Greece on Air Engagements with Ancient Greece on BBC Radio, 1920s-1960s

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 the 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, Wrigley draws on the vast amount of evidence that exists in the written archives (both for production processes and also listeners' responses) to develop a full understanding of the role of the radio medium in public engagements with ancient Greece in twentieth-century Britain.

Dr Amanda Wrigley is Research Associate on the three-year AHRC-funded project Screen Plays: Theatre Plays on British Television at the University of Westminster. She also serves as Associate Lecturer on the ten-month distance-learning course Exploring the Classical World for The Open University.

List of illustrations
List of abbreviations
Note on conventions
Part One
Introduction. Broad(-er)casting ancient Greece
1. Mass media and classics, the public and cultural elitism
2. The contexts of programme-making
3. Listening in
Part Two
4. Gilbert Murray: 'radio Hellenist', 1925-1956
5. Greek history in the wartime propaganda of Louis MacNeice
6. The poetry and drama of Homeric epic, 1943-1969
7. Greek tragedy: the case of Aeschylus' Agamemnon, 1946-1976
8. Post-war Greek comedy
Conclusion. Public property; or, classics for all
Appendix. Production chronology
Bibliography
Index