On 15 June 1920, the Marconi Company broadcast the world’s first live recital by a professional musician - the legendary Australian diva, Dame Nellie Melba. In a makeshift studio in the company’s factory at Chelmsford, using a microphone created with a telephone mouthpiece and wood from a cigar-box, she opened her half-hour programme with “Home Sweet Home”, and after other popular favourites and several encores, closed with the National Anthem. Her voice, carried from an aerial with towering masts, was heard as away far as Iran and Newfoundland, and it was reported that the signal at the Eiffel Tower in Paris was so strong that gramophone records were made from it.
In 1986 the BBC Essex radio studio in Chelmsford was officially opened by Guglielmo Marconi’s widow, Marchesa Maria Cristina Marconi.
Cast:
- Sam Davidson - Darren Egan
- Radio Operator - Scott Peters
- Captain Henry Round - Keith Flack
- Bill Ditcham - John Ellson
- Arthur Burrows - Mike Collins
- Winifred Sayer - Kate Smith
- Dame Nellie Melba - Carole Williams
- Narrator - John Rhodes
Directed by Angela Howard
Recorded and edited by John Rhodes
The recording is on the Essex Audio Theatre site at
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