Nearly 100 years after her groundbreaking Christmas Eve broadcast, Ventnor’s Phyllis Twigg is finally getting the recognition she deserves.
She was the Isle of Wight woman who made radio history – then vanished from it. Now, almost a century later, Phyllis Twigg’s forgotten role as the BBC’s first radio dramatist is being brought back to life.
BBC Radio 4’s Christmas Eve special The Truth About Phyllis Twigg will finally tell the story of the Ventnor author who may have written and staged the world’s first radio play – more than a year before the man usually credited with the title. The one-hour drama airs at 14:15 on BBC Radio 4.
Phyllis Margaret Twigg (née Mackenzie) was born in 1887 in Manora, near Karachi, then part of British India. She was the daughter of William Glendower Mackenzie, an East India merchant and stockbroker. The family returned to England while she was still young, and by 1891 she was growing up in London – first in Paddington and later in Ealing.
In 1912, at the age of 25, she married New Zealand physician Dr Garnet W. Twigg in Kensington. Before World War II, Phyllis was living in Ventnor, where official records list her as an “authoress, mostly working”.
Her journey to broadcasting fame began in 1922. The British Broadcasting Company was only six weeks old when Twigg, already a children’s author and illustrator, approached the BBC’s first Director of Programmes, Arthur Burrows, outside Marconi House in London with an audacious idea – to perform a live radio play on Christmas Eve.
Burrows agreed, and the result was The Truth About Father Christmas – a festive children’s drama broadcast live from the BBC’s London 2LO studio on 24th December 1922. It included actors, dialogue, and original sound effects – all crafted from Twigg’s imagination.
Historians now believe this may have been the first original radio play ever broadcast anywhere in the world. Yet, for decades, Twigg’s achievement went unrecognised. The official title of “first radio playwright” was instead given to Richard Hughes for A Comedy of Danger, aired more than a year later in 1924.
While Hughes’s name became etched in broadcasting history, Twigg’s disappeared into obscurity.
That is, until now. The Truth About Phyllis Twigg, written by Paul Kerensa, aims to put her back where she belongs – at the very beginning of radio drama. Starring Tamsin Greig as Phyllis and Rory Kinnear as Arthur Burrows, the new production jumps between 1922 and the present day, following a podcaster determined to uncover the truth about the woman who beat the BBC at its own game.
The story is part historical detective hunt, part celebration – a witty, heartwarming reminder that some of the greatest creative breakthroughs were made by women who never got their due.
Twigg’s talents stretched far beyond radio. She was the creator of Tales of the Fairy Dustman, a successful children’s series combining illustrated books, gramophone recordings and newspaper features. Later, under the pen name Moira Meighn, she became one of the BBC’s earliest television cooks, appearing on broadcasts from Alexandra Palace in the 1930s – long before celebrity chefs were a thing.
Sadly, many of her original BBC scripts were never archived, and her pioneering work may have been lost during World War II. Without those records, her role in shaping early radio drama faded from memory.
But thanks to modern researchers and a growing interest in overlooked women of early broadcasting, Phyllis Twigg’s name is finally being restored to its rightful place in history.
This Christmas Eve, her voice will echo once more across the airwaves – and Britain will finally hear the truth about the woman who really started it all.
Did you or your family know the Twiggs in Ventnor? Island Echo would love to hear from you.
