The Lost Lost World

I'm reading the book The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner. It's not about running. It's a book by Alan Sillitoe about the bleak working class life in Nottingham, England; published in 1959. It's not about radio. (It's not about music either, though Sillitoe has inspired both The Smiths and the Arctic Monkeys.) My copy is a very crumbly Signet paperback which may not survive this reading. It's not about radio. But there was a passing reference which is relevant to our on-going radio theme here:

"The governor would have a fit if he could see me sliding down the bank because I could break my neck or ankle, but I can't not do it because its the only risk I take and the only excitement I ever get , flying flat out like one of them pterodactyls from the 'Lost World' I once heard on the wireless..."

This seemed to be a reference from life. Alan Sillitoe, having been born in 1928 could have heard the Lost World on the BBC either as a youth or an adult, or both. The reference even contextualizes the time and place of the novel.But which broadcast was he referring to?

The Lost World was written by Arthur Conan Doyle and first published in 1912, [LINK]. So it wasn't new, but already becoming a classic when Sillitoe was a young man. The Lost World has been translated into a radio drama many times. Ever popular, "Lost Worlds" have become their own sub-genre of science fiction. Because of that timeline, we have the interesting question of which version Sillitoe was referring to. Sillitoe would have been about sixteen in 1944, the same age as the fictional protagonist Colin Smith. For that reason I favor the first two broadcast versions, and generally the 1944 BBC broadcast. Sillitoe would have been 21 for the 1949 version and already on a military pension in France recovering from tuberculosis.

I've collated multiple sources which describe various radio versions of the Lost World, those include: the Conan Doyle website, and the books Carbon Dates by Donald F. Glut, and  Dinosaurs by the Decades by Randy Moore. The sources all reference different but largely overlapping catalogs of the different radio adaptations. The three  that predate the Sillitoe book are from 1938, 1944 and 1949. That first 1938 radio script of Lost World was written by the playright Mervyn Mills and broadcast by the BBC as six, 45-minute episodes from 2 November, 1938 on Wednesday. (Mills also wrote the pulp novel Long Haul.) 

Title	Episodes	Station/Release	Year	Link
The Lost World	6	BBC	1938	N/A
The Lost World	6	BBC	1944	N/A
The Lost World	6	BBC Light Programme	1949	N/A
The Lost World	5	BBC	1952	N/A
The Lost World	1	BBC	1958	N/A
Dinosaurs!	4	MGM/Leo the Lion Records	1966	LINK
The Lost World	3	BBC Radio 4 Classic Serial)	1975	LINK
The Lost World	1	BBC1 (BBC for Schools)	1975	LINK
The Lost World	3	(RNZ) Radio New Zealand	1980	N/A
The Lost World	3	Audio book & VHS	1997	LINK
The Lost World	2	BBC Radio 4 Classic Serial	2011	LINK

In 1944 BBC Secretary Peggy Wells wrote a six, 25-minute episode version, which was broadcast live in April and May that year. Wells contributions to radio are under-appreciated, she adapted world by Noel Coward, H.E. Bates, A.A. Milne, Jane Austen, Graham Greene, Hugh Williams, Thomas Anstey Guthrie and she also contributed works to the program Saturday Night Theater plays on BBC into the 1970s. There is no complete source for her contributions though she appears multiple times in the book Women Writers Dramatized by H. Philip Bolton. She started at the BBC before 1945, and by the 1970s her name literally appeared in the BBC Handbook. More here.  

That 1944 version was a dramatic reading starring Carr as the sole narrator, playing the part of all characters. Carr is better known today as a writer of detective novels. Born in the US in 1906, he relocated to England in the 1930s. There became an author, and in addition to his 52 detective novels, also wrote radio plays. His scripts appeared in the Suspense series, and other works for the BBC. In the 1940s he even hosted the series Murder by Experts, which was broadcast on WOR for the Mutual network. More here.

Carr was a genuine fan of Doyle. In 1945 he wrote radio adaptions for two other Doyle tales: The Adventure of the Speckled Band, and Silver Blaze. Later in 1948, Doyle's son, Adrian granted Carr access to family papers so that he could write an official biography of Arthur Conan Doyle published in 1949: The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 

Peggy Wells revised her 1944 script in 1949 for producer Ayton Whitaker for a live October broadcast on the BBC Light Programme. The cast included with narrator Richard Williams, and actors: Abraham Sofaer, Ivor Barnard, Lewis Stringer, Cyril Gardiner.  In 1952 an adaptation by John Keir Cross was broadcast in five 20-minute episodes. (He was the author of Angry Planet) More here. According to Robert Lewis Taylor, writing for the New Yorker in 1951, [SOURCE] Adrian Doyle specifically requested that John Dickson Carr act in an advisory capacity for the1944 radio adaptation. Carr's biography, The Man who Explained Miracles, by Douglas Greene does not credit Whitaker or Wells leading to some dubious attribution in secondary sources.

The 1958 version is poorly documented. But the basic facts are known and documented on the BBC website. It was broadcast on Thursday January 2nd, 1958 at 5:00 PM on BBC Home Service Basic, on the program Children's Hour. Generally described as "excerpts" it was adapted by Marion MacWilliam and Ian G. Ball. The cast included: Olive Shapley as host, Hilda Lewis, Effie Morrison, Joan Fitzpatrick, Cuthbertson Leonard Maguire, David Webster and Eileen McCallum.

In 1975, Barry Campbell was commissioned to revise Peggy Wells' 1944 scripts and convert them into three, 55-minute episodes. But by then Well's 2nd episode script was already lost. It had to be creatively reconstructed before the broadcast. That versions cast included Francis de Wolff, Gerald Harper, Kevin McHugh, and Carleton Hobbs. Campbell adapted enough fiction into radio dramas that he has his own Discogs page.

I have also read that a second radio adaptation was released in 1975 as part of the "BBC for Schools" program which was not the same. The BBC Schools series aired from 1957 into 1983. But this specific broadcast does not seem to be well documented. Beyond being highly plausible, all I've found is a passing reference in an issue of Educational Television International magazine. 

The 1980 RNZ broadcast an adaptation produced by Peggy Wells and Barry Campbell. Peggy Wells would have to have been in her late 60s at this point in her career and without a doubt the most experienced adapter of the text. Campbell had revised the text only 5 years earlier for his version. The team up is interesting, clearly they knew each other from their time at the BBC. This version starred Terrence Cooper as Professor Challenger and was complete with incidental score and dinosaur audio effects. (Some sources incorrectly cite the broadcast date as 1982.) More here.

Terrence Cooper died in 1997 and likely missed the next popular adaptation aka the New Zealand version. This adaptation differs from the original version significantly. It was produced by The Alien Voices, a radio drama company and they performed live with a full team of foleys for sound effects. Alien Voices was founded by Star Trek actors Leonard Nimoy and John de Lancie. All the characters are played by actors from the Star Trek TV series. You can actually buy an audio book version of this one which I do recommend. 

The most recent version was on the BBC in 2011. That versions cast included Jamie Glover, Brian Robb Jonathan Forbes, Jasmine Hyde, Jane Whittenshaw, Nyasha Hatendi and Vinicius Salles. More here. Out of all those 11 versions, somewhat inexplicably the only one which was officially endorsed by the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle was the 1966 LP version (CH-1016) that came out in 1966 on MGM/ Leo the Lion records. It was narrated by Basil Rathbone. More here.

Herman Darewski Conducts

Herman Edward Darewski was a composer of what was then called "light music".  Lets take a quick detour to explain what that actually was. These are short orchestral pieces, often just 3 or 4 minutes in length. The genre in many ways is the predecessor of both the easy listening and beautiful music genres. But light music itself has roots predating the arrangements of Mantovani, and Percy Faith going back easily into the 1800s. 

So when you see a reference to the radio program "BBC Light Programme", that is indeed the "light" in question. The BBC Light Programme ran from 1945 to 1967 which is really quite late in the heyday of the genre. More here. But in some ways it's also the antecedent of lounge music, Muzak, exotica and other more novel instrumental music; so there may be gems to mine in that crate. It's a big category.

But back to Darewski. He was born in Minsk when it was still part of the Russian empire, over 30 years before the revolution. Today it's part of Belarus, but he would probably have considered himself ethnically a "white Russian" though he and his older brothers lived most of their adult lives in London. Different biographies confuse him and his brothers with his father, Edouward Darewski. Nonetheless, his little brother Max, and older brother Julius had their own separate successful music careers.

Maximilian Arnold Darewski [LINK] was a musical prodigy in his own right. Julius did compose some tunes, but found more success as a variety agent. I did find some sheet music for "You Never Know" from 1915 with two different Darewski's on the cover. Even though Julius was Max's agent he didn't' manage to squeeze the third Darewski in.

But since I'm writing about Herman Darewski, you already know it's because he did a turn on the radio... actually two of the brothers did. They were a musical family, dad being an actual music professor. Max was a novelty, a child musician, while he performed for the British crown, he was not an enduring success like Herman, or Julius. Max was born in 1894 in Lancashire, England. Max's radio references are few. A 1926 issue of Wireless World records a performance by Max and a Geoffrey Gwyther on the Saturday Night Revue broadcast on 2LO and 5XX. (An issue of the law times from 1923 also lists his bankruptcy.) The book Entertainers in British Films by Denis Gifford lists Max on film in 1907 as "boy conductor" when he would have been about 13 years old. He recorded some sides for Zonophone in 1925. I found some listings for his performances at dance halls and in theaters into 1926. He died in 1929. An issue of The Linguist, a decade after he died, mourned that his name was mispronounced "Darooski" on the radio.

But Herman is the most interesting figure here. He first appears in the BBC Radio Times in June of 1925 on 6KH in Hull. There are no notes about the appearance. The listing only refers to the "Hull Programme" and that it's relayed from "the Spa, Bridlington". I actually first found his name in a much later broadcast schedule in a 1937 issue of The Indian Listener [LINK] and there he was in Transmission IV at 11:55 PM on BBC Ballroom. "Dancing to-night to Herman Darewski and his new Melody Rhythm Band. (admission by radio only)."  Call signs are variously given as below:

CALL SIGN	FREQUENCY
GSG	17.79 Mc/s
GSI	15.26 Mc/s
GSD	11.75 Mc/s
GSO	15.8 Mc/s
GSB	9.51 Mc/s
GSF	15.14 Mc/s
GSC	9.58 Mc/s
GSJ	21.53 Mc/s
GSH	21.47 Mc/s

In 1900 Herman became a composer for a music publisher in London. By 1916 he already had his own eponymous music publishing company: Herman Darewski Publishing Co. He was publishing his own sheet music and also scores by other musicians. [LINK] He was composing and promoting theatrical revues. In 1917 he wrote a popular WWI play, "The Better Ole." Times were difficult in WWI. The Musical Times posted an add asking for donations to be sent to the YMCA in Bloomsbury Square, but also specifically donations of musical instruments and music to Herman Darewski at the same address.  

After the war things perked up for Herman Darewski. In 1919 he published the The Darewski Jazz Chart: Learn to Jazz at Home, an odd pamphlet about both jazz and jazz dancing complete with diagrammed dance steps. He formed his first band in 1920 for a 2 week engagement at the Alhambra Theatre of Variety, in Leicester Square. That success was followed by a similar booking at the Coliseum in London.  By 1921 his name was of such note that he could trade barbs in the Daily News with Sir Hugh Allen on the topic of "beastly" popular music. That year is also his earliest known broadcast in April of 1921 on PCGG, also known as the Dutch Concerts station. The April 16th issue of Wireless World recorded the event:

"As a development of the Hague concerts a scheme has now been inaugurated under which Mr. Herman Darewski, the composer, will give Nederlandsche Radio Industrie the opportunity of transmitting by wireless from their station at the Hague his latest musical successes. The concerts are expected to reach a radius of 500 miles from the Hague. Transmissions take place on Sundays from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. G.M.T. and Thursdays from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. G.M.T. on a wavelegnth of 1,100 metres."

PCGG was a very early European radio station. The station was founded by Dutch radio pioneer, engineer Hanso Idzerda, inventor of the triode IDZ tube. He began broadcasting regularly on November 6th, 1919. In 1922 the Daily Mail decided to sponsor Idzerda's station. In 1924 they revoked their sponsorship and PCGG went bankrupt, PCGG's license was revoked by November of that year. Mr. Idzerda died in 1944. During the German occupation. A V2 rocket failed at launch, and crashed near his home in Scheveningen. He went to investigate and was warned off by German soldiers. But curiosity got the better of him and he came back later to look at fragments. He was arrested and executed. His family did not learn his fate until after the war.  [LINK]

Anyway back to Herman. In 1924, about the same time that the PCGG license was revoked, he was named Musial director at the Bridlington Spa Royal Hall, a concert venue in a resort town. It was in this post-WWI era that he transitioned from conducting more theatrical revues to "light music." He left Bridlington Spa to become the resident bandleader at Empress Ballroom in the Winter Gardens, Blackpool for the summer seasons of 1927 - 1929. That year he also began recording for Parlophone's red label. In 1930 he returned to Bridlington where he remained until the outbreak of World War II.  By 1931 his fame was such that he copyrighted and sold an illustrated, 31 page pamphlet Herman Darewski's Wonder Way Music Tutor for Children and Grown Ups. One listing notes that it was written in collaboration with Geoffrey Clayton. He was 48 years old and arguably at the height of his fame.

In 1937 the BBC even referred to that year as his 11th consecutive season at the Spa Royal Hall. (Though the math on that is somewhat dubious.) His orchestra, the Melody Rhythm band consisted of sixteen members. On August 19th be broadcast live from the Bridlington Spa Royal Hall at 11:15 PM. The listing in the Radio Times recalled that  he had traveled to London just a couple weeks prior to host a program of his own hits, with G. H. Elliott. He was a minstrel-era black-face singer... let's not get into it. Even the BBC pops up a little warning if you want to read the Radio Times from that era. His last appearance in the Radio Times was in the Fall of 1941 on the  Forces Programme and Home Service, the description notes that he has composed over three thousand songs and speaks of his career. More here.

His wife actress Madge Temple was a successful actress in her own right died in 1943. He seems to have stopped performing in public around this time. His son Neville Lawrence Darewski was the first generation of Darewski not to pursue a music career. He went into the military in WWII, and died serving with the Italian partisans in 1944. You should probably Google that. Herman died in 1947 at the age of 64 having outlived all of his own family with the possible exception of Julius... I can't find an obituary for him.