Our round-up of the funny, fascinating and unusual stories this fortnight

It was at 7.15pm on Thursday 22 September 1955 that the greatest commercial television event appeared on screens in the London area. As screens flickered the first images, most of the 200,000 viewers

Comedy historian Robert Ross pays tribute to some of the finest and funniest, but often overlooked, names in showbiz

Porgy and Bess marked the pinnacle of Gershwin’s ambitions to be taken seriously as a composer and is by far his most substantial work. At its try-out in Boston in September 1935, the opera’s running

Ah, 1985: heart of the decade of Cold War superpowers and Dayglo socks. The year of Marty McFly and Back to the Future – “You made a time machine – out of a DeLorean?” Dodgy Sylvester Stallone action

When Luciano Pavarotti died in in 2007, he was one of the most famous men in the world, his celebrity extending far beyond the opera stage. This year, as we prepare to celebrate what would have been t