strstr返回空行而不是字符串的第一部分

I am trying to concatenate a field from an RSS feed in WordPress. An example line of data is:

The Scala in London, - David Ford is touring the UK in support of his brand new 
album, 'Charge', released in March 2013

It displays using this code:

<?php echo esc_html( $item->get_description() ); ?>

I want it to stop just before the , - therefore displaying "The Scala in London"

I have used this code in place of the above code:

<?php echo strstr($item->get_description, "-"); ?>

However it just returns a blank line. What am I doing wrong?