Me and My Girl

Summary: 1939 BBC Television presentation of the musical Me and My Girl broadcast live from the Victoria Palace theatre.
Theatre play: Me and My Girl by Douglas Furber and Noel Gay and L. Arthur Rose [more information]
Play synopsis: 'The musical is set in the late 1930s and tells the story of an unapologetically unrefined cockney gentleman named Bill Snibson who learns that he is the 14th heir to the Earl of Hareford with action set in Hampshire, Mayfair, and Lambeth.' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_and_My_Girl, accessed 5 January 2014)
Production history: Opened at the Victoria Palace on 16 December 1937. ‘At first attracting little notice, the production gained immediate success after a matinee performance was broadcast live on BBC radio, following the cancellation of a sporting event.' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_and_My_Girl, accessed 5 January 2014) On 1 May 1939 a performance was broadcast live by BBC Television from the theatre (Programme ID 746).
Date of transmission: Monday 1 May 1939
Time: 9.00-11.25pm
Channel: BBC Television
Production company: BBC

Theatre Producer

Lupino Lane

Book by

Book by

Composer

Lyrics

Lyrics

Orchestra Led by

Cast

Origination: Live from theatre
Later transmissions: The BBC returned to the Victoria Palace for a further outside broadcast of the musical on Monday 17 July.
Notes: 'This will be one of the big television occasions of the yearthe first time that a musical comedy has been televised in its entirety from a theatre (Magyar Melody did not quite fall into this category), and incidentally the first time the television mobile unit has visited the Victoria Palace.' (Radio Times listing, 28 April 1939, p. 14)

The post-war documentary Television is Here Again (1946) includes a sequence filmed at the Victoria Palace replicating the broadcast.
Play tags: musical

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