Arena: Delia Derbyshire - The Myths and the Legendary Tapes (BBC)

BBC docudrama that explores the life and creative output of Coventry born-Delia Derbyshire – electronic musician, sound pioneer and female outsider in postwar Britain. From 1962 until 1973, she worked at the BBC’s Radiophonic workshop, where she created the iconic Doctor Who theme tune, which remained uncredited in her lifetime. Delia Derbyshire introduced avant-garde electronic sound to a whole generation through the medium of a children’s teatime television show. Sound was both a refuge for Delia and a haunting manifestation of something darker. Delia was three years old during the Coventry blitz listening to the electronic sounds of the air-raid sirens against a backdrop of her devastated hometown. Delia describes the sound of the ‘all-clear’ and air-raid sirens as her first experience of electronic music. Delia’s story is told through two archives: the first, a collection of lost works, 267 reels of quarter-inch magnetic tape recordings of Delia’s work found in her attic after her death,
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