The Third Programme A Literary History

KATE WHITEHEAD

CLARENDON PRESS OXFORD 1787 Oxford Uniirrsify Press, lYblton Street, Oxford 0x2 ~DP Oxjord New lbrk Toronto I>elhi Bonr1)ay Calcutta hfadras Karachi Acknowledgements Petaling Jaya .Tingapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Var es .Sa/aant Cape ?bwn Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in I would like to thank the following people for their kind Bzrlin Ibadan assistance during my research: the late Douglas Cleverdon and Oxford is a trade mark of Oxford Uniuersifj Press John Lehmann, Patric Dickinson, Harman Grisewood, Professor Peter Laslett, Ludovic Kennedy, Ian MacIntyre, Leonard Miall, Published in the United .States P. H. Newby, Piers Plowright, Harry Ritchie, Rosaly Roffman. Iy Oxfork Uniuersify Press, U.TA Dr Michael Weaver supervised the thesis on which this mono- 0 Kate Whitehead 1989 graph is based, and was helpful and enthusiastic throughout. The staff at the BBC Written Archives Centre provided . All rights reserved. No part of this publication nray be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transnritted, in any form or by any means, invaluable assistance during three years' regular attendance and rlectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without enquiry. I must also thank the staff of the Society of Authors, the the prior permission of Oxford Uniuersio Press National Sound Archive, and the Bodleian and Christ Church British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Libraries for all their help. The Department of Education and W'hitehead, Kate. Science was generous in providing me with special travel grants The Third Progranrnre: a literary histov. and allowances, as was Christ Church and the English Faculty of - (Oxford English monographs). the University of Oxford. I. Great Britain. Broadcasting seruices. British Broadcasting Corporation. Radio I I am grateful to the following for kind permission to use seruices. Third Progranm~e,to 1970 material and to quote from copyright sources: the BBC, Frederick I. 7i'tle Bradnum, the iate Dougias Cleverdon, Patric Dickinson, Harman 384.1414'094' ISBN 0-19-812893-2 Grisewood, Professor Peter Laslett, the late John Lehmann, Ved Mehta, Mail Newspapers PLC, A. D. Peters and Co. Ltd. (for I,ibray of Congress Catalogin8 in Publication Data permission to reprint the letters of J. B. Priestley, C. Day Lewis, W'hitehead, Kate. and Rebecca West), P. H. Newby, Punch Magazine, the Society of 7.h~Third Progranrnre: a liferay histoylKate K'hitehead. p. cr.-- (Oxjord English monographs) Authors (on behalf of the Bernard Shaw Estate), Christopher Biblio~rapb~:p. Includes index. Storm-Clark, Harvey Unna and Stephen Durbridge Ltd. (on Great r. British Broadrastiyq Corporation. ?'bird Progranlnre. 2. Radio and littrature behalf of the Giles Cooper Estate), John Wain, A. P. Watt Ltd. Britain. 1. Radio pro~qramr-Great Britain. 4. Radio authorship. 1. 7'itle. 11. Title: 3rd Prqqramnre. 111. .Series. (on behalf of Ved Mehta), Valerie Eliot and Faber & Faber Ltd. ,791.J~,?Z'O~JI - drr9 P~~I~~I.~.I~JI~"~J1988 88-9891 (on behalf of the T. S. Eliot Estate). ISBN o-19-812893-2 Lastly I would like to thank friends and relatives for all their support and encouragement. Typeset by Graphicraft Typesetters Printed in Great Britain by Btddlcs Ltd. Guildford 6 King's Lynn fN IqqL V' L.Sbl'l 5 i qsy 3 4 The Network I The Working Structtrre 3 1 shown later in Chapters 6 and 7). Briefly it can be said that producer regarded his or her relationship with outside writers. He features were usually based on a theme rather than a dramatic lists a number of writers which he labels as 'mine' because he was plot, and therefore tended towards a more documentary style, responsible for commissioning and producing their work; they although there were many exceptions to this definition. Features were almost his protigis: 'as an outside writer of Features scripts, also had a Head, Laurence Gilliam, who presided over the George Orwell was exclusively mine' as were Angus Wilson, department during most of the Third Programme's existence Laurie Lee, Henry Reed, and Muriel Spark.26 until he died in I 964 and the department itself was closed. Gilliam Features producers were encouraged to enlist the talents of was largely responsible for the enormous success of the radio outside writers, partly because the feature was regarded as radio's feature in the post-war years, and, as Cleverdon's description own art-form, and 'the department was, keen to experiment. There shows, he was a popular figure, at least amongst producers in his was occasionally some disagreement between the editorial and department: supply departments over the use of 'outsiders'. The editorial staff A man of wide-ranging interests and of inspiring integrity; he was seemed to prefer using outside writers as much as possible, whilst compassionate and courageous, and would always back a project that producers were usually keen to use their own work or that of had a chance of success rather than reject one that might fail. He was also their colleagues. On one occasion Grisewood voiced his an- a bon viveur, unpunctual, extremely good company, and a tower of noyance with this state of affairs: 'The Third Programme is too strength to his subordinates. To him mainly is due the development of much regarded as an outlet for the wayward inspiration of the features as a radio form.23 otherwise thwarted staff script writer.'27 The system for offering features material to the planners was The Assistant Head of Features was D. G. Bridson, who wrote similar to that used in Drama Department, although there was no a personal account of his involvement in the BBC, Prospero and official liaison producer, just 'a small cell inside the Department, Ariel. In it he gives a succinct description of how decisions were whose main business it will be to stimulate and work out Feature made within the department, a matter of some importance ideas for the Third Pr~gramrne'.~BThus a number of features became of the frequently controversial content of feature pro- producers became known as Third Programme producers, grammes. The producer was responsible for 'all questions of bad because the major part of their work was broadcast by that taste, political bias or any other policy matter'. If he or she was in network. They were Michael Barsley, D. G. Bridson, Douglas doubt, the Head of the department was consulted. Really serious Cleverdon, Francis Dillon, Rayner Heppenstall, Louis MacNeice, matters would then be referred to the Controller of Entertain- Stephen Potter, and W. R. Rodgers. The Third Programme had ment or Director of the Spoken Word, and on up the chain to, specific requirements from Features Department which it set out finally, the Director-General.24 at the beginning: an experimental 'Radio Workshop' piece once The major difference between the roles of producer in Drama every four weeks, a one- to two-hour feature once a fortnight, and and producer in Features was that the latter was usually employed a thirty-minute 'literary or satirical' once a fortnight.29 as a writer as well. Douglas Cleverdon described how one usually The Controllers also seemed quite clear about the type of began as a free-lance writer and was then employed as a staff feature that was required, to judge from the number of forthright writer-producer: 'one would start with producing one's own rejections of suggestions submitted by Features Department. scripts, then progress to doing more elaborate ones, perhaps Even offers made by prestigious 'Third' producers were written by outside writers7.25 Rayner Heppenstall's autobio- graphy gives some interesting insights as to how a features

26 Rayner Heppenstall, Portrait oftbe Artist as a Professioonal Man (London: Peter Owen, 2' Cleverdon, 'The Art of Radio in Britain 1922-66' (TS of unpublished monograph 1969) 23. lent by the author), fo. jr. 27 WAC, RI~/IL~~/J,j July 1948. 28 WAC, RI~/IZ~~/I,31 May 1946. 24 Bridson, Prospero and Ariel, pp. 1oj -6. 25 Cleverdon interview. 29 Ibid., 16 Jan. 1946. The Working Strt/cttrre 4'3 The Network 41 already been written. It will be seen later how on other occasions Cooper's letter to McWhinnie two days after the broadcast indicates that he was very pleased with it: that editorial role became much more substantial in less clear-cut cases. Cooper's later plays were in fact the subject of considerable I would like to congratulate you on your production of Mathry Third Programme editorial discussion, if not interference, despite Beacon. . . . My general feeling was that perhaps a better play might their apparent success with the critics. have been written on this theme, but not by me, which is probably as near as one ought to get to self-satisfaction. It could not have been better produced. Thank-you.42 FEATURE CASE-STUDY

The BBC must also have been very pleased with the play as it was By I 9 j j Henry Reed had become a very popular (in Third the first Drama Department entry for the Prix Italia and the first Programme terms) writer of satirical features. He was also a well- from any department to steal the coveted prize from Features known poet and a translator of European drama, in particular of Department. Indeed the number of repeats of Matdry Beacon itself the plays of Ugo Betti. He had written a series of amusing linked indicates the play's success and reveals that for Cooper it provided features on the subject of the imaginary 'composeress' Hilda a quite substantial income. On top of the EI I j. 10s. (-/;yo() for Tablet and her literary and musical milieu, which were, in effect, the original performance, Cooper received E j 7. I js. (- E3 j 2) satires on British cultural life of the time. They were produced by for the first repeat three days later, another EI I j. 10s. for a second Features Department, rather than Drama Department, mainly it repeat two months later, the same again for its repeat on the Home would seem because Reed's first piece was produced there and he Service on 29 October 19j6, and the same sum once more when it was therefore regarded as Feature's 'property'. The programmes was revived in 1962 in the Giles Cooper Festival on the Third were also deliberate parodies of the literary feature and had no Programme. The recording in the National Sound Archive is of a dramatic plot as such. In fact they could be described as spoof repeat broadcast in March 1980 in the Play Festival of Radio dramatized documentaries. By I 9 j j he was regarded as a fairly Three, for which another fee would have been paid. That makes a prestigious writer and was paid well above the minimum fee. total sum (exciuding any overseas repeats which might have However, this did not stop his work being subject to numerous occurred) of E63j. 1s. (-Ej,877) for approximately four months cuts and alterations by the editorial division because of its risqt/e' work. The play was also published by the BBC in 1966, along content. with five other Cooper plays, for which a further copyright fee The evolution of Reed's programme reveals how Features must have been paid. Depzrtment relied much more or; direct producer-writer contact This account should serve to illustrate the processes through than Drama Department. It made less use of the services of the which an unsolicited original radio play went before being Script Unit, preferring to liaise on a less formal basis. Producers, broadcast. From idea to transmission approximately sixteen therefore, tended to have their 'favourite' writers, and, although months elapsed, only the final six of which involved the really Henry Reed was produced by a number of different people, concentrated effort of either writer or producer. It shows the including Heppenstall, Burroughs, and Livesey, it was Douglas considerable contribution of the supply department, in this case Cleverdon who had produced all the previous Hilda Tablet Drama Department, whose job it was to encourage, pay, and features. He was therefore the first to mention Reed's idea for A judge the writer involved. The editorial role of the Third Hedge Backwards. Programme itself was straightforwardly one of accepting and On I 6 June 19 5 j Cleverdon wrote directly to the Controller of therefore reimbursing Drama Department for a play which had the Third Programme, John Morris, (indicating, in this case, a more direct supply-editorial contact than often found in Drama Department). He suggested two Henry Reed projects, one of 42 WAC, Cooper, SW/rb, zr June 19j6. 42 The Network I The Working Str~lcture 4 3 which had the working title 'A Portrait of Stephen Shewin',43 regarded as a success, earning Reed at least E7j6 (-E4,5 36). later abandoned for 'A Hedge Backwards'. The intervention by the editorial division was clearly resented It would appear that Cleverdon's suggestion alone was suffi- by both Cleverdon and Reed. Two years later, in a letter to Head cient to persuade the Third Programme editorial to commission of Features, Cleverdon asked it two of the cut scenes could be the feature. Even the scheduling seems to have been decided restored for the next repeat: before a contract had been signed or any of the material seen. This Henry Reed is extremely anxious to restore these two scenes, which were less cautious approach compared to that of Drama Department very funny indeed and had considerable satirical and dramatic point. could be explained partly by Reed's prestigious standing, and Considered in vacuo, they might seem to be going too far; but in the partly by the generally informal and personal organization of context of the complete programme, and still more in that of the whole Features as a supply department. series of programmes, I feel convinced that not a single one of the The original scheduling would seem to have been much too numerous Henry Reed fans would now raise the slightest objection.45 optimistic, and Cleverdon was forced to postpone the trans- Cleverdon's main reasons for arguing on Reed's behalf were mission date from 20 November 19jj to the last week of February those of a commissioning producer: he needed to cajole more 1956. The files are very sparse when it comes to correspondence scripts from Reed, who was clearly irritated about the whole affair between Cleverdon and Reed about the writing and production; and had refused to write any more material for radio since the their friendship suggests that discussions were conducted either production of A Hedge Backwards. Reed was clearly a valuable on the telephone or through informal meetings. The next written asset to the Third Programme, being almost their only source of reference to the work appears the day before its transmission, in humour and satire. Their refusal to countenance restoration of the fact on the morning of the day it was to be recorded, in a memo cuts is therefore particularly surprising. from Leslie Stokes (an important member of the Third Pro- Cleverdon's letter clearly went much higher in the hierarchy gramme editorial division) to the Controller of the Third Pro- than Head of Features. There is a reply from R. D. Marriott, gramme.44 It was marked 'Confidential' and 'Very Urgent', and Assistant Director of Sound Broadcasting, refusing tc camply would appear to have had immediate practical effects on the script with Reed's request. According to Bridson's account of the path of A Hedge Backwards. The memo took the form of a warning of censorship rulings up through the hierarchy, Reed narrowly about the feature's 'improprieties', most of which referred to missed reaching the attention of the Director-General. This homosexuality. Although Stokes did not directly suggest cut- indicates the uncertainty of staff on the lower rungs of the ladder ting the script, that was clearly his intention, and he warned of who were unable to give a definite no. the danger of offending not only listeners, but also the BBC Marriott's argument was that, if the feature was 'completely Governors. successful' without the censored passages, he could not justify the It would seem that many of these cuts were hurriedly made risk of offending the public for no reason.46 He made these under orders from the editorial division, as the supply department judgements, however, without having heard a performance. The had so far failed to recognize the improprieties and censor the l main reason for the censorship, however, had nothing to do with feature itself. This must have caused great annoyance to Reed, as the complexities of 'dramatic or satiric value': it was clearly BBC it would have created large gaps in the usually very smooth and policy not to make jokes about homosexuality. 'There is a fairly slick productions of his work. The production was, however, clear ruling, as I understand it, that we should not use this repeated several times, so that despite the censorship it was still particular abnormality as an opportunity for humour and I think we should stick to that.' Whatever the merits of that particular

41 WAC, Henry Reed Contributors File, Script Writer, IC, 16 June 197 1 (hereafter cited i as Reed, SW/tc). I 45 Reed, SWIt, 18 Feb. 1958. 46 Ibid., 24 Feb. 1978. 44 WAC Reed, SW~IC,28 Feb. 1976. i 44 The Network argument Marriott's decision was upheld and all the repeats were left unrevised (i.e. without the cuts restored). Although Reed went on to make two more features of a similarly satirical nature, The Audience the rest of his radio output consisted of straight adaptations and translations of European drama, suggesting a disenchantment with Features Department after his experiences with this partic- THE INTENDED AUDIENCE ular original piece for radio. Well before the Third Programme went on air in 1946 there were This example illustrates the way in which the hierarchy of major differences of opinion over whom the new service would be decision-making came into operation when a piece of writing addressing. Of course that consideration was absolutely central to overstepped the mark. All the informal camaraderie of meetings the new shape of post-war broadcasting. When only one service in The George or The Stag public houses had no power to halt was available, the question really did not arise: the National the bureaucracy once it had been set in motion. Programme was for the Nation, with the Regional 'opt-outs' supposedly just providing for geographical variation. This was broadcasting in Reith's original sense: one central source reaching and (it was hoped) appealing to all, a purely one-way form of communication. It was not until 1936, ten years after the birth of the Corporation, that the need to measure the size and nature of the audience was officially recognized, and the Listener (later Audience) Research Department was set up. During the war the popularity of the General Forces Pro- gramme as an alternative to the Home Service was the first indication for the BBC that a permanent fragmentation of the service might be viable. The constant complaints about the mixture of 'highbrow' and 'lowbrow' material heard before the war had previously fallen on deaf ears. The division into Home, Light, and Third was therefore, a result of pressure as much from those known dismissively as 'tap listeners' who demanded 'light programmes available at all hours between breakfast and bed time', as from the 'serious' or 'discerning' listeners.' This negative impulse for change is described by Paddy Scannell in an article on the BBC's music policy: With more than a touch of weary resignation the post-war radio service was redesigned as a three channel service. . . . This social and cultural streaming marked the end of the attempt to impose a single set of standards and tastes upon the whole of the listening public.2

' Asa Briggs, The Golden Age of Broadcasting, vol ii of The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom (London: Oxford University Press, 1965). 74. Paddy Scannell, 'Music for the Multitude? The Dilemmas of the BBC's Music Policy 1923-1946', Media, Culture and Society, (198 I), 258. 72 The Writer Employer or Patron 73 The theme of broadcasting as a trap for impoverished writers, sapping them of their creative energy, is often repeated. Paul Ferris's biography of Dylan Thomas frequently quotes his complaints about this necessary evil. Here, I am too near London; I undertake all sorts of little jobs, broadcasting etc., which hinder my own work. In Laugharne if I could live there, I would work half the year on my film scripts and half on my own poems and stories; cutting out all time-wasting broadcasts, articles, useless London visits.18 Thomas's work for the BBC is referred to variously as 'bluster- ing', 'hack-jobs', 'scriptlings', and 'radio-whinnies'. But Ferris fails to include a similar number of letters to the BBC begging for more work when money was short; and the final irony is that the drama usually regarded as Thomas's major work was a Third Programme commission, which he described as an 'awful' and 'wretched' script, Under Milk: Wood.

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF WRITING

In I 946 Horixon printed the results of a questionnaire sent out to a Louis MacNeice at work on a feature in I 942. He was to remain a feature number of writers asking them what was a suitable 'bread-and- writer-producer until his death in 1963. butter job' for creative writers. Most of the twenty-one responses I* suggested only work that was completely unrelated to the opportunities to poets, and it will be a matter for regret if they are profession of writing. Working for the BBC was mainly regarded going to be deprived of it.'l6 as journalism or 'hack-work', i.e. to be avoided as a threat to the Another staff writer, Rayner Heppenstall, had a much more creative irnpulse.l9 Henry Reed, as a prominent radiowriter jaundiced view than MasNeise of the eEects of working fcr himself, was less damning, describing it as 'honourable hack- broadcasting, possibly because he had not managed to make such work'. George Orwell, however, who had spent two years a name for himself in the literary world outside. Towards the end working on the BBC staff, did not advocate radio work as a of his autobiography fantasies about suicide are interspersed with satisfactory job for the creative writer: descriptions of the BBC as a trap for writers: 'all ways out of the I think a writer's second occupation should be something non-literary BBC were closed'; the inscription at Broadcasting House should . . . the effort is too much to make if one has already squandered one's have been 'Abandon Hope all ye who enter here.'l7 Heppenstall energies on semi-creative work such as teaching, broadcasting or questioned the wisdom of writers taking a 'bread and butter job' composing propaganda for bodies such as the British Council. so close to their own literary activities, as there was a danger of Herbert Read was in agreement with this: 'jobs in publishers' their creative talent being drained. offices and cultural organizations like the British Council and the BBC are the worst possible kinds of occupation'. '6 W. H. Auden, 'Foreword' to MacNeice, Persons from Porlock (London: BBC Publications, 1969)~9. '8 Paul Ferris, Dylan Thomas (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1977), 221. 17 Rayner Heppenstall, Portrait ofthe Artist as a Professional Man (London: Peter Owen, '9 'Cost of Writing', Horizon, 14/81,Sept. 1946, 140-71. 80 The Writer Employer or Patron 8 I creative writer and that time spent on writing for radio was difficult to publish anything at all was clearly on the minds of the wasted, as the result could not be transferred to the writer's own participants and was one strong point in the BBC's favour. medium of print.' Another point under discussion was that of writing for a mass The next of these dinners appears to have been arranged almost audience. Raine and Greene said that they envisaged an individual a year later in November 1947, but suffered a setback before the or small group when writing for the page, and that they were event when the two 'guests of honour', T. S. Eliot and Cyril disconcerted at the prospect of writing for millions. But Michael Connolly, declined to accept the invitation. Herbert Read atten- Tippett reassured them by stressing the similarity of the two ded once again, along with John Lehmann, and the remaining audiences: 'radio is received by an individual . . . the writer must guests were staff members. However, several constructive ideas not think of his work being received en masse.' were put forward and discussed. It was suggested that a number Barnes's dinners ended when he was promoted to Director of of writers should be invited individually to meet and discuss radio the Spoken Word at the beginning of 1948, and a memo he wrote writing with a member of Third Programme staff and a BBC on leaving the Third Programme showed that there was still writer-producer: 'the importance of personal contact was plenty to be done to encourage more original writing. All the stressed owing to the universal feeling amongst young writers effort radio staff had put into making contact with writers and that the BBC was a large organisation which was difficult to 'tackling the obstacles . . . such as finance, the difficulty of the approach.'35 The second suggestion was that a summer school or medium, the lack of any other market for a radio script' had led to course for young writers should be run by the BBC with lectures a 'trickle of original writing and creative adaptations', for and closed circuit performances of radio works they had written. example works by Reed, Read, and Grigson.37 The concrete Next came the proposal that the BBC should set up scholarships suggestion Barnes made in this memo was that of creating two for writers as well as a competition for an original piece for radio. 'writers' contracts' for a year, to allow writers time to learn the Other suggestions included providing a document outlining 'the necessary techniques and experiment without any financial pres- possibilities and limitations of radio' together with a list of books sures. The type of 'promising' writer he had in mind is illustrated on the subject, and making contact with the experimental by the names he listed: G. S. Fraser, Henry Reed, and Dylan theatres, 'e.g. Poets Theatre Guild, Boltons, Mercury etc.', in Thomas. order to tempt their writers to try radio as a medium. If Barnes's suggestion had been taken up it would have The third dinner was held a month later, and on this occasion complicated further the already awkward distinction made be- the theme ef ephemerality raised by Herbert Read at the first tween 'outside' writers and those writer-producers on rhe BBC dinner was re-examined. The dinner was attended by Graham staff. The latter, who were all from within Features Department, Greene, Geoffrey Grigson, Kathleen Raine, Henry Reed, and received a salary but no payment for the radio scripts they Michael Tippett. It was claimed that poets, in particular, desired produced. Therefore a 'contract' writer would have to be half- permanence for their work: 'In writing lyrics the poet, like the way between 'outsider' and 'staff '. The bureaucratic problems this composer, is seeking perfection, and the permanence of print is would have caused were probably responsible for the idea's being necessary to him.'36 Kathleen Raine said that 'she would prefer to shelved until the mid-1960s. The distinction between inside and adapt her work in print for radio than to write for radio and adapt outside writers was not made merely on financial grounds. The it for print'. The point was later made that 'permanence is also Third Programme attached far more prestige to commissioned affected by reward and many writers feel that they should give scripts from writers with a good reputation in the outside literary their energy to something which may produce a permanent world. There were frequent complaints that Features Department income from royalties'. The fact that writers were finding it very was too reliant on staff products. The writer-producers would

j7 WAC, R19/1rgj/y, 27 1948. j5 WAC, R19/933/2, ro Nov. 1947. 36 Ibid., j Dec. 1947. Feb. i 88 The Writer 1 Employer or Patron 89 I 1966 Barry Hines and Roy Minton received Lr5o (-h1,362) each the BBC'. In the same year Charles Parker (a particularly to allow them to 'find time for serious writing' over the following innovative features producer) suggested that discussion should be six months.53 There was no obligation for them to produce broadened to include academic interests as well, 'to get some of anything, but first refusal on anything they did produce was to the livelier academics: Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, plus be given to the Corporation. Both had written a few plays for perhaps somebody like Leavis and rub their noses in the re- broadcasting before. discovery of an oral tradition which is really the essence of sound Another attempt to encourage outside writers to submit broadcasting'.56 It would seem that this plan was put off until the original work was the organization of a number of Features following year, when it again had to be cancelled because of lack Conferences during the 1950s and early 1960s. The first confer- of interest from the said academics. Kingsley Amis also declined ence specifically designed to be open to outsiders, which was held the invitation to speak on the effect on writers and broadcasters of in 1956, had the general theme of 'Experiment and the Future of changing attitudes and tastes in the British public, saying that the Sound Broadcasting'. (Previous conferences had been mainly subject was 'too important for the time at hand7.57 intended as training exercises for Features producers.) It was The 1962 conference was set up in advance as specifically recognized that the creative writer was central to the whole designed to involve writers: 'our aim would be education and the subject: 'Of a11 the possible contributors to the future of sound establishment of a sense of common purpose in the sphere of broadcasting . . . the writer is the most imponant.'54 Three radio writing and production7.58 The Times listed the attendance 'influential' writers were suggested as speakers: Alan Pryce-Jones, of the following writers: 'Dannie Abse, Dominic Behan, Caryl Anthony Powell, and John Hayward. It was felt that if these three Churchill, Giles Cooper, Ivor Cutler, Colin Finbow, Constantine perceived the BBC as 'being really anxious to encourage good Fitzgibbon, James Hanley, Philip Levene, Jean Morris, John writers, everybody would soon know about it'. They also wanted Mortimer, Bill Naughton, Stephen Potter, Simon Raven, Henry three 'rising younger writers': 'Kingsley Amis, John Raymond Reed, Ian Rodger, Vernon Scannell, Martin Shuttleworth, Piers and Michael Swan . . . a nice porridge of talent, influence and Stephens, Gwyn Thome, Francis Watson, Donald Cotton.'59 disappointed hopes'. Despite the absence of a number of invited writers (including A brief report on the proceedings expressed the concern of Harold Pinter, William Golding, Muriel Spark, and Ted Hughes) writers present about the future of the feature and their insistence the conference was regarded as successful and worth turning into that the BBC 'must make greater efforts to be a patron, a sponsor an annual event. However, the death of Gilliam in 1964 and the and a publisher of first-class, new and original work for the end of Features Department the following year meant that this broadcasting medium'.55 Writers and producers also wanted to particular avenue of communication between the BBC and know 'what real limitations on freedom of expression' applied creative writers did not remain open for much longer. when working for the BBC. One of the problems encountered by producers when they In 1918 McWhinnie suggested that the conferences should were trying to encourage writers to submit scripts was the very involve Drama Department producers and writers as well as those i poor standard of press reviewing of radio. Writers were even less from Features Department. Each year the role of the creative 1 likely to co-operate if they knew that there was very little writer featured strongly and several well-known writers were 1 likelihood of their work being mentioned, let alone sensibly involved. In 1960 Harold Pinter took part in a discussion with 1 criticized in the newspapers. MacNeice, chaired by McWhinnie and entitled 'The Writer and In 1961 the Times Literary Supplement started to take notice of 1 the fact that radio and television existed and were perhaps worthy 53 'BBC Pays Bursaries to Writers', Guardian, 24 Feb. 1966. 54 WAC. Features and Drama Conferences, File 2. 14 Feb. 1~76(hereafter cited as 1 F&DC/t). 56 WAC, F&DC/3, 21 Mar. 1960. 5' Ibid., tj Aug. 1961. 55 WAC, F&DC/r, 19 July 1976. 58 Ibid., 29 Mar. 1962. 59 The Times, r Nov. 1962. 114 The Programmes The Radio Feature 115 do exactly what they wanted. Muriel Spark introduced her most unlikely that the Third Programme, the most unique and perhaps published collection of radio pieces as follows: the most important of British contributions to Broadcasting in general, would ever have been thought 0f.17 I never quite grasped the distinction between dramatic features and plays except to discern what was in my favour, namely the freedom to do as I One of the most important new techniques to emerge during pleased with characters and voices without thought of conforming to a the war years was the use of magnetic tape, as opposed to discs, settled category.13 for pre-recording material. This meant not only that material Other writers were strictly pragmatic in their choice of depart- could be easily edited and shaped after it had been recorded (thus ment. Henry Reed corresponded at length with Rayner Heppen- reducing the need for scripted contributions), but also that the stall (from Features Department) about his 'play' Leopardi, despite equipment, when in later years it became less cumbersome, could wanting Drama Department to produce it when finished because be taken out of the studio to record ordinary people and events on of its strong links with the theatre: 'he wished this to be regarded their own ground. as a play . . . it makes it more easily publishable and possibly One can imagine that this new technology might have seemed more easily adaptable for the stage'.'4 like a threat to the feature writer whose special skill lay in The splitting up of Features and Drama Department was recreating real events in the script to be enacted in front of the occurring during 1945 and 1946, at the same time as the new microphone. Indeed Ian Rodger (a producer in Drama Depart- Third Programme was being planned. Indeed the emergence of ment) felt such fears might have been justified: the new network was easily as influential in the development of Despite all the imaginative work which had been instigated by Gilliam the feature as the new-found freedom from the constraints of its and his colleagues, the portable tape recorder was regarded with wartime propagandist role and its former association with Drama. suspicion and hostility. . . . This distaste for the new gadget is perhaps Cleverdon described the feeling of freedom and opportunity understandable. Writers, composers, producers, actors and musicians that the new Third Programme instilled in features producers had evolved a complex and very fruitful creative relationship.18 who 'found themselves encouraged to undertake programmes that hitherto they had only dreamt of, on a scsl~that was However, Gilliam himself described the new technology in far inconceivable during the war years'.l5 This sense of scope was more positive terms: almost regarded as a reward for services rendered during the war, The listener himself, and the world in which he lived, provided a rich and as a further stimulation to continue the development of new field of programme material. . . . With the development of mobile techniques which had been discovered during that time. Indeed recording techniques, this material was put at the disposal of the maker Clas Zilliacus in his book Beckett and Broadcasting suggests that of feature programmes. His business was with reality; real men and Features Unit was a major factor in the commencement of the women, in their natural setting-at home, in the places where they Third Programme: 'to a considerable extent, the founding of the worked, or where they played. The feature producer no longer had to imitate reality. It was in his power to go direct to the source, photograph Third Programme can be attributed to deeds done by features it in sound, and then edit and shape it." people in the heroic age' (i.e. during the Second World War).'6 Even Val Gielgud paid the rival department a similar compli- It would seem that, in the general mood of innovation and ment: enthusiasm in the department, the new technique was embraced It can reasonably be claimed that without the prestige achieved by by several producers as just that quality needed finally to certain Feature Programmes, their producers, and their authors, it is distinguish the feature from the play and allow it to become

'3 hluriel Spark, Voices at Play (London: Macmillan, 1971). 3. 17 Val Gielgud, Briti~hRadio Drama (London: Harrap, 1937). jz. 14 LVAC, RI~/J~O,18 June 1947. 15 Cleverdon, 'Art of Radio', fo .44. '8 Ian Rodger, Radio Drama (London: Macmillan, 198r), 92-3. 16 Clas Zilliacus, Beckett and Broadcasting (Helsinki: Acta Academiae Aboensis, 1976), I 3. 19 Gilliam, BBC Features, p. I I. I 28 The Programmes The Radio Feature 129 writers in its preference for the 'prestigious'. Heppenstall re- peated his reasoning for keeping the format in a letter to Gilliam after the series had been running for a year. He described it as a form that was consciously literary as opposed to radiogenic, designed to encourage 'known writers' too 'set in their ways' to learn to write for radio: I think new writers whom one wishes to encourage to write for radio should really write for radio and not-in other words-write mere imaginary conversations. What lustre this series has is due to the distinction and finish of the minds of the writers-and not to its being really a radio form at a11.39 Heppenstall, therefore, was not simply excluding new writers, he wanted them to work on worthier projects, in those genres devised with the radio medium specifically in mind. There is at least one example of an Imaginary Conversations script by a new writer being transferred to the Home Service series, First Hearing, which was designed for that very purpose. The existence of this series on the Home Service is a good example of how Features Department was keen to get its work to as large an audience as possible. Professor Nevi11 Coghill (left) and Herbert Read at the microphone. Heppenstall suffered from the common difficulty of persuading Both men contributed many talks on a range of cultural subjects. authors to fulfil their commissions: 'the difficulty of extracting Coghill's translation of The Canterbuy Tales was the result of a special scripts from established writers with any rapidity is extreme'.40 In Third Programme Commission. 1952 he was still nurturing some hope of persuading Greene to contribute. 'There was a time at which Graham Greene was The series comprised thirty separate programmes, divided into proposing to write an Imaginat-y Conversation. At a suitable moment I will see whether he could not be got back into this three sections and running from October I 946 to August I 9 j 3. The first set of programmes was published in book form with an frame of mind.'41 Predictably perhaps, Heppenstall did not introduction by Heppenstall in 1948. Those writers who were succeed in this mission. 1948 finally persuaded to contribute included Edward Hyams, Pamela Another of these special series began in and was entitled Hansford Johnson, Marghanita Laski, Rose Macaulay, John The Inward Eye. Robert Gittings first suggested the series in a Middleton Murray, Sean O'Faolain, V. S. Pritchett. Herbert letter to Gilliam: Read, Henry ~eed,and Edward Sackville-West. ~lthbu~hLis- Feature programmes so far have excelled in the strictly factual presenta- tener Research reports showed many of the programmes to have tion of an event or an idea. I believe that there is an equally fruitful field been quite successful, Heppenstall was subject to criticism from in a series of programmes which would present the same type of events within Features Department. The features producer Robert or fact through the eye of the poet or the imaginative writer.42 Gittings called the series 'literary whimsy' in a letter to George Barnes,38 whilst a recurring objection was that it excluded new

39 Ibid., 4 Sept. 1947. 40 Ibid., 51 Aug. 1948. 'WAC, RI~/~z~/I,12 Mar. 1947. 41 Ibid., 8 Feb. 1952. 42 WAC, R191564, 22 Apr. 1948. 1j4 The Programmes Poetry Programmes Controller of the Third Programme (now Harman Grisewood), I don't believe we should have our withers wrung by Youth in this aided by a talks producer, George Macfarlane. However, this matter of Poetry. . . . There is . . . a very large number of young people situation was regarded as unsatisfactory, and a search began for a and people not-so-young who write verse with considerable facility; 'specialist', not merely a producer who possessed 'by accident, as very few of these have a grown-up critical view of it; and very few indeed are any good at all. I don't believe we miss much of any it were, the requisite knowledge of a field of subject matter almost . . . quality. . . . Out of the verse of quality which we see and which is as large as that of music itself'. Harding set out the precise role of published . . . there isn't a great deal which the Third Programme can the new post of Poetry Editor, which was largely to organize, broadcast.9 select, and advise on the programmes being made by the producers. The main qualifications required were a detailed Grisewood' was clearly concerned about the problem of the knowledge of 'current and modern poetry', extensive contacts in intelligibility of broadcast poetry, and the new editorial policy the world of poetry, and 'acute critical faculties combined with with its emphasis on a poem's suitability for radio, was definitely catholicity of taste and independence of judgement'.8 The impli- designed to bear that in mind. cation was that either an academic or a critic would be most Attention must be given to what in the quality of the poem can be suitable. communicated by a first hearing of it. This requirement leads to a special It would appear that no single person could be found with the interest in narrative or dramatic verse which can be expected to hold the required qualifications; so a search began for a committee of interest of the listener in the connected theme of the subject. The outside advisers. Several names were mentioned, including intention of the policy is to try during the next few months to rehabilitate the poetry broadcast so that it takes its place as an attractive Maurice Bowra, Lord David Cecil, Roy Fuller, Geoffrey Grigson, item on equal terms with other sorts of broadcasting and is no longer L. C. Knights, John Lehmann, Rose Macaulay, Henry Reed, and thought of as merely of minority interest.10 Edward Sackville-West. Mary Somerville, who was Assistant Controller of Talks at the time, suggested a rota of poetry The new arrangement of having three outside advisers seems planners to be changed every three months, to ensure a varied not to have been particularly successful, as it was terminated six selection of poetry. months after the original three were appointed, and no new Eventually, at the beginning of 1950, three editors were advisers were selected. There was instead a return to the single chosen, all of them from Oxford: Nevi11 Coghill, Lord David internal co-ordinator without official recognition, on this occasion Cecil, and John Bryson (the latter to be nominally in charge). The Geoffrey Bridson. Bridson, like Dickinson, was a features pro- editorship was to be a part-time job in addition to their normal ducer and script-wrirer who also wrote poetry. academic duties. Responsibility for the poetry output of the Third Bridson outlined his proposals for the running of the poetry Programme had therefore been passed from a practising poet and programmes in a lengthy memo. He suggested the continuation producer to a group of outside academics. The emphasis inevit- of an advisory committee, together with two 'co-editors' from ably shifted to poetry of the past, selected specifically for its Features Department to work in collaboration.^ As well as the 'broadcast qualities' and designed to improve the image of the usual slot for 'new poetry', Bridson described for the first time a poetry programme. This was clearly a reaction to the high space for 'Specially Commissioned Poetry', a venture which was proportion of contemporary poetry used by Dickinson, which, to prove especially prestigious for the Third Programme: 'A case because it was unfamiliar and often somewhat obscure, tended to would be made out for commissioning poems (either on partic- make puzzling listening. Grisewood was not particularly in ular themes or otherwise) from poets of reputation or promise. favour of broadcasting the poetry of young writers, as the These would be conceived primarily in terms of the microphone.' following extract from a memo of 195 I indicates:

WAC, R19/933/3. 28 June 19>1. lo WAC, R19/93j/r, 27 Apr. 19jo. " Ibid., n. d. (c.June 1910). I 62 The Programmes Poetry Programmes 163 question rather than a conscious critical stance. He was virtually was still a preponderance of poetry read straight off the printed predicting the end of the printed poem, warning poets that they page (even if as yet unpublished). P. H. Newby, looking back on ignored the new medium at their peril: this period in a lecture given in 1976, emphasized this: 'the main interest of poets in broadcasting has been in the reading aloud of For the modern poet to ignore that immense radio audience is poems they would have written anyway.'27 One explanation for tantamount to his admitting that he has either nothing to say worth this is that producers were keen for poets to write not just people's hearing-or that he lacks the technique for making them specifically for the medium but in the medium's own form, which understand and appreciate it. There seems every likelihood, in point of they believed to be the feature. It was not enough simply to fact, that the vast majority of contemporary poets will soon have realised compose oral poetry; poets should adapt to the new genres of and seized the opportunities which radio offers them. Some of them have already begun to think of radio as their primary means of radio-writing, which by definition could no longer be described expression: the rest may live to find it their only means of expression. as 'poems'. Newby again made this point in his lecture: 'poetry . . . is not a performing art. The poets like Auden and MacNeice He did not specify which poets he had in mind when referring to and Henry Reed, have done something different for broadcasting those who considered radio their 'primary means of expression', -they have written plays; Ted Hughes, Peter Porter and Peter but in the introduction to his own book of radio poetry, The Redgrove too.' Christmas Child, he gives a list of poets strongly influenced by the poets were therefore commissioned to write works under a new medium. 'Archibald MacLeish, Louis MacNeice, Laurie Lee, variety of headings, 'verse plays', 'dramatic monologues', 'radio- Terence Tiller, Henry Reed and others, have taken to radio as to a phonic poems' (making as much use of mztsiqzte contrite as of the new dramatic medium.'26 spoken word), 'ballad operas', and so on. These categories took Most of the poetry written especially for the Third Programme them well out of the format of the poetry 'magazine' or would have been commissioned in advance. It was too much of a 'anthology' (straight translations from the printed to the oral risk for poets to spend time writing for such a specific market medium) and into a genre of programme which could never be without some indication that their work wauld be 'bought'. Of adequately recorded in printed form, and therefore has very rarely course, the burden of risk then passed to the Corporation, who been regarded as part of their 'literary' output. could well end up paying for a totally unsuitable work. Therefore, Another reason for the small number of specially written or special commissions tended to be given to 'established' poets who commissioned poems was poets' reluctance to work for the would bring prestige to the programme, virtually regardless of mcbiiim. The tone oi missionary zeai in the articies by C. Day- what they produced. Lewis and Bridson is enough to indicate the hostility of the poets One such poet was of course C. Day-Lewis who, as well as they were trying to convince. As well as sharing the general having many of his published poems broadcast, wrote New Year's suspicion felt by all writers, poets were particularly loath to Eue specifically for the Third Programme, which also commis- adulterate the most venerated of literary forms for a new medium. sioned him to undertake the major task of translating The Aeneid. The whole mythology of the author as a being isolated, inspired, Another was David Gascoyne, whose radiophonic poem, Night and removed from worldly life was most applicable to their own Thoughts, was commissioned in I 9 5 3 and broadcast two years profession, particularly as poetry was possibly the least popular of later. literary genres at the time. However, taken in relation to the large amount of poetry read The files show several tantalizing glimpses of failed attempts to on the air, there were few 'specially written' and even fewer woo poets to the BBC's side. Names would be listed as 'suitable to 'specially commissioned' poems for the Third Programme. There be commissioned for Third Programme', approaches would be

26 D. G. Bridson, The Christmas Child (London: Falcon, 1950). 10.