Monthly Archive: July 1955

The Daily Express‘s reviewers have varying opinions about the different programmes they watched last night. Cyril Aynsley thought that Irene Worth “gave a brilliant, searing performance as the nurse in list night’s television version of Somerset Maugham’s play, The Sacred Flame“. He goes on to describe the tale as a “terribly intimate story [which] tells of a young man crippled in a plane crash, his wife’s deepening affection for his brother, his nurse’s unspoken love for him [and] his mother’s compassion which could lead her to a mercy killing.” “Grim, stuff… but brilliantly, brilliantly done,” is his verdict. (more…)

It’s Sunday, and there’s finally some time to sit down and read this week’s TV Page in The Stage…

The biggest headlines are reserved for the news that the new European television stations and broadcasters which are opening up are providing many British variety artists with work. Ted Ray has been invited by Margot Hielscher to appear with her on German television while Monty Norman and Diana Coupland are off to the continent for a tour and spots on French and Italian TV. (more…)

Various papers note that the Wireless Telegraphy (Blind Persons) Bill was read in parliament for a second time on Friday 8th.

The Express‘s Aynsley Angle column carries behind-the-scenes gossip related to the panel game One of the Family. Apparently, the chairman, Franklin Engelmann, has been ordered not to mention the discomfort of the chair in which guests sit. (more…)

Norman Collins, Deputy Chairman of the Associated Broadcasting Company, has written to the editor of The Times in response to Mr Grenville’s missive assuring him that his friend only has to contact the ABC’s sales director and can be given full details – day of week, hour of day and price – of the various advertising opportunities. (more…)

It’s Jon Pertwee‘s 36th birthday. (more…)

Today, The Times reports the BBC’s viewing figures for the election broadcasts in May. The largest audience (16%) was for the final Labour Party election broadcast in which Mr Herbert Morrison appeared. The Conservative equivalent, with Sir Anthony Eden, (more…)

The day’s proceedings on BBC Television are opened at 3pm by For Women, an hour-long magazine programme intended for just over 50% of the population. (more…)

It feels like a weird old mish-mash on television today, high on improvement – which is not a bad thing – but low on entertainment… of any sort. (more…)

Another Sunday, this time 3 July 1955. With neither cricket nor tennis to bolster the schedule, it looks rather bare. The children have a Rex Tucker play – “The Watch” – while the grown-ups get an Anthony Steven play, based on a novel published in 1954 and written by Maurice Edelman. This is “A Dream of Treason” and stars John Robinson, Jill Bennett and Arthur Young; Ian Atkins produces. The story centres on a Foreign Office official, Martin Lambert (Robinson) who is instructed by his superiors to betray a cabinet paper to a French newspaper. (more…)

Saturday, 2 July 1955, and we’ve reached the final day of Wimbledon. Readers of Radio Times are warned that coverage may over-run, in which case this evening’s live In Town Tonight will be telerecorded and shown on another date. ITT is simultaneously broadcast on the wireless, sound only – obviously, on the London, Midland, North and West of England Home Services. So what happens if the tennis over-runs? Do the radio broadcasts still go ahead? If so, do they get repeated when the programme’s eventually broadcast? Perhaps it won’t come to that, but if the ladies’ doubles final is running late you can guarantee coverage won’t end early because both pairs in the final are British, meaning that the country is guaranteed its first title winners since Dorothy Round‘s singles win in 1937. (more…)