Talking point
From dance halls to the dawn of girl power – celebrity director Nathalie Whittle reflects on a century of progress
Water-cooler moments shared by the Good Housekeeping team tend to revolve around our latest discoveries in the ever-expanding world of entertainment. ‘Have you watched the latest series of Bridgerton on Netflix? It’s brilliant!’ enthuses one colleague. ‘No, but I’ve been listening to this great true-crime podcast on Spotify,’ replies another.
It’s a conversation that would mean very little to those who first launched the magazine a century ago. Their pastimes would likely have included dancing the Charleston at their local dance hall or visits to music halls, where singers, dancers or comedians would have performed. Even cinema was in its infancy in those days, with silent movies the predominant product of the film industry. But oh, how things were about to change.
At 6pm on 14 November 1922, the BBC took to the airwaves for the first time and the radio revolution began; by 1926, more than 2m Britons had a wireless licence. Two years later, another milestone moment shook things up once again: John Logie Baird demonstrated the world’s first mechanical Entertainment, in every has the power to unite us all television. Suddenly, the outside world had been brought into the living room.
Meanwhile, cinema was undergoing a facelift. By the 1930s, sound and colour had arrived, and when Gone With The Wind was released in 1939, it was the most technically sophisticated film ever made, winning its leading lady, Vivien Leigh, enduring fame. No wonder the 1940s were the ‘golden age’ of British cinema-going, with total UK admissions reaching 1.6bn in 1946.
By the rock ’n’ roll 1950s, TV was coming of age, with the televising of The Queen’s Coronation the driving force behind a surge in sales. Coronation Street launched in 1960; its sharp characters and sensational plots mirroring real working-class life would see it go on to become the world’s longest-running soap opera. Around the same time, theatregoers would have seen Julie Andrews bring Eliza Doolittle to London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 1958, propelling her to new heights and becoming one of the longestrunning musicals in West End history.
Next up came hippie culture and flower power – and with that came the great British festival. In 1968, Jefferson Airplane, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and Tyrannosaurus Rex performed at the Isle of Wight Festival, setting the bar for the likes of Glastonbury and Reading, which followed. The trend would only grow, with almost 1,000 music festivals taking place across the UK in 2019 alone.
The 1970s were rich with comedy genius – Fawlty Towers and Last Of The Summer Wine had many glued to their screens – before women proved their mettle the follow
