Produced by Val Parnell, the programme will include Pat Kirkwood, Lena Horne, Bob Monkhouse, Denis Goodwin, Sid Millward and his Nitwits and the Tiller Girls.
The opening night surprise item also features a Gracie Fields film, to be flown in from America.
The Surprise Time number two feature presents Gilbert Harding, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Benny Hill, Arthur Askey and Jack Hylton.
Granada TV have been running trials of the programme at the Granada TV studio.
The Evening Chronicle’s Jack Oldham, in his ‘Round and About’ column, reports that some staff have come back from London to work in Manchester. One of them is Pauline Shaw, now a ‘vision mixer’ with the Granada TV network.
Still unmarried, she has only just returned North and is staying with her parents in Clifton Rd, Prestwich. She worked previously at the BBC’s Lime Grove studios. Thanks to Granada, people who thought they had to go South to make good are coming back to Manchester.
A mobile programme which looks at traffic problems on the Barton Bridge on one day and visits an old peoples’ home the next, is part of Granada TV’s campaign to give a Northern flavour to the new service.
‘The Travelling Eye’ will report on Northern stories 5 out of 6 nights a week from May 3, 1956, visiting Barton Bridge on May 4th and Lawnhurst old peoples home, Didsbury, Manchester the following Monday.
The quiz show ‘Take Your Pick’, with quiz inquisitor Michael Miles. will be shown in the Midlands and North from next week.
Mayors and mayoresses of many Lancashire and Cheshire towns will be among 200 people attending private preview of the new Granada TV studios in Deansgate, Manchester this evening.
(Reports summarised from the Evening Chronicle Saturday April 28, 1956)
Footnote from 50 years Hence
50 years on and the red Granada tv logo continues to shine out as a potent and prestigous landmark on the city skyline, but it may yet disappear.
History appears to be repeating itself, as the BBC are making preparations to move staff and facilities to Manchester in the next few years.
Of the entertainers who took part in the opening night, many are now unknown but a few are recognised as legendary, such as Bob Monkhouse, (1928-2003) and Benny Hill(1924-1992).
In 1956 there was no doubt about Manchester’s identity as a Lancashire city, but since local government changes in 1974, that identity has been obscured. EOM is campaigning to recognise and highlight the original counties, co-existing with the post-1974 subregions. More on this issue soon.