Louis MacNeice: the classical radio plays

Wrigley, A. and Harrison, S. J., eds. (2013) Louis MacNeice: the classical radio plays. Classical Presences. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp456. ISBN 9780199695232

Abstract/Summary

This volume presents eleven radio scripts written and produced by Louis MacNeice (1907-1963) over the span of his twenty-year career at the BBC, during which he wrote and produced well over a hundred radio scripts on an impressively wide range of topics. This volume's selection, which includes all but one published for the first time, illustrates the various ways that MacNeice re-worked on particular and recurrent source of material for radio broadcast - ancient Greek and Roman history and literature from authors as diverse as Homer, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Xenophon, Petronius, Apuleius and Horace. MacNeice's classical education combined with his poetic voice and radio practitioner expertise brought the ancient world imaginatively alive for a massive, popular audience. Each of the scripts is prefaced by an introduction detailing the political and broadcasting contexts, the relationship of the script with ancient texts, notes on cast and credits, and the reception of each radio programme amongst contemporary listeners. The volume includes a general introduction which seeks to contextualise the scripts in MacNeice's life and wider radio oeuvre and also an appendix detailing extant scripts and recordings