Aug 2, 2014
Adelaide Hall played Hattie in the BBC’s first broadcast of Kiss Me Kate, a live radio relay from the London Coliseum on the BBC Light Programme on 1 August 1951. The Coliseum production was the first in London and the cast also included Patricia Morison (who later appeared in this BBC Two gala production), Bill Johnson, Julie Wilson, Walter Long. Hall, born in Brooklyn in 1901, had been a star of Broadway since the early twenties and was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance of that period. She made hundreds of appearances on the BBC until her death in 1993.
Listen to the John Wilson Orchestra’s version of Kiss Me Kate from the BBC Proms 2014 online now. The picture of Adelaide Hall at a BBC microphone was taken in August 1945.