IN a world where the majority of programmes are recorded and perfected before they reach us, it is hard to imagine an era when every radio and TV programme went out live. Yet this was the situation as late as the 1950s.

If a show was repeated, the cast simply performed it again exactly the same way -- there was no technology for recording it. If an actor forgot his lines, a special button was pressed to cut off the sound to the viewer. While the other performers continued mouthing their parts to give the impression that a technical fault had occurred, the culprit was given a prompt. In Do Not Adjust Your Set by Kate Dunn (£18.99, John Murray), stars of the box such as Dame Eileen Atkins, Wendy Craig, the late Sir Nigel Hawthorne recall the frenetic conditions in which such television classics as Dixon of Dock Green and Z Cars were made, and the extraordinary hazards they had to deal with -- scenery collapsed, camera cables combusted, actors went missing, and even died. Kate Dunn's hilarious book captures the humour and ingenuity of those early days through anecdotes of those who were there.