OTD in early British television: 7 February 1938
John Wyver writes: the afternoon of Monday 7 February saw the first presentation of The Three Bears, an original short ballet for the screen by choreographer Joy Newton. This was not, as the News Chronicle claimed, ‘the first ballet designed specifically for television’, but it was one element in the enormously rich dance culture of the informal partnership throughout the 1930s between the traditional form and the new medium.
One of Ninette de Valois’ first star pupils, who later became a noted teacher herself, Joy Newton choreographed three ballets for AP, in each case also designing the costumes and decor. The Three Bears was set to music by light music composer Eric Coates and danced in one set, the bears’ bedroom. The dancers were ‘borrowed’ from the Vic-Wells company, which thanks to a string of significant transmissions was developing a strong relationship with Alexandra Palace.
As dance historian Janet Rowson Davis wrote:
Goldilocks, played by Julia Farron [then just 15 years old], was accompanied by two less adventurous friends, June Vincent and Jean Bedells. The bears were Leslie Edwards, Wanda Horsburgh, and a little newcomer, Margaret Bolam… later [in the 1950s], as Margaret Dale… she began making small ballets for the BBC and in due course joined the Corporation and had a unique career as their only television producer specializing in ballet.
Critic Jeanette Rutherston’s monthly columns for Dancing Times are an invaluable source for ballet on television before World War Two. Of The Three Bears, she wrote:
It was a little disappointing to find that instead of the traditional cottage of the fairy-tale the three bears lived in a bed or rather beds sitting room, but even so it was large and airy and gave them quite a lot of space in which to cut their rather long drawn-out capers.
Goldilocks, who seemed to be rather a sedate little girl and not really much frightened by the appearance of the three bears, let herself prosaically out of the door instead of jumping recklessly out of the window; even so the performance gave the viewers a delightful quarter of an hour’s entertainment.
In an intriguingly detailed response, Tangye Lean for the News Chronicle was also ambivalent:
There was Julia Farron dancing Goldilocks in a nice Sunday school manner with orthodox dance clothes and nearly orthodox steps.
There was some intelligent use of montage (presumably by Joy Newton’s collaborator Patrick Campbell) which showed an awareness of the potentialities possessed by screen ballet which are not open to stage presentation.
And there were the three bears betraying their inner bestiality by a tendency to Central European movement.
At present the details of steps are lost far too often in a background which, instead of contrasting, absorbs them. But in spite of this and the apparent incoherence of the story, The Three Bears showed that the television possibilities of ballet are enormous.
Oh, to have more details of that ‘montage’, which more likely was the contribution of producer D.H. Munro, who apparently was at the control desk (and not Elizabeth Cowell as billed; Cowell would later produce another of Newton’s screen ballets).
And incidentally, Tangye Lean, book reviewer for the Chronicle, was the brother of the more famous film director David, and himself later the BBC’s director of external broadcasting.
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