Exclusive: bird impressionist was brought in for Beatrice Harrison’s historic performance, says broadcaster
On 19 May 1924, the cellist Beatrice Harrison performed an extraordinary duet with a singing nightingale in her Surrey garden in one of the BBC’s first live outside broadcasts. It was a magical nocturnal event that captivated the nation, inspiring a million listeners, tens of thousands of fan letters and repeat broadcasts every year until 1942.
But now the corporation is acknowledging that the original historic event was in fact faked up using a bird impressionist – someone imitating a nightingale so accurately that people have believed a real one was responding to a rendition of the Londonderry Air.
