The British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa

#117 The BBC's First Homosexual: a new play - with Dr Stephen Hornby and Professor Marcus Collins A special episode about a new play about on the true tale of Britain's first broadcast debate on homosexuality. We're outside of our moment-by-moment timeline (currently anchored in November 1923 - we return there soon) to highlight this under-appreciated moment at the 1950s BBC. After much deliberation, BBC producers planned and recorded an experimental discussion programme, but it wasn't broadcast until three years later, as an edited version called 'The Homosexual Condition'. The content may be rather shocking to today's ears, but progressive as far as its producers were concerned. The recordings are long lost, but the transcript survives and was discovered by Professor Marcus Collins (Professor of British History at Loughborough University) at the BBC Written Archives Centre. Marcus brought it to Dr Stephen Hornby (Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Practice at the University of Salford) who put pen to paper. They both join us this episode tell us how history met drama in this new play: The BBC's First Homosexual. It's on tour this year to Dublin and Edinburgh after a sell-out five-star-reviewed tour of England. Find it at: 11-16 May - Teachers Club, Dublin 5-16 August - Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh Details: linktr.ee/inkbrewtheatre   SHOWNOTES: Original podcast music is by Will Farmer.  See Paul on tour in An Evening of (Very) Old Radio - next stops Corsham (Wilts), Weston-super-Mare, Gloucester... paulkerensa.com/tour Read Paul's Substack - the latest one is on early media predictions - paulkerensa.substack.com Find our Facebook page: facebook.com/bbcentury Find us on BlueSky: bsky.bbcentury.social Find Paul on Instagram: instagram.com/paulkerensa Join Paul's mailing list This podcast is not made by today's BBC. It's just about the old BBC. Share/rate/review this podcast if you have a spare 5mins - it all helps. Next time, Episode 118: The BBC and the General Strike: Reith v Churchill v PM v TUC... A centenary special! More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio  

Our moment-by-moment retrospective of British broadcasting has reached the BBC's first birthday - 14 November 1923. We started covering that first year back on episode 18! It's taken a while to get here - but what a year it was. From the first BBC news bulletin, songs and children's programmes to outside broadcasts, simultaneous broadcasting, new stations in Scotland and Wales, a government enquiry, new premises, wireless manhunts, the Radio Times and so much more, we've covered the lot across nearly 100 episodes. This episode we lead up to the first birthday with plans for the pips, a Shakespearean anniversary, and a raucous farewell do for Marconi boss Godfrey Isaacs. Then the birthday broadcast features speeches from John Reith and Guglielmo Marconi - hear some of that this episode, as well as reflections from Birmingham station chief Percy Edgar. Some lovely voices from the archive here - including Reith, Edgar and Peter Eckersley, who wrote all of the early BBC birthday broadcast shows, achieving the impossible: making John Reith laugh.   SHOWNOTES: This podcast contains an excerpt from Marconi's BBC debut - his speech about the origins of broadcasting. Hear Paul read the full text of the speech on this Patreon video (£5/month - all supports the podcast, thanks if you support us there!): https://www.patreon.com/posts/vid-marconis-bbc-155370052 (also on that video: thoughts on Romany at the BBC, and Paul's latest (failed) Radio 4 pitches) Read Marconi's speech on this Facebook post by our Newspaper Detective Andrew Barker: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bbcentury/posts/854152096155912 (and do join the group, if you're on Facebook...) We mention the campaign against access changes at the BBC Written Archives Centre - more info on this open letter.   Original podcast music is by Will Farmer.  This podcast is not made by today's BBC. It's just about the old BBC. See Paul on tour in An Evening of (Very) Old Radio - next stops Chelmsford, Weston-super-Mare, Corsham Wilts... paulkerensa.com/tour Read Paul's Substack - the latest one is on early prophecies of what broadcasting might become - paulkerensa.substack.com Find our Facebook page: facebook.com/bbcentury Find us on BlueSky: bsky.bbcentury.social Find Paul on Instagram: instagram.com/paulkerensa Join Paul's mailing list Share/rate/review this podcast if you have a spare 5mins - it all helps. Next time, Episode 117: The BBC's First Homosexual - a new play bringing a lost controversial BBC documentary to light... and then it's the centenary of the General Strike - a key moment in the making of the BBC. More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio  

Our timeline has reached the end of the BBC's first year in November 1923. So we're looking back at music broadcast in that period, with gramophone enthusiast, expert and entertainer Earl Okin. From the BBC's first song (Kreisler's Liebesleid, played 15 November 1922) to the last in the listings of its first year (John Ireland's Phantasie Trio in A Minor), it was a pre-jazz era of light opera and the odd dose of music hall. Guiding us through songs that were on air, plus a few other favourites from that era, musician and comedian Earl Okin handpicks from his collection of over 10,000 78s, along with a few of Auntie's early favourites from elsewhere. You'll hear the music and tales behind: Liebesleid – Fritz Kreisler Annie Laurie – Clara Butt Lemare’s Andantino – Cecil Dixon Abide With Me – Rex Palmer Piccadilly Trot – Mari Lloyd Softly Awakes My Heart – Marian Anderson The Blind Ploughman – Feodor Chaliapin if it Wasn’t the House In Between – Gus Elen  On with the Motley/Vesti La Giubba – Enrico Caruso John Willie Come on – George Formby Sr Five Foot Two – The Savoy Orpheans Passing By – Paul Robeson Phantasie Trio in A Minor – John Ireland   SHOWNOTES: Earl Okin's Gramophone Show podcast is available wherever you get podcasts, eg http://earlokin.blogspot.com;  https://www.earlokin.net/podcast John Hannon's Facebook post about Richard H White is here on our Facebook group. Original podcast music is by Will Farmer.  This podcast is not made by today's BBC. It's just about the old BBC. Support us on Patreon (£5/mth - thanks if you do!), for bonus videos, writings, readings etc. The more patrons, the more work Paul can turn down elsewhere, the more podcasts you get. Simple maths! Thanks if you support us (me) there. See Paul on tour in An Evening of (Very) Old Radio - next stop Chelmsford! paulkerensa.com/tour Read Paul's Substack - paulkerensa.substack.com Join our Facebook group: facebook.com/groups/bbcentury Find us on BlueSky: bsky.bbcentury.social Find Paul on Instagram: instagram.com/paulkerensa Join Paul's mailing list Share/rate/review this podcast if you have a spare 5mins - it all helps. Next time, Episode 116: The BBC's First Birthday More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio  

11 November 1923: The BBC's first Armistice broadcast. Back in our moment-by-moment timeline of what happened on the early BBC, it's three days short of its first anniversary. The BBC aired 'The Great Silence', speeches including the Prime Minister... and then the questions began regarding the soundtrack to the Armistice commemorations. Foulds' A World Requiem, even if the Church might not like it? Elgar? Jerusalem? It's A Long Way To Tipperary? Classical or songs from the troops? And how do you broadcast a silence? Guiding us through the music and lack of it throughout the decade, Professor Rachel Cowgill, cultural-historical musicologist, Professor of Music at the University of York. Her article is in the show-notes... ...as are details of some of the earliest recordings of a BBC broadcast - well, a recording of an event that was also broadcast on the BBC. That surely counts. We found some this episode - I think taking the number of 1920s recordings of the BBC to five. (We'll do an episode about them soon, I'm sure...)   And Trayce Arssow's research into how 1920's Funeral of the Unknown Warrior became the world's first electrical recording - despite claims it took till 1925.   SHOWNOTES: Prof Rachel Cowgill's article is Canonizing remembrance: Music for Armistice Day at the BBC, 1922-7  Trayce Arssow's article is Pioneers in the Evolution of Electrical Sound Recording: The Guest-Merriman Electrical Recording System, 1918-1922 1920's gramophone record of the Funeral of the Unknown Warrior, thanks to WW1Recordings on Youtube. 1927's Remembrance Festival at the Albert Hall - one of the earliest recordings of something broadcast on the BBC, thanks to Vintage Sounds on Youtube. 1928's Remembrance Festival at the Albert Hall, thanks to EMGColonel on Youtube. 1928's Remembrance Festival, as above, but a great tale behind its recording, thanks to Revolutions in Sound on Youtube. Original podcast music is by Will Farmer.  This podcast is not made by today's BBC. It's just about the old BBC. Support us on Patreon (£5/mth - thanks if you do!), for bonus videos, writings, readings etc. All keeps Paul in books and web hostings - so this podcast is what it is thanks to kinds patrons there. Thanks! See Paul on tour in An Evening of (Very) Old Radio - paulkerensa.com/tour Read Paul's Substack - paulkerensa.substack.com Share/rate/review this podcast if you have a spare 5mins - it all helps. Next time, Episode 115: Music from the BBC's first year, with musician, comedian and gramophone record enthusiast Earl Okin More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio  

This special episode jumps out of our usual chronological retelling of British broadcasting's back-story, for the tale of pirate radio, especially Radio Caroline, courtesy of broadcaster, author and radio expert Ray Clark. Ray's book Radio Caroline: The True Story of the Boat that Rocked is highly recommended - a fascinating part of cultural history that he's brilliantly researched and retold. Get it from his website or where you get books (link below). Plus, as host Paul prepares for a new live show (Four Monarchs and a Mic: The BBC's Royal Engineer) on influential Outside Broadcast engineer RH Wood, this episode's bookended with some classic clips of Woody's broadcasts - coronations, state funerals, Churchill's war speeches, the Crystal Palace fire, the Boat Race, the first rugby commentary (re-enactment!)... Oh and a certain drunken commentary - Tommy Woodroffe on how 'The Fleet's Lit Up'. Hear it as you've never heard it before, with the engineer's commentary of what came before and after - how and why Tommy ended up inebriated on air, and where he went next... What a tale. Rebellion and rogueishness in the air then, and on it. Enjoy! (And if you like it, share it? Thanks, pals)   SHOWNOTES: Ray Clark's website is rayradio.co.uk - get his Radio Caroline book there For more on pirate radio history, see offshoreradio.co.uk or offshoreechos.com Paul's new live show on OB engineer RH Wood - if you're quick - is on at Leicester Comedy Festival on Sat 7 Feb - Four Monarchs and a Mic: The BBC's Royal Engineer. If you're not quick, would you like it performed near you? Get in touch with Paul. Details of this and other shows at www.paulkerensa.com/tour Paul's Radio 4 drama about the first radio drama The Truth About Phyllis Twigg is very much still on BBC Sounds: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002ntmx  Original podcast music is by Will Farmer.  This podcast is not made by today's BBC. It's just about the old BBC. Support us on Patreon (£5/mth - thanks if you do!), for bonus videos, writings, readings etc. All keeps Paul in books and web hostings - so this podcast is what it is thanks to kinds patrons there. Thanks! Share/rate/review this podcast if you have a spare 5mins - it all helps. Next time, Episode 114: The First BBC Armistice Broadcast of 1923 More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio