The British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa

Paul Kerensa

100 Years of the BBC, Radio and Life as We Know It

  • 43 minutes 25 seconds
    #112 The First Radio Hoax: Broadcasting the Barricades - A Centenary Re-enactment

    100 years ago from this podcast's release, the BBC broadcast the first known radio scare - 12 years before Orson Welles's famous War of the Worlds, and possibly inspiring it.

    It was hoax - although arguably it's only a hoax if the hoaxer intends to fool the hoaxee... and Father Ronald Knox seemingly thought he was just providing some entertainment in his radio pastiche: Broadcasting the Barricades.

    But when it's a spoof news report about the House of Commons being destroyed with trench mortars, the felling of Big Ben, the destruction of the Savoy Hotel and reports of a mob hanging or roasting alive various people... well no wonder some listeners fled their homes.

    Others phoned the Savoy Hotel, the BBC, the newspapers, the Admiralty. It was chaos. But was it as chaotic as the newspapers implied?

    Joining us to dig into this bizarre and wonderful tale is Dr A Brad Schwartz, author of Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News - a highly recommended read (and fear not, Brad will return to the podcast for a special on 1938's War of the Worlds another time).

    And of course, as we love a centenary re-enactment, we'll bring back to life this unrecorded broadcast, thanks to the script and a couple of sound effects (for the full works, in video form, join us Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/vid-first-radio-147890189)

    Cheers to Father Ronald Knox, who panicked Britain 100 years ago today! Listen to hear how...

     

    SHOWNOTES:

    • Thanks to Jonathan Mayo, Andrew Barker, Andy Walmsley and Paul Slade for titbits, trivia and newspaper cuttings about Broadcasting the Barricades.
    • Paul's latest blog post about Broadcasting the Barricades and the birth of fake(d) news is on Substack: www.paulkerensa.substack.com - do subscribe there.
    • Dr A Brad Schwartz's book Broadcast Hysteria is a must-read. The audiobook's great too.
    • Andy Walmsley's blog on Broadcasting the Barricades is at https://andywalmsley.blogspot.com/2023/12/broadcasting-barricades.html
    • Paul Slade's website about Broadcasting the Barricades is at https://www.planetslade.com/ronald-knox1.html
    • My 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 - thanks if you listened!
    • Original podcast music is by Will Farmer. 
    • Our survey of what you like/don't about this podcast is here: http://tiny.cc/bbcenturysurvey
    • Paul has 2 different upcoming live shows about the early BBC: An Evening of (Very) Old Radio visits Norfolk and Suffolk, while new show Four Monarchs and a Mic: The BBC's Royal Engineer is at Leicester Comedy Festival on Sat 7 Feb. If it goes well, I may do it elsewhere. Let's see. www.paulkerensa.com/tour
    • 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 - including the full video re-enactment of Broadcasting the Barricades. In evening dress!
    • Please share/rate/review this podcast - it all really helps.

    Next time, Episode 113: The First BBC Armistice Broadcast of 1923

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

     

    16 January 2026, 12:44 am
  • 54 minutes 7 seconds
    #111 The Truth About The Truth About Phyllis Twigg: From the First Radio Drama to the Latest

    On Christmas Eve 1922, Britain's first original radio drama The Truth About Father Christmas by Phyllis Twigg was broadcast on the early BBC.

    On Christmas Eve 2025, Britain's latest radio drama The Truth About Phyllis Twigg is broadcast on BBC Radio 4, bringing back to life a little of that first radio play, the tale behind it, and fictionalising some of the quest to help give credit where credit's due.

    This new drama for Radio 4 is produced by B7 Media and written by Paul Kerensa, who also hosts this podcast - so yes after 111 episodes we've finally brought some of the early BBC story (in this unofficial non-BBC podcast - for tis not made by/with/under them) to today's BBC. Thanks if you've listened to or supported the podcast in any way, as it's all helped make it happen. It takes a village! You are that village. Thanks, village!

    Episode 72 of this podcast told the tale of Phyllis, and how her achievement as first radio dramatist (we can talk about the American one from a year earlier) seemed to fade from history books as Richard Hughes and his A Comedy of Danger gradually took over as 'first radio drama'. Hmm, what an oddity.

    With neither a recording nor a surviving script, it was nice to discover a short story version of The Truth About Father Christmas, under Phyllis' pen name - so with that, I pitched the idea to radio drama producer Helen Quigley of B7 Media, and she pitched it to Radio 4's Drama Commissioning Editor - who gladly agreed there was a tale to tell.

    So on the day this podcast lands, so does our radio drama. We're proud of it - we hope you like it. If you don't, that's fine too. It's not perfect, but it's out there! #JusticeforPhyllis - and that's the goal, hopefully via some festive entertainment for your ears.

    On this accompanying podcast (unofficial - as it's not BBC), I chat to the cast, crew and descendants of Phyllis Twigg the writer and Arthur Burrows the voice behind Father Christmas, and the man who commissioned her in the first place.

    So on this bumper episode, you'll hear:

    Helen Quigley - director

    Tamsin Greig - who plays Phyllis Twigg

    Rory Kinnear - who plays Arthur Burrows

    Will Harrison Wallace - who plays Mr White

    Aja Dodd - who plays Jenny Adams

    Carina Saner - great-granddaughter and biographer of Phyllis Twigg

    Nick Heal - grandson of Arthur Burrows

    Philippa Heal - great-granddaughter of Arthur Burrows

    Neil Brand - composer

    ...Thanks to them and many more for making possible this new drama about the first drama.

    Oh and you'll also hear the 7min reading of the prose version of The Truth About Father Christmas, voiced by Carina Saner, Flora Saner (great-granddaughter and great-great-granddaughter of Phyllis) and myself (no relation!).

    Thanks to ME London hotel for sharing the recording with us - we recorded it for them, and they've been playing daily in their Atrium, as they're pretty much on the site of the first BBC studio, where that first radio drama began.

    I advise you listen to The Truth About Phyllis Twigg first - if it's still on BBC Sounds as you find this podcast. If you can't or haven't, you'll still find plenty in this podcast. It was a joy to make.

    And as I'm working on the biography of Phyllis with her great-granddaughter Carina (Publishers? Get in touch...), the quest continues...

     

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time, Episode 112: Father Ronald Knox's Broadcasting the Barricades - the BBC's Pre-War of the Worlds Radio Scare of 1926

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

     

    24 December 2025, 12:39 pm
  • 24 minutes 15 seconds
    #110 GK Chesterton, 75 Years of R2's God Slot + The Truth About Father Christmas

    As this podcast lands, it's 75 years to the day since the first 'God slot' on the BBC Light Programme. It was first called Five to Ten, and is now Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2.

    Podcast host Paul has been Pausing for Thought for over a decade, with Chris Evans, Zoe Ball and Scott Mills, and was recently asked to present a history of Pause for Thought to a roomful of Pause for Thoughters, the Radio 2 boss, and today's Breakfast Show host Scott Mills. So a version of that is on this episode, with some golden oldie clips, including Ray Moore and Derek Jameson. And even a bit of Steve Wright, because why not.

    It's a mini-sode ahead of our Christmas special, so we look ahead to that, with a little more info on Paul's upcoming Radio 4 drama about the first radio drama, The Truth About Phyllis Twigg.

    The companion episode will be next time on the podcast, but for now there's info on where in London you can go to listen to the story version of that original radio drama - ME London, the hotel on the site of Marconi House and the BBC's first studio. You can go this December, and listen to our exclusive recording, by, Paul, Carina Saner (Phyllis' great-granddaughter) and Flora Saner (Phyllis' great-great-granddaughter).

    ...And if you can't make it to London, we'll play it for you on the next episode. 

    A little too on our moment-by-moment timeline of British broadcasting - we're in November 1923 and it's GK Chesterton from Manchester, a Welsh talk from Wales, the first radio novel, and some comments in the Radio Times on the benefits of radio opera.

    (This WAS going to be an episode about the first BBC Armistice broadcast - but with all the above to tell more immediately, I decided to hold back the Armistice episode till the New Year. I know - it's not November - but we have a timeline to follow. In early 2026)

     

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 111: The Truth About The Truth About Phyllis Twigg - our new radio drama about the first radio drama.

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

     

    11 December 2025, 6:09 pm
  • 45 minutes 16 seconds
    #109 Reith to Davie: 17 BBC Directors General - with Dr Tom Mills

    In October 1923, first BBC General Manager John Reith wrote to both 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace, inviting the Prime Minister and the King to broadcast on the near year-old BBC. Both refused.

    In November 2025, 17th BBC Director General Tim Davie resigned because... well we're still trying to find out exactly why. Again, politics is at play - though it's difficult to know if that's at the White House, the House of Commons or Broadcasting House.

    Dr Tom Mills, sociologist at Aston University and author of The BBC: Myth of a Public Service, joins us to whizz through 17 Directors General, their own politics and their battles with politics.

    Meet:

    John Reith, Frederick Ogilvie, Cecil Graves, Robert Foot, William Haley, Ian Jacob, Hugh Greene, Charles Curran, Ian Trethowan, Alasdair Milne, Michael Checkland, John Birt, Greg Dyke, Mark Thompson, George Entwistle, Tony Hall and Tim Davie.

    (Add some 'sirs' and 'lords' in there - I've only de-titled them here as we're often talking about them while they were DG, and it's confusing who was appointed what and when. No disrespect intended)

    All men, you may notice. There are a few women in this tale too - though not many, and usually by such names as Margaret Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse.

    It's a complex tale - I hope we make it less so for you.

    Oh and we have news of your festive audio treat - coming soon (to Radio 4!)

     

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 110: The first BBC Armistice broadcast.

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

     

    28 November 2025, 12:55 pm
  • 35 minutes 56 seconds
    #108 Mass Telepathy: Re-enacted - A Centenary Dramatisation of a BBC Broadcast

    On 12 November 1925, the BBC broadcast one of its most bizarre programmes yet:

    'MASS TELEPATHY: An Experiment in Thought Reading in which every Listener will be invited to assist'

    On 12 November 2025, we present a dramatic re-enactment, based on newspaper articles of the day, and brought to life with a cast of marvel and a guest radio drama producer.

    Appropriately, the one believer on the celebrity panel was the first BBC dramatist - Phyllis Twigg. We first landed on this story on episode 72 of this podcast, exploring her tale, her innovations and her interest in spiritualism.

    Alas no one else on the panel took it seriously. Like The Celebrity Traitors of 1925, a bunch of celebs (a Shakespearean actress, a panto star, the BBC's drama critic, the BBC's Director of Education, an MP, and so on) gathered in a fancy hotel with a gothic atmosphere and played a spooky game around a table, with a glass or two of fizzy rosé.

    Or is it more Derren Brown: Mind Control?

    Either way, the celebrity jury mostly played it for laughs - and enjoyed the hospitality of the Savoy Hotel a little too much. The listeners weren't happy - especially those taking it seriously at home, beaming their thoughts into the ether.

    With no recording, we bring it to life for the first time in a century. In exactly a century.

    If you enjoy this dramatisation, do let us know (paul at paulkerensa dot com) and/or consider joining us on Patreon.com/paulkerensa - if you like it, and if we can afford to, we'll do more like this, in and amongst our regular episodes - which right now is meant to be telling the tale of November 1923. We'll pick that up next time... For now, we have a centenary drama to bring you! So concentrate your thoughts, open your mind, and open a bottle. They did.

     

    MASS TELEPATHY: RE-ENACTED

    THE CAST

    Sir Alfred Robbins - Adrian Mackinder

    Cecil Lewis - Will de Renzy-Martin

    Lady Tree - Helen Lloyd

    Zena Dare - Natalie Chisholm

    Phyllis Twigg - Carina Saner (playing her own great-grandmother)

    Dorothy Warren - Marta da Silva

    Lt Commander Kenworthy MP - Will Harrison Wallace

    James Agate - Paul Kerensa

    J.C. Stobart - Anthony Hewson

    Roger Eckersley - Anthony Rudd

     

    Written by Paul Kerensa

    Produced/Directed/Edited by Helen Quigley

    A Soundliness co-production with the British Broadcasting Century

        SOME OF THE GUESSES, AS REPORTED IN THE LONDON DAILY NEWS, 13 NOV 1925, AND OTHER NEWSPAPERS:  

    1. Letter - K:

    James Agate IOU

    Dorothy Warren, F then G, then K

    Lady Tree Z

    Miss Zena Dare G

    Kenworthy B 

     

    2. Day - Saturday:

    Four guessed Sunday, one Friday

     

    3. Number - 7:

    49-13-300-13-19-33-9400

     

    4. Playing card - Three of Diamonds:

    Stobart – 4 of Diamonds. Others failed to follow suit...

     

    5. Shape - Triangle:

    Circles or polygons, a shilling (Lady Tree), a rugby ball... and an isosceles triangle (Dorothy Warren)

     

    6. Uncategorised - The Game of Bridge:

    Charlie Chaplin? Lamp on the Cenotaph? A banjulele? A white leghorn pullet?

       

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 109: Reith invites the PM and the King on the air - and other Directors-General over the century...

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

    12 November 2025, 1:16 am
  • 33 minutes 8 seconds
    #107 On-Air Criticisms, James Cary and Miranda Hart

    October 1923: The BBC's on-air critics go national...

    These aren't critics OF the BBC (there were - and are - plenty of those), but critics ON the BBC - a literary critic, a music critic, a drama critic, a film critic... Think Front Row, Barry Norman, The Old Grey Whistle Test, but decades earlier.

    These weekly shows went national via simultaneous broadcasting - SB - and the BBC's London-centric regular programming started to take over the regional schedules.

    On London 2LO from 14 June 1923 - and nationally on Thursdays from 18 October - was music critic Percy Scholes.

    On London 2LO from 18 July - and nationally on Fridays from 19 October - was film critic G.A. Atkinson ('Seen on the Screen').

    On London 2LO from 8 August - and nationally on Wednesdays from 17 October - was drama critic Archibald Haddon ('News and Views of the Theatre'), and later James Agate.

    On London 2LO from 3 September - and nationally on Mondays from 15 October - was literary critic John Strachey.

    And in more recent years, we add comedy criticism to the list - with some comedy writers. James Cary has written BBC sitcoms for TV and radio, inc his own Bluestone 42, Hut 33, Think the Unthinkable, and for others Miranda, My Hero, My Family and more. He joins us with his opinions on comedy, the BBC, and what he'd do if he were DG.

    And Miranda Hart - once our boss (I also wrote for the show Miranda) - joins us in a conversation I had for my previous podcast, The Heptagon Club (a podcast of conversations with 7 guests per episode - it was exhausting, so I stopped, for the simpler task of chronicling the history of the BBC...)

    And our latest clue to our audio festive treat. Ooh...

     

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 108: An Evening of Mass Telepathy - a centenary dramatic re-enactment of a lost legendary broadcast! 

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

     

    2 November 2025, 4:01 pm
  • 42 minutes 17 seconds
    #106 6BM Bournemouth: The End of the Beginning at the BBC... and James Cridland
    "6BM Bournemouth sends hearty greetings to the world... We do hope you can smell the pines!"   On 17 October 1923 (oh and look at the date this podcast landed - 102 years apart), the BBC opened its eighth station: 6BM Bournemouth.   It was the last of the first, after the original plan for eight station. Now the map atop the Radio Times cover would be proven correct! When the magazine launched, it featured eight stations... but only six were in operation.   For perhaps the first time, we'll unite some of the first voices from each station - from London's Arthur Burrows to Bournemouth's Auntie Lulu - as well as hear some of pioneering voices from 6BM, thanks to Seán Street, Emeritus Professor of Radio at Bournemouth University. Seán's wonderful recent article and 1973 documentary are essential further reading and listening - and any early voices you hear on this podcast are from interviews he recorded then. We're so glad he did.   Hear the children's presenter in trouble for mentioning religion and booze in her children's tales (no 'Yohoho and a bottle of rum' here...) and the offers from France to pay a licence fee, so enamoured were they with the Bournemouth station.   As for radio's future, who better than the radio futurologist to enlighten us? James Cridland is in-demand as a radio consultant and speaker, and has both intriguing thoughts on where radio (or audio) is going, and wonderful tales of working in radio, including being at the cutting edge of radio's move online two decades ago. I hope you enjoy our chat as much as I did (and yes he will be back).   Elsewhere, we talk about not only this podcast's survey, but the BBC's survey, and its results. What do we want the BBC to be? The people have spoken... We dig into that a little.   And our next clue in our audio Christmas gift. What will it be? Keep listening to puzzle it out. (Email me any guesses by all means - or feedback generally on the podcast, or any queries we can ponder on a future episode)    I like all the episodes I make for this podcast. But I REALLY like this one. Hope you do too.  

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 107: The early BBC criticism programmes: Drama, Music, Film, Books...

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

    17 October 2025, 8:47 am
  • 49 minutes 46 seconds
    #105 2BD Aberdeen and R.E. Jeffrey: From First Gaelic Broadcast to First Sci-Fi
    "Aberdeen Calling!"   On 10 October 1923, the BBC opened its seventh station: 2BD Aberdeen.    Its station director R.E. Jeffrey was fresh from the success of Rob Roy - a drama he'd produced and starred in - and in later years he'd head up BBC drama, with contributions arguably including radio's first sci-fi and first sitcom (not at the same time - Red Dwarf was a while away yet).   Our experts include author Gordon Bathgate (whose book Aberdeen Calling is recommended - link below)... academic Dr Aleksandar Kocic of Edinburgh Napier University on why the BBC doesn't really do local radio in Scotland... plus notes from Prof Tim Crook on R.E. Jeffrey's later career... and much more.   We recreate for you Aberdeen's opening night - hear the songs and some of the voices. We look at the challenges of the weather, and the shrinking nature of BBC local radio - both in 1923 and in 2025.   Thoughts on any of this? Email me: paul at paulkerensa dot com. And see the below links for more on this marvellous tale...  

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 106: The launch of 6BM Bournemouth, and an interview with radio futurologist James Cridland.

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

    3 October 2025, 2:58 pm
  • 36 minutes 7 seconds
    #104 The Radio Times is Launched! A Browse Through Issue 1
    On 28 September 1923, a new magazine hit news-stands.   The Radio Times was a BBC publication, born out of a listings ban seven months earlier, when the press tried to charge the Beeb advertising rates to print what was on. The BBC’s General Manager John Reith saw an opportunity: they’d just print their own.   We previously (on episodes 75 and 76) brought you the history of the Radio Times for its centenary, but as our moment-by-moment timeline of British broadcasting finally reaches September 1923, we just had to zoom in a little further on issue number one.   So join us for a look at the first listings, the first letter (a listener from Spain!), ads including headphones and - oddly - height-lengthening, the first cartoon (about listening to the wireless en masse in a village hall), plus listeners complaints mourning the “murder” of composer Tannhauser at the hands of the London Wireless Orchestra. Everyone’s a critic…   Our guests include Radio Times editor Shem Law, Radio Times collector Dr Steve Arnold, Radio 4’s Justin Webb and Dr Martin Cooper author of Radio’s Legacy in Popular Culture.   

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 105: The launch of Aberdeen 2BD. Advance reading: see Gordon Bathgate’s book Aberdeen Calling: https://amzn.to/4pi9FBW

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

    11 September 2025, 5:08 pm
  • 49 minutes 12 seconds
    #103 Sept 1923 on the BBC, Rob Roy and Gavin Sutherland

    Back in 1923, between SB and RT - that's 'Simultaneous Broadcasting' (networking nationally via landline) and The Radio Times (the BBC listings mag still had the 'The' back then), a month went by...

    ...But did nothing happen in that month? Of course not!

    So between these two bigger landmarks, on this episode we bring you some smaller but notable ones. Also on the Beeb in Aug/Sept 1923:

    • Rob Roy live from Glasgow - with fight scenes
    • Reith reads the news... again. Because his mum forgot to listen.
    • Sir Ernest Rutherford: first public figure to broadcast nationally.
    • New time signal: weights, counting and a bell on the hour
    • Sheffield, Aberdeen and Bournemouth prepare for the air
    • Newcastle's beloved boss heads south
    • Reith has his height measured at the Postmaster-General's house. Reith wins.
    • Announcer sacked, while another commended for "an impression of virility, keenness, and a suggestion of fresh breezes on the moors". 
    • The Radio Times gets an editor
    • The first cat on radio?

    (Thanks to Newspaper Detective Andrew Barker for most of these)

    ...I think that's everything we cover. You don't have to listen now...

    Oh but wait! Then you'd miss our amazing guest. Conductor and arranger of note (and of notes) Gavin Sutherland has a new album out of old TV themes: The Next Programme Follows Shortly. It's a joy.

    Hear Gavin guide us through half a dozen or so tracks, from Grandstand to the Channel 4 ident, from the first song on television to the secret code hidden in The Two Ronnies theme.

    Have a listen, buy his album - and enjoy our chat. And the first cat on radio. Miaow.

     

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 104: The Radio Times is launched!

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

     

    21 August 2025, 12:06 am
  • 49 minutes 52 seconds
    #102 SB: Simultaneous Broadcasting... and Mary English

    On 29 August 1923, the BBC officially launched SB: Simultaneous Broadcasting. 

    They'd been testing SB for months, via crossed lines and cross conversations with the General Post Office. It would dramatically change the shape and big idea of what broadcasting was and could be. Using landlines, they linked stations - so a Covent Garden concert could be heard nationally for the first time, as other stations gave over the schedules to big concerts, or news bulletins, or... whatever London wanted. Generally speaking.

    Yes, other stations could take over too - Birmingham or Glasgow might offer a concert of play. But questions were asked, even back then, of whether listeners would prefer their regular local programming, or news/concerts from the capital.

    Oh but we can provide you big stars, said the Programme Department. It's a move forward. But a move backward for local programming, alas - even if it was pitched to them that they could enjoy a night off. Hmm...

    As we explore and unpack that, we also welcome a guest - Mary Englsh, who began at the BBC in 1973 as a studio manager, wrote for The Two Ronnies, and nearly bled over Margaret Thatcher thanks to an editing accident.

    We hear from her, including the timely observation that the BBC perhaps win trust by "broadcasting their defeats". (In the week this podcast lands, the BBC has broadcast two of their defeats - with news reports about their Gaza documentary and Gregg Wallace. Would another channel amplify their failures quite so much? Should they? Answers on a postcard...)

     

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 103: Aug/Sept 1923 - Rob Roy and the first cat on radio!

    More info on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

     

    15 July 2025, 10:38 pm
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