Between The Ears: Listen In

Radio was the first-ever form of home-based mass entertainment. Plenty has been written about its history from the broadcasters’ point of view, but what did the first listeners make of the newcomer? First-person testimony from the ‘Golden Age of Radio’ is scant but a recent discovery in the Bodleian Library in Oxford is now providing far more detail and colour – all of it very lively and some of it rather unexpected.
In 1938, the BBC commissioned two Bristol-based women called Hilda Jennings and Winifred Gill to conduct a grassroots survey on the impact of broadcasting on everyday life. They published a useful pamphlet on their findings. Winifred Gill left her archive to the Bodleian Library in Oxford where producer Beaty Rubens recently uncovered the two hand-written exercise books in which she had kept her research material, much of which didn’t make the final cut.
Recorded in front of an audience and to accompany a major exhibition at the Bodleian Library, actors have brought this material to life, while an archive-based musical soundtrack by composer Emily Levy gives an impression of the impact of radio on British homes.
Actors: Alison Reid, Alice Lamb, Andrew McGillan, Zara Ramm
Musicians: Matthew Bourne, Richard Ormrod

Producer: Beaty Rubens

Broadcast: 2nd March 2025