The 1957 Broadcast

Location:  Sandringham

Produced by:  BBC

Theme:

In a landmark Christmas Broadcast, Elizabeth II gives her annual address on television for the first time, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of her grandfather, King George V, delivering the very first Royal Christmas Message.

The Queen expresses her hope that the new medium will allow her to relate to her Subjects in a more personal, less remote way:

 'It is inevitable that I should seem a rather remote figure to many of you. A successor to the Kings and Queens of history; someone whose face may be familiar in newspapers and films but who never really touches your personal lives. But now at least for a few minutes I welcome you to the peace of my own home.'

Her Majesty acknowledges the rapidly changing times, but warns that 'ageless ideals' such as religion and personal and public morality should not be lost and that we should 'take advantage of the new life without losing the best of the old.'

Elizabeth II takes pride in the growing Commonwealth and pledges her 'heart and my devotion' to Britain and to 'all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.'

 

Commentary:

This is probably the most famous of all Elizabeth II's Christmas Broadcasts and the most daunting to review, largely because of the sheer weight of material that has been written about it.  

 

The historic moment of the first televised Message transformed the Monarch's seasonal greetings from the radio speech of bygone days to the beginnings of the television tradition we know today.   In fact, one could argue that the story of 'the Queen's speech' as we know it begins here.

 

The BBC had made tacit approaches to Buckingham Palace from the earliest years of the Queen's reign, but Elizabeth II had steadfastly resisted pressure to go in front of the television cameras.  The excuse given was that most of the Commonwealth did not have access to television and the two countries which did - Canada and Austrailia - would require a pre-recording, thus losing spontaneity.  A more personal consideration was that the presence of a television crew - and all that comes with it - at Sandringham would put a strain on the royal family's Christmas (Pimlott, The Queen, 1996).

Nevertheless, by 1957 television had become the norm in Britain and audience figures for the Queen's radio broadcast had begun to drop alarmingly.  There was a sense within the Palace that a televised Broadcast was an inevitablity (Pimlott, 1996).

 

 

Instrumental in plans to televise the Broadcast would be the Queen's husband, Prince Philip.  The Duke of Edinburgh had become more enthusiastic about the idea through the encouragement of BBC executive Anthony Craxton, an old school contemporary from Gordonstoun.  It was Prince Philip's influence which would be the deciding factor for Elizabeth II (Seward, The Queen's Speech, 2015).

It was deemed natural that the BBC, as the producer of the radio broadcast, should be given the monopoly of the television production.  This irked the Independent Television Authority, who, as commercial television was becoming more popular in the United Kingdom, were eager to get in on the act.  An important condition was that the Broadcast would not be a television broadcast as such, but a televised radio broadcast with the Queen shown in front of a microphone reading a script, with absolutely no use of a teleprompter.  Elizabeth II, ever a stickler for authenticity, was concerned that to use such a device and appear not to be reading a script would be considered acting and almost dishonest.  As BBC staff were told, 'Her Majesty is very averse from artificiality'  (Robert Lacey, Royal, 2002; Pimlott, 1996).

 

As the BBC's head of outside broadcasting, Peter Dimmock was put in charge of production.  Four rehearsals were conducted at Buckingham Palace starting in early October of 1957.  Even the desk and curtains  were brought over from Sandringham to try to simulate as much as possible the reality the Queen would face on Christmas Day (Seward, 2015).  Elizabeth II's early experiences in front of a camera were evidently not encouraging.  Her Majesty froze in front of a teleprompter and frequently protested, 'I am not an actress'.  'She was not,' recalled Dimmock.  'She found the teleprompter unnerving and kept staring straight at the camera.  I told her to look down occasionally.  Prince Philip came in and suggested a few alterations to the script.  It helped - but not much - and every time the Queen started to speak nerves pushed her voice up two octaves' (Seward, 2015).  Dimmock would later recall that on the day 'the Queen was extremely accomplished with the teleprompter and read the message brilliantly.'

 

In the days before the Broadcast a large television crew descended on Sandringham and pain-staking tests were made on important technical issues such as sound and lighting.  Despite being transmitted in black and white, colour and texture were considered important with regard to how the programme would appear on screen.  The Queen's gold brocade dress by Norman Hartnell was chosen from a shortlist of three weeks in advance, with Elizabeth II, her dresser Bobo MacDonald and BBC producers all agreeing it was the best choice (Seward, 2015).  Make-up artist Tommie Manderson was brought in to administer the heavier make-up the Queen would require to appear on camera (Seward, 2015).

Getting the nervous young Queen to appear natural on camera would prove to be a problem, not made any easier by the fact that the words of the speech were not her own;  actually, the final draft was Prince Philip's.  A BBC official recalled that 'the fact that the Queen had nothing to do with the script made our job a tough one.  It is the most difficult thing in the world to give a personal message that in fact is not personal' (Pimlott, 1996; Seward, 2015).

In the end, it was Prince Philip, who had been so involved in the development of the televised Broadcast, who saved the day.  He remained in the room the whole time and made jokes beforehand to help the Queen relax.  At the end of the broadcast, the Prince made a silly face which the Queen caught sight of, resulting in the famously radiant smile she gives at the end of her speech (Lacey, 2002; Pimlott, 1996; Seward, 2015).

Ultimately, the first televised Christmas Message was very well-received.  Nearly half the UK population watched it (Marr, The Diamond Queen, 2012), with Audience Research reporting that the 3pm Broadcast had an audience of sixteen and a half million (Pimlott, 1996).  The press were gushing with praise, with the Daily Mirror commenting on the Queen's 'easy friendliness'.

 

When watched more than sixty years later it is easy to see how much has changed technologically over the years: the black and white monochrome is grainy, camera angles are restricted and the now familiar interspersed footage was years away.  Yet, the production is at the same time reassuringly familiar:  God Save the Queen plays at the beginning as outside shots of the royal residence is shown, just as happens today.  Her Majesty sits at a desk surrounded by photographs of her family and evidence of Christmastime, as she still does now.  The flower arrangement on the desk was used to conceal a microphone in 1957 (Seward, 2015);  that might not be necessary with today's technology, but even in recent years a suitably festive arrangement is invariably placed on the desk or table at the Queen's side!

A compromise seems to have been reached over the teleprompter.  Elizabeth II does appear to be using one, though she glances down at a script from time to time to make clear that she is reading a prepared speech.  The Queen's broadcasting style actually seems quite professional and typical of the presenting standards of the day, with characteristic clipped speech and formal demeanour.  However, Her Majesty seems genuinely relaxed and friendly;  when she speaks of welcoming viewers 'into the peace of my own home' it strikes just the right note of warmth between Monarch and people.  Many viewers must have been fascinated to actually see the Queen, speaking live, sending them festive greetings from the very place that she was spending Christmas Day.  A new tradition had been set and, although there would only be one further live television broadcast, the televised speech would go on to become an integral part of Christmas Day for millions in Britain and the Commonwealth.

Notes:

 

Towards the end of the speech, Elizabeth II quotes from Bunyon's Pilgrim's Progress.  Originally, the appropriate quote had been inserted in a book chosen at random.  The Queen, striving as always for authenticity, realised this and asked before the broadcast whether an actual copy of the book could be retrieved from the Sandringham Library.  A genuine copy of Pilgrim's Progress was duly found! (Seward, 2015).

 

There was renewed interest in the 1957 Broadcast when Elizabeth II referenced it in her 2007 Message, on the fiftieth anniversary of the programme.  It was presented in a "then and now" format, with the Broadcast starting with the Queen speaking in 1957, before merging into the 2007 speech as Her Majesty watches on a monitor.  In a nod to changing technology, the royal family posted the 1957 speech on YouTube, where it remains in its entirety to this day. The Queen made yet another reference to the Broadcast ten years later in 2017 on its sixtieth anniversary.  On this occasion Elizabeth II joked,  ''six decades on, the presenter has ‘evolved’ somewhat, as has the technology she described.''

 

Elizabeth II broadcast from the same desk, at the same chair in the Long Library, as her grandfather King George V had done during the very first Christmas Broadcast from Sandringham twenty-five years earlier. 

According to the 2015 BBC documentary Cue The Queen:  Celebrating the Christmas Speech some viewers believed that, due to a technical hitch, sound was briefly interrupted by two American police  officers holding a conversation over a police radio frequency.  Some even thought they heard the words 'Joe, I'm gonna grab a quick coffee.'

In Season Two of the popular Netflix series The Crown, Claire Foy, playing Elizabeth II, famously recreates part of the 1957 Christmas broadcast, complete with a replica of Norman Hartnell's iconic dress.  Interestingly, the scenes are filmed in a 'mirror image' reverse of the actual broadcast.

Claire Foy as Elizabeth II recreates the 1957 speech in The Crown

 

The Broadcast was shown simultaneously on BBC and ITV.  The Commonwealth received the Message in sound only because the technical limitations of the day did not enable live television to be transmitted internationally (Seward, 2015).

Many years later, photographs emerged of the young Prince Charles and Princess Anne playing with the technical equipment in the Long Library prior to the broadcast.  The pictures were in the collection of the late Harold Mayhew, the BBC's superintendent of lighting, and came to light via an episode of the BBC's Antiques Roadshow.

 

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