his adopted country and the rest of the world. He will be long remembered in the town of his birth, which he left at the age of four when his family emigrated to the USA and achieved international fame, but never forgot his roots. Bob always referred to his birthplace as "Eltham, Kent", as it was then, before boundary changes brought it officially into Greater London.
©2003 Arthur Loosley
The Electric Palace, built 1911, Harwich, Essex
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©The Electric Palace
location for the BBC Television series 'Last of the Summer Wine - still appeared to be doing
good business when I took this photograph a few years ago. Its website, www.picturedrome.net
lists a range of activities in addition to film shows.
From The East Anglian Daily Times, 22 July 2005.
© Archant Newspapers.
| ONE of the region's few remaining independent cinemas is to close following the directors' application for compulsory liquidation. Declining audiences and mounting operating costs have prompted the move at the Halstead Empire, bringing its 90-year-history to an end. The cinema has suffered from funding crises in the past but has always managed to keep operating. Now, the trust decided to make the closure decision now in a bid to limit future losses. David Clover, chairman of The Empire Theatre Limited, said: “The board, with regret, following professional advice, due to financial difficulties, have decided that, The Empire Theatre Ltd will be put into liquidation on Friday, July 29. Built in 1915, the cinema originally showed silent films and then theatrical performances. It closed during the 1970s but re-opened in 1978. |