Magic Rays of Light : The Early Years of Television in Britain / John Wyver.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wyver, John, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Television broadcasting--History.

Television broadcasting.

Television broadcasting--Social aspects.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (524 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Distribution:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing (UK), 2026.

Place of Publication:

London : British Film Institute, 2026.

System Details:

text file rdaft

Summary:

On the evening of 26 January 1926, inventor John Logie Baird held a public demonstration in his workspace on London's Frith Street of a 'seeing by wireless' apparatus that he and many others had been working towards, television. In the years that followed, variants of this astonishing device produced programming that was rich, complex and excitingly imaginative. Familiar television genres, including studio drama, quiz shows, variety spectaculars and sports broadcasts, were all fully realised in the 1930s. At the same time, early television was often strikingly different from later domestic broadcasting. Television began with intimate entanglements with interwar cinema, theatre, music and dance. And, despite reaching only tiny audiences, from its beginnings television responded to key strands of social history, embracing legacies of the Great War, changing roles for women, suburban living and more. Magic Rays of Light is a unique and comprehensive cultural history of early television, exploring its technologies and institutions, while also celebrating the programmes and the people, the ideas and the innovations of the first decade of what would become the most consequential medium of the subsequent century.

Contents:

Introduction 1. Listening In, Looking Forward 2. 'Practical television is here' 3. 'A new technique' 4. The Importance of Isidore 5. Starting Out at the Palace 6. Performing television 7. Dramatic success 8. The world elsewhere 9. The challenge of cinema television 10. Looking In Coda Bibliography Index

ISBN:

1-83902-823-8

OCLC:

1569777979