All Lit Up

6.30AM, RADIO 4 EXTRA Blackpool-born Alfie Boe will switch on the town’s illuminations tonight. To mark the day, there’ll be a repeat of this programme about the history of the Illuminations, presented by Laurence LlewelynBowen. The first Blackpool illuminations were switched on in 1879 – when eight carbon arc lamps brought ‘artificial sunshine’ to the Promenade – but, as Laurence explains, it was the display of 1912, using more than 10,000 light bulbs, that inspired the illuminations we know today.