Midnight Oil

On the Digital Film Archive we have a whole host of unique UTV content, such as an episode from the series Midnight Oil. This adult educational programme, made by Ulster Television - in association with Queen's University Belfast [QUB] - hosted experts who would give a talk on a special topic within their expertise, every weekday evening between 10:40 and 11:15pm over a period of two months in the summer of 1962 (July).

The popular series continued until August 1963, which saw Ulster Television produce 73 late-night televised lectures on medicine, science, literature, law, history, music and economics in total. This well thought out series of university lectures utilised television's potential as an educational tool and was the first ever adult education series on UK television. Likewise, its sequel The Inquiring Mind (1963) explored the medium's potential as an illustrative educational tool. 

Watch the footage below to learn something new from P.H. Butter, a Professor of English at QUB. The Professor gives a compelling lecture on W.B. Yeats and his poetry and shows why the programme was such a great success and earned the description the ‘first university of the air’.