The Savoy Hotel Orpheans, from
The Savoy Hotel
THE recent reappearance in the programmes of the words ' Savoy Hotel Orpheans ' provides a link between Broadcasting today and the seemingly dim distant days of the B.B.C.'s youth. The original Orpheans first broadcast on October 3, 1923. The B.B.C. was less than a year old and the programmes just beginning to find shape. That particular month of October was marked by the opening of Aberdeen and Bournemouth
Stations, by the first broadcast of a complete opera (II Trovatore), the first relay from an opera house (the Garden Scene from Faust from the Old Vic), the first radio-dramatization of a novel (Rob Roy from Glasgow) and the microphone debut of the Roosters. The Orpheans, being the most important -Jance band broadcasting, enjoyed tremendous popularity with the then small body of listeners. With their colleagues of the Savoy Havana Band they broadcast regularly for five years, ceasing in September, 1928, to be succeeded by Fred Elizalde 's band, which continued broadcasting dance music until February of the following year. We welcome the return of the ' Savoy touch' to the programmes.