At Home with Joy Shelton

1955
Sound
25m

Wipe your feet and enter the home of actress Joy Shelton in this early 'ad mag'.

Welcome home. Or rather welcome home shopping. The 'ad mag' was a feature of commercial TV in Britain from 1955 to 1963, when it was axed for blurring the divide between programming and advertising. Actress Joy Shelton offers you a tour of her G Plan furniture range, after which the taste of Doris' American doughnuts is perfect to take away the sour note of salesmanship.

Joy had appeared in films like Millions Like Us (1943) but was better known on radio. She is the perfect host here, bringing glamour to domesticity. Director Quentin Lawrence went on to direct British B movies like The Trollenberg Terror (1958) - aka The Crawling Eye - and The Secret of Blood Island (1964).

Commercial Television

The launch of ITV on 22 September 1955 brought advertising to the small screen. Commercial television spread rapidly across the country, inviting the salesperson into every living room.

This collection shows how some advertisers struggled to find the right voice and formats for the new medium, while others hit the ground running. Look out for rare examples of the shortlived 'admags' - banned in 1962 for blurring the distinction between programmes and adverts.