A Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies academic at Aberystwyth University has played a key role in the creation of a new archive collection which celebrates the BBC’s rich history in entertaining the nation.

Dr Jamie Medhurst is the lead curator of the Entertaining the Nation archive, which offers a rare insight into broadcast entertainment across the years through newly released interviews from the BBC Oral History Collection, plus an array of rarely seen photographs.

The collection has been released to mark 85 years of entertainment television, and forms part of BBC History’s 100 Voices That Made The BBC project.

Archive highlights include insights into popular sketches from Morecambe and Wise, the controversial creation of Doctor Who and its ‘bug-eyed monsters’, innovative formats that pioneered in Sportsview, the humble beginnings of the now world-famous natural history programming, and of course the all-important battle for Saturday night family viewing.

The collection also includes an unseen image of the first ever broadcast knife-throwing act in a variety sequence of Here’s Looking At You in 1936.

Dr Medhurst, reader in film, television and media, said: “The insights that the interviews in the BBC’s Oral History Collection give are uniquely valuable.

“We get to hear voices, many for the first time, which shed light on policy decision-making, programmes, actors, and even what Eric Morecambe thought of the Grieg Piano Concerto sketch with Andre Previn.”

Robert Seatter, head of BBC History, said: “Unique voices from the BBC Oral History Collection, carefully curated and illuminated by our partner academics, really bring to life the diverse role of the BBC as an entertainer from 1936 onwards.

“It is fascinating to listen to the key insights from the people that were behind some of the most iconic entertainment programmes on British television and how they pioneered what we see today.”

The 100 Voices that Made the BBC archive project is a collaboration with The Sussex Humanities Lab, University of Sussex; Centre for Media History, Aberystwyth University; Department of Media and Communication, University of Leicester and The National Media Museum.

Entertaining the Nation is the eighth edition in the 100 Voices That Made The BBC collection.

The full oral history collection ’100 Voices that made the BBC: Entertaining the Nation’ is available online at https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/100-voices/entertaining-the-nation