Of Course, the Very First British TV Drama Was Filmed in Total Darkness.

 Almost as surprisingly, it was filmed in portrait mode. 

 A single camera/projector shot a pinwheel of light at the subject, and changes of angle were achieved by raising a chequered card behind which actors had to feel their way around with the lights off, using only the panel below for guidance.

 

 "These used to light up as required."

 

 Accompanying music and sound effects were, as far as I can work out, provided by a mixture of pre-recorded 77's and, if you count a second's worth of chimes played out on the guts of a musical top by producer Lance Sieveking, live performance.

 

"This is my signature tune."

 

 And here's Lance with the rest of the original team extant behind that 1930 drama, The Man With the Flower in His Mouth – an adaptation of a short play by Pirandello about oral herpes – recreating their original publicity shot for a recreation broadcast forty years later.

 

 That's "special effects man" George Inns on the far left with his checquered card, and on the far right Mary Eversley the prompter, holding a script, so I guess there must have been some light to see by after all, although probably not as much as in the 1970 reconstruction below from which these images are all taken.

 

 

 I did not know neon was pink.

 I really recommend subscribing to that BBC Archive channnel. I couldn't find a recording of the 1930 original, but given that the means of both recording and broadcasting it were entirely analogue that's not surprising. I did however find another very convincing, fuller restaging made by Granada Television in 1968 made by Radio Rentals for the Ideal Home Exhibition in 1967, so here's that too. It's horrible. What were they thinking?