RARE photographs and audio recordings are set to be released to mark 85 years of entertainment television.

The 100 Voices That Made the BBC archive project is a collaborative project between the Sussex Humanities Lab at the University of Sussex and other bodies.

BBC History hopes to offer audiences an insight into the development of broadcast entertainment throughout the years through newly released interviews from the BBC Oral History Collection.

These include sketches from comedy duo Morecambe and Wise, the creation of Doctor Who and the beginnings of the BBC’s natural history unit.

Also included are glimpses behind the scenes of the corporation’s pioneering show Sportsview, which was launched in 1954 and used a combination of studio, outside broadcasts, film and interviews.

The Argus: Comedy duo Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise Comedy duo Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise

The collection will also offer insight into the friction between BBC comedians and the Green Book, issued in 1949, which set out strict rules for profanities and content.

Head of BBC History Robert Seatter said the carefully curated project brings 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,” he said.

The project is a collaboration between several groups including the Sussex Humanities Lab, the Centre for Media History at Aberystwyth University and the National Media Museum.

BBC History will also publish the running order from the first BBC Television entertainment programme Here’s Looking At You from Alexandra Palace in 1936, as well as photos of entertainers including singer Helen McKay.

It will also include an unseen image of the first broadcast knife-throwing act in a variety sequence from the show.

Dr Jamie Medhurst, lead curator of the Entertaining the Nation archive and lead academic in film, television and media at Aberystwyth University, 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 what Eric Morecambe thought of the Grieg Piano Concerto sketch with Andre Previn.”

This is the eighth edition to feature in the series, with previous ones covering the birth of TV, radio reinvented, elections, pioneering women, the Cold War and more.

The full oral history collection 100 Voices That Made The BBC: Entertaining The Nation is available online.