QUEEN’S HALL. Almost adjacent to Broadcasting House in London, standing where a modern hotel and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) office block, Henry Wood House, now resides, Queen’s Hall was used for the Promenade Concerts until it was destroyed by bombs in May 1941. It was here that the BBC Symphony Orchestra gave its first ever concert, in October 1930, under the leadership of Arthur Catterall.
QUERY PROGRAMME. Said to be the first radio Quiz Show, Query Programme ran for a series of eight editions beginning in May 1926. The concept behind the program was that listeners should place a series of named radio performers in their correct Radio Times billings. Weekly winners were invited to spend an evening at the London station, 2L0.
QUIGLEY, JANET (1902–1987). Janet Quigley was involved as a producer with many important war and postwar British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) radio initiatives. Prior to her BBC career, she had worked in publishing and with the Empire Marketing Board. Her first job in the Corporation, which she joined in 1936, was in the Talks Department, where she was assigned the task of researching topics for talks which that appeal to women. One of her major initiatives from this time was the 12-part series, Towards National Health, broadcast in 1937, which covered fitness and nutrition.
She worked on Women at War, which began in October 1941, designed initially for women serving in the armed forces. Quigley also produced the lighter series, Kitchen Front. In 1944, she was awarded the MBE for her work on wartime talks. She left the BBC a year later to marry, but returned in 1950 as editor of Woman’s Hour. In 1956, she was promoted to Talks Department management, where, in 1957, with Isa Benzie, she was instrumental in the creation of the flagship news program, Today. She also helped to create the program for the blind, In Touch.
Quigley referred to what she called radio’s capacity for “indirect propaganda” as a means of conveying valuable social messages, and her ability to impose this quality on the programs with which she was associated over 30 years could be seen as one of her greatest contributions to the medium. She retired in 1962, but thereafter continued to write for radio, serializing more than 20 books for Woman’s Hour.
QUIZ SHOWS. In Britain, the birth of the radio quiz could be said to be in 1926, with Query Programme, although it was not to be until 1937 that the concept was explored further. Monday Night at Seven contained an element entitled Puzzle Corner, and in 1938, Children’s Hour carried a series of spelling contests between teams from different parts of the country chaired by Freddy Grisewood and entitled Spelling Bee. Subsequently, the genre has developed to the extent that it is not possible to chronicle all programs. It is notable, however, that during the immediate prewar years, and onward from 1939, there was a proliferation of quiz programs feeding a growing appetite in the British radio audience. Among these, contained within the 1944 program, Merry-Go-Round was the first quiz to offer a cash prize, Double or Quits Cash Quiz. Alastair Cooke chaired Transatlantic Quiz in 1945, and this was followed by Round Britain Quiz in 1947. The trend continued with the popular schools quiz, Top of the Form, which ran on the Light Programme from 1948–1986. What Do You Know? which began in 1953 under the chairmanship of Franklin Engelmann evolved into Brain of Britain with Robert Robinson in 1967. The most popular of all radio quizzes, however, remains Have a Go, which began in 1946 with Wilfred Pickles.
QUOTE . . . UNQUOTE. A long-running panel game broadcast on Radio 4, at one time on Radio 2 and also the World Service. It was devised by Nigel Rees, who also presented the program, and had its first broadcast in 1976.