Alan Taylor

While trying to do a bit of research about the 1938 OB covering Chamberlain returning from Munich with his famous piece of paper, I looked through copies of “Wireless World” from that time in case they offered any more info (they didn’t offer much, but did confirm that it was an OB).

However, one unrelated article did catch my eye:

It was an article about the first attempt to televise a stage play.  The fourth paragraph offers an account of what must surely be the first time that the fire people made what was to become their traditional contribution to broadcasting.

Also note that nearly a dozen cables were needed for that three camera OB.

There was another article describing a theatre OB.  Note that there was no seating in scanning vehicles.  All staff stood up throughout the show.

The guy in the foreground apparently reading the newspaper is adjacent to where the sound mixer is located ….

 

Peter Combes

Er — that’s not a newspaper, it is a theatre play script.

 

Alan Taylor

Yes I know, I doubt that the picture would have been released if he was really reading a newspaper…

 

Mike Giles

And I think it’s a woman, not a bloke…

 

Alan Taylor

A different article described the BBC’s plans for a mobile lighting vehicle to facilitate OBs in the evenings. The article concluded by saying that after the addition of this extra van, the BBC would only need an elephant or two to resemble a travelling circus. We never got issued with those elephants, but I’ll leave others to decide whether we had a bunch of clowns.