Abstract/Summary

Greece on Air offers the first substantial discussion of the fascinating history of creative and public engagements with ancient Greek literature, history and thought via BBC Radio, from the birth of domestic broadcasting in the 1920s up to the 1960s. The astonishing range of programmes broadcast in this period includes some of the most interesting, creative and political engagements with ideas from and about ancient Greece in twentieth-century Britain, from talks to schools and adult education groups, creative re-imaginings of ancient historical texts written and broadcast as Second World War propaganda and scores of performances of Greek tragedy, comedy and their modern adaptations. Work written by figures such as Patric Dickinson, Gabriel Josipovici, Gilbert Murray, Robert Graves, Louis MacNeice, Edward Sackville-West receives detailed discussed. This book draws on the vast amount of evidence that exists in the extant audio and written archives (both for production processes and also listeners' responses) in order to develop a rounded understanding of the role of the radio medium in public engagements with ancient Greece in mid-twentieth-century Britain.