The British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa

SPECIAL: Part 2 of 1922‘s Parliamentary Broadcasting Debates

Listen on

Episode notes

Part 2 of our parliamentary re-enactment is a dense and complex beast - but then so is Parliament. Good luck!

Following last episode, we're re-enacting every political discussion on broadcasting in 1922: the year the word caught on, and the year the BBC was launched. So this episode is like listening to radio in the 1920s... expect to not get every word, but enjoy trying. You may need to tune your ears to catch what the House of Commons was echoing with a century ago. 

We're between seasons, with a few specials. Here for the first time, our cast of 20 bring to life the MPs of a century ago. These are the full works, no editing to the highlights - we'll leave that for your brain to do.

This episode the MPs accuse the Postmaster-General of a power-grab, over-regulation, and stopping greater discussion by scaremongering. The PMG says how awful (and dangerous) the airwaves will be if left to run wild, and defends the so-called monopoly he's put together by assembling this 'B.B.C'. The PMG is determined that only British manufacturers of wireless radios will be permitted for the first two years... but will that prevent foreign innovation?

Our four debates are:

The text is all courtesy of Hansard; this episode contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0 (https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/copyright-parliament/open-parliament-licence/).

 

Our cast this episode:

Wayne Clarke - The Speaker of the House

Cameron Potts - Capt Benn

Philip Rowe - Sir William Lane-Mitchell (his podcast: The History of European Theatre)

Shaun Jacques - Mr Kiley (his podcast: Tell Me A Bit About Yourself)

Jack Shaw - Sir Donald Maclean (his podcast: Wrong Term Memory)

Paul Hayes - Sir Douglas Newton

Alan Stafford - The Deputy Chairman

James Maidment-Fullard - Mr Malone

Philip Corsius - Mr Hailwood and Mr Raffan

Andrea Smith - Lt Comm Kenworthy

David Kirkland - Mr Ashley and Mr Percy

Mike Simmonds - Lt Col Murray

Daniel Edison - Lt Col Ward

Paul Savage - Mr Foot

Lynn Robertson Hay - Lt Col Hall

Paul Kerensa - The Postmaster-General Mr Kellaway

...Thanks to them all!

 

You can support our work at patreon.com/paulkerensa, where you'll currently find our full unedited video interview with Diddy David Hamilton - we'll extract some audio nuggets of David's interview for future podcast episodes, but the full version will only be viewable on Patreon (after all, this is audio, that's video). It helps keep us in web-hosting and research books. We don't turn a profit on this podcast - it's just for the love of it, so thanks for keeping us afloat! For a one-off tip, there's also paypal.me/paulkerensa, and I thank you.

Please do rate/review us too. It really helps get us out there, and this podcast is just a one-man band, run by me, Paul Kerensa. Thanks for your fab ratings thus far - all 5 stars on Apple Podcasts! Aw, you guys.

We're nothing to do with the BBC, BTW, FWIW, ICYMI.

Thanks for listening, if you did. And congrats for making it. You've done incredibly well.

Next time: the recently discovered never-before-heard memoirs of the second voice of the BBC, Percy Edgar. Subscribe to have it land when it arrives. And do tell people. Don't keep us to yourself...

Meanwhile, find us on Twitter, on our Facebook page and on our Facebook group. Do join/follow/like.