Amanda Wrigley
I am Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Film, Theatre and Television at the University of Reading, working on the AHRC-funded research project on Harold Pinter (2017-19). Prior to this, I was Mid-Career Research Fellow at the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research, Birmingham City University (2016-17), and Research Fellow in the School of Media, Arts and Design at the University of Westminster (2011-17), working with John Wyver on the AHRC-funded Screen Plays: Theatre Plays on British Television project and its impact. I have also held positions at the University of Oxford, Northwestern University, Illinois and The Open University.
I work on contextual histories of 20th-century British radio and television programmes, especially those which engage with theatre and literary forms. Areas of particular interest are adaptation, intermediality, education and audiences.
I am currently completing my third monograph, Greece on Screen: Greek Plays on British Television, and writing essays on various topics including literary education on interwar radio, oral poetry and the aural imagination, the afterlives of literary radio features, Greek tragedy in schools television curricula of the 1960s and Arthur Miller on television.
I am co-editing three edited collections: Theatre Plays on British Television, with John Wyver (Manchester, 2018); Ancient Greece on British Television, with Fiona Hobden (Edinburgh, 2018); and Radio Modernisms: Features, Cultures and the BBC, with Aasiya Lodhi (a special issue of Media History, 2018).
I am Associate Editor of The Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media and a member of the UK Radio Archives Advisory Committee.
See http://amandawrigley.wordpress.com for details of my publications and forthcoming talks and events.
I work on contextual histories of 20th-century British radio and television programmes, especially those which engage with theatre and literary forms. Areas of particular interest are adaptation, intermediality, education and audiences.
I am currently completing my third monograph, Greece on Screen: Greek Plays on British Television, and writing essays on various topics including literary education on interwar radio, oral poetry and the aural imagination, the afterlives of literary radio features, Greek tragedy in schools television curricula of the 1960s and Arthur Miller on television.
I am co-editing three edited collections: Theatre Plays on British Television, with John Wyver (Manchester, 2018); Ancient Greece on British Television, with Fiona Hobden (Edinburgh, 2018); and Radio Modernisms: Features, Cultures and the BBC, with Aasiya Lodhi (a special issue of Media History, 2018).
I am Associate Editor of The Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media and a member of the UK Radio Archives Advisory Committee.
See http://amandawrigley.wordpress.com for details of my publications and forthcoming talks and events.
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Monographs by Amanda Wrigley
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.
CONTENTS:
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
This performance history of classical texts, especially those by the Greek dramatists, illuminates contemporary responses to debates on such matters as the position of women students, the ‘dangers’ perceived to be associated with undergraduate acting, and the position of classics within the curriculum at the University of Oxford. The book consistently engages with the history of theatrical performance of ancient plays beyond Oxford, for example, John Masefield’s Boars Hill Players, Penelope Wheeler’s Greek plays at the Front, and the link with the London stage through companies touring to Oxford, such as that led by Sybil Thorndike. Many of these engagements with Greek drama were facilitated by the connection with the classical scholar Gilbert Murray, who plays a central part in the history.
This performance history of classical texts, especially those by the Greek dramatists, illuminates contemporary responses to debates on such matters as the position of women students, the ‘dangers’ perceived to be associated with undergraduate acting, and the position of classics within the curriculum at the University of Oxford. The book consistently engages with the history of theatrical performance of ancient plays beyond Oxford, for example, John Masefield’s Boars Hill Players, Penelope Wheeler’s Greek plays at the Front, and the link with the London stage through companies touring to Oxford, such as that led by Sybil Thorndike. Many of these engagements with Greek drama were facilitated by the connection with the classical scholar Gilbert Murray, who plays a central part in the history.
CONTENTS:
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
1. Introduction: performing antiquity in Oxford, 1500s-2000s
2 The academic drama in the humanist curriculum and culture of Oxford
--- 2.1 William Gager's defence of acting
--- 2.2 Catalogue of plays in the 16th and 17th centuries
3. 'The Young Men in Women's Clothes': from the classical burlesques of the 1860s to the 1880 Agamemnon
--- 3.1 Classical burlesques in Oxford and the great London scandal
--- 3.2 The 1880 Agamemnon and Jowett's sanction of drama
4. Productions in ancient Greek by OUDS, 1887-1914
--- 4.1 Alcestis in 1887: melodrama in the New Theatre!
--- 4.2 Aristophanes revitalized: music and 'stage business' in the 1892 Frogs
--- 4.3 The importance of Hubert Parry's music in OUDS' Aristophanic tradition, 1897-1914
5. Women, war and Gilbert Murray
--- 5.1 Robert Bridges' Demeter at Somerville College, 1904
--- 5.2 Penelope Wheeler, Greek plays at the Front, and the Boars Hill Players
--- 5.3 Sybil Thorndike and post-WWI productions of Murray's translations
6. OUDS, college and Playhouse productions, 1920s-1960s
7. The Balliol Players, 1923-1927: social idealism and performances for Thomas Hardy
8. Balliol Players, 1928-1939: 'a first-class excuse for legitimate vagabondage'
--- 8.1 The end of one era, and the beginning of another
--- 8.2 The film of the 1934 Ajax
--- 8.3 Towards the Second World War
9. The Aristophanic Balliol Players, 1947-1977
Appendix. Production chronology
Bibliography
REVIEWS:
Bryn Mawr Classical Review (September 2011)
Oxford Today 24.3.
Edited volumes by Amanda Wrigley
The volume thus seeks to explore MacNeice's literary relationship with classical antiquity, including engagements with authors such as Homer, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Xenophon, Petronius, Apuleius, and Horace, in a variety of types of programmes from wartime propaganda work, which used ancient Greek history to comment on the international situation, to lighter entertainment programmes drawing on the Roman novel. MacNeice's educational background in classics, combined with his skill as a writer and his ability in exploring radio's potential for creative work, resulted in programmes which brought the ancient world imaginatively alive for a massive, popular audience at home and abroad.
Each script is prefaced by an individual introduction, written by the editors and guest contributor Gonda Van Steen, detailing the political and broadcasting contexts, the relationship of the script with classical antiquity, notes on cast and credits, and the reception of each script's radio performance amongst contemporary listeners. The volume opens with Wrigley's general introduction which seeks to contextualise the scripts in MacNeice's wider life and work for radio, and it includes an appendix of extant MacNeicean scripts and recordings.
CONTENTS:
Preface
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Archival Sources
Editorial Conventions
Introduction, by Amanda Wrigley: Louis MacNeice, Classical Antiquity, and BBC Radio: From Wartime Propaganda to Radio Plays
Radio scripts:
--- The March of the 10,000 (1941)
--- The Glory that is Greece (1941)
--- Pericles (1943)
--- The Golden Ass (1944)
--- Cupid and Psyche (1944)
--- A Roman Holiday (1945)
--- Enter Caesar (1946)
--- Enemy of Cant (1946)
--- Trimalchio s Feast (1948)
--- Carpe Diem (1956)
--- Hades (1960)
Appendix: Extant Scripts and Recordings
Bibliography
Index
REVIEWS:
"lucid, useful and entertaining" --- Kate Clanchy, The Times Literary Supplement
"Each script has a further introduction of its own ... These explain the classical literature and history drawn on, and highlight relevant contemporary context particularly essential to understanding the fast-moving historical backdrop to the war propaganda ... The annotations to the scripts strike a good balance between being full, accurate, and yet succinct. They illuminate the classical sources further and offer much interesting information besides" --- Tom Walker, The Cambridge Quarterly
"Wrigley and Harrison have done a valuable service to reception studies. Film and television may still draw the lion's share of attention, but with the appearance of this impressive volume, it will now be impossible to deny the important place of radio in the history of twentieth-century reception of the classics." --- Thomas R. Keith, The Classical Journal
"without exception lucid and informative." --- Philip Burton, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
The essays have a particular focus on how acts of translation, performance, and reception of Greek drama represent and encourage reflections on international dialogues in this period. As will be seen, the authors have interpreted international dialogues in a variety of ways, including commentary on war and global politics, the creative exchange of ideas and promotion of ideologies, trends in performance, and internationally touring theater productions. Common themes arising from these discussions include the often interlinked concepts of tradition, identity, and migration.
ESSAYS
Greek Drama in the First Six Decades of the Twentieth Century: Tradition, Identity, Migration
read first paragraph
Amanda Wrigley
Toward a National Heterotopia: Ancient Theaters and the Cultural Politics of Performing Ancient Drama in Modern Greece
Eleftheria Ioannidou
Oedipus, Shmedipus: Ancient Greek Drama on the Yiddish Stage
Debra Caplan
‘The Kingdom of Heaven within Us’: Inner (World) Peace in Gilbert Murray’s Trojan Women
Simon Perris
Touring the Ivies with Iphigenia, 1915
Niall W. Slater
Is Mr Euripides a Communist? The Federal Theatre Project’s 1938 Trojan Incident
Robert Davis
Oedipus and Afrikaans Theater
Betine Van Zyl Smit
"Now the struggle is for all!" (Aeschylus's Persians 405): What a Difference a Few Years Make When Interpreting a Classic
Gonda Van Steen
Oedipus, Suez, and Hungary: T. S. Eliot’s Tradition and The Elder Statesman
Michael Simpson
RESEARCH NOTES
African-American Classicist William Sanders Scarborough and the 1921 Film of the Orestia at Cambridge University
Michele Valerie Ronnick
Alberto Savinio’s Alcesti di Samuele in the Aftermath of the Second World War
Giulia Torello
Politics, War, and Adaptation: Ewan MacColl’s Operation Olive Branch, 1947
Claire Warden
Aristophanes and Douglas Young
C. W. Marshall
AFTERWORD
Lorna Hardwick
Interdisciplinary essays by specialists in Classics, Theatre, and Modern Literatures trace the international performance history of Aristophanic comedy, and its implication in aesthetic and political controversies, from antiquity to the twenty-first century. The story encompasses Jonson's satire, Cromwell's Ireland, German classicism, British Imperial India, censorship scandals in France, Greece and South Africa, Brechtian experiments in East Berlin, and musical theatre from Gilbert and Sullivan to Stephen Sondheim.
REVIEWS:
‘This volume, produced under the auspices of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, contains an all-encompassing performance history of three plays of Aristophanes’ Old Comedy from their first performance to the present day. Aristophanic comedy, despite its highly politicized, sexual, and time-bound humour, is shown to be the touchstone of comedy, influential from the Renaissance onwards.’ — Regine May, Modern Language Review 103.3, July 2008, 807-08
‘This exceptionally handsome and well-produced volume... Its scope, as its title indicates, is very broad, and most of its readers are likely to be selective in the use they make of it. Roughly half of the essays discuss twentieth-century productions of Aristophanes’ plays and there is, inevitably, an emphasis upon the problems involved in translation in both the narrower (linguistic) and the broader (theatrical/cultural) senses of the term.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 45.3 (2009), 351-54
‘There are dozens of plates in this volume, and the visual record of the performances described can be of great interpretative value for the reader. There is a healthy range in the scale of these performances: university productions or small-scale professional (or semi-professional) shows stand alongside much better funded and larger scale endeavours. This is, I feel, essential.’ — C. W. Marshall, Phoenix LXIV.1-2, 2010, 172-75
Papers by Amanda Wrigley
---
En 1962, la chaîne de télévision commerciale du Royaume-Uni diffusait, en grec moderne et sans sous-titres, une version filmée en studio de l’Électre de Sophocle, mise en scène par Dimitris Rondiris et interprétée en tournée internationale par le Peiraïkon Theatron. Contre toute attente, ce fut un succès retentissant. Cet article explore les modalités de ce succès, à la fois parmi les 2,5 millions d’auditeurs et auprès des critiques de presse, à la lumière d’une question cruciale : celle de la barrière linguistique. On s’intéressera notamment à la beauté, à l’intensité, à l’émotion perçues comme émergeant de l’expressivité des chorégraphies, et de la musicalité du grec chanté et parlé. Cette étude aborde également l’importance décisive des autres modes de communication, plus prosaïques, utilisés pour transmettre au public quelques informations essentielles sur les personnages et l’action de la pièce.
Radio 3 thirty years later. This case-study demonstrates the importance of the radio medium in the reception history of Greek tragedy in twentieth-century Britain, and attempts to open up the discussion of the social and cultural impact of these productions. The radio medium, in permeating cultural, economic, and geographical boundaries, undoubtedly brought knowledge and experience of Greek tragedy in performance to an audience which was at once massive and diverse, and situated beyond the theatrical and educational spheres usually occupied by Greek tragedy. Attention is focused on the collaborative relationship between radio producers (such as Val Gielgud, Raymond Raikes, and John Theocharis) and translators and writers (such as Louis MacNeice, Philip Vellacott and Gabriel Josipovici), which secured a steady flow of new scripts for production, introductory talks for broadcast, and explanatory articles for publication in the Radio Times. The process also, importantly, encouraged the emerging function of the producer as textual editor for the medium, manipulating the script for realization in the visualizing imagination of the listener.
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.
CONTENTS:
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
This performance history of classical texts, especially those by the Greek dramatists, illuminates contemporary responses to debates on such matters as the position of women students, the ‘dangers’ perceived to be associated with undergraduate acting, and the position of classics within the curriculum at the University of Oxford. The book consistently engages with the history of theatrical performance of ancient plays beyond Oxford, for example, John Masefield’s Boars Hill Players, Penelope Wheeler’s Greek plays at the Front, and the link with the London stage through companies touring to Oxford, such as that led by Sybil Thorndike. Many of these engagements with Greek drama were facilitated by the connection with the classical scholar Gilbert Murray, who plays a central part in the history.
This performance history of classical texts, especially those by the Greek dramatists, illuminates contemporary responses to debates on such matters as the position of women students, the ‘dangers’ perceived to be associated with undergraduate acting, and the position of classics within the curriculum at the University of Oxford. The book consistently engages with the history of theatrical performance of ancient plays beyond Oxford, for example, John Masefield’s Boars Hill Players, Penelope Wheeler’s Greek plays at the Front, and the link with the London stage through companies touring to Oxford, such as that led by Sybil Thorndike. Many of these engagements with Greek drama were facilitated by the connection with the classical scholar Gilbert Murray, who plays a central part in the history.
CONTENTS:
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
1. Introduction: performing antiquity in Oxford, 1500s-2000s
2 The academic drama in the humanist curriculum and culture of Oxford
--- 2.1 William Gager's defence of acting
--- 2.2 Catalogue of plays in the 16th and 17th centuries
3. 'The Young Men in Women's Clothes': from the classical burlesques of the 1860s to the 1880 Agamemnon
--- 3.1 Classical burlesques in Oxford and the great London scandal
--- 3.2 The 1880 Agamemnon and Jowett's sanction of drama
4. Productions in ancient Greek by OUDS, 1887-1914
--- 4.1 Alcestis in 1887: melodrama in the New Theatre!
--- 4.2 Aristophanes revitalized: music and 'stage business' in the 1892 Frogs
--- 4.3 The importance of Hubert Parry's music in OUDS' Aristophanic tradition, 1897-1914
5. Women, war and Gilbert Murray
--- 5.1 Robert Bridges' Demeter at Somerville College, 1904
--- 5.2 Penelope Wheeler, Greek plays at the Front, and the Boars Hill Players
--- 5.3 Sybil Thorndike and post-WWI productions of Murray's translations
6. OUDS, college and Playhouse productions, 1920s-1960s
7. The Balliol Players, 1923-1927: social idealism and performances for Thomas Hardy
8. Balliol Players, 1928-1939: 'a first-class excuse for legitimate vagabondage'
--- 8.1 The end of one era, and the beginning of another
--- 8.2 The film of the 1934 Ajax
--- 8.3 Towards the Second World War
9. The Aristophanic Balliol Players, 1947-1977
Appendix. Production chronology
Bibliography
REVIEWS:
Bryn Mawr Classical Review (September 2011)
Oxford Today 24.3.
The volume thus seeks to explore MacNeice's literary relationship with classical antiquity, including engagements with authors such as Homer, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Xenophon, Petronius, Apuleius, and Horace, in a variety of types of programmes from wartime propaganda work, which used ancient Greek history to comment on the international situation, to lighter entertainment programmes drawing on the Roman novel. MacNeice's educational background in classics, combined with his skill as a writer and his ability in exploring radio's potential for creative work, resulted in programmes which brought the ancient world imaginatively alive for a massive, popular audience at home and abroad.
Each script is prefaced by an individual introduction, written by the editors and guest contributor Gonda Van Steen, detailing the political and broadcasting contexts, the relationship of the script with classical antiquity, notes on cast and credits, and the reception of each script's radio performance amongst contemporary listeners. The volume opens with Wrigley's general introduction which seeks to contextualise the scripts in MacNeice's wider life and work for radio, and it includes an appendix of extant MacNeicean scripts and recordings.
CONTENTS:
Preface
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Archival Sources
Editorial Conventions
Introduction, by Amanda Wrigley: Louis MacNeice, Classical Antiquity, and BBC Radio: From Wartime Propaganda to Radio Plays
Radio scripts:
--- The March of the 10,000 (1941)
--- The Glory that is Greece (1941)
--- Pericles (1943)
--- The Golden Ass (1944)
--- Cupid and Psyche (1944)
--- A Roman Holiday (1945)
--- Enter Caesar (1946)
--- Enemy of Cant (1946)
--- Trimalchio s Feast (1948)
--- Carpe Diem (1956)
--- Hades (1960)
Appendix: Extant Scripts and Recordings
Bibliography
Index
REVIEWS:
"lucid, useful and entertaining" --- Kate Clanchy, The Times Literary Supplement
"Each script has a further introduction of its own ... These explain the classical literature and history drawn on, and highlight relevant contemporary context particularly essential to understanding the fast-moving historical backdrop to the war propaganda ... The annotations to the scripts strike a good balance between being full, accurate, and yet succinct. They illuminate the classical sources further and offer much interesting information besides" --- Tom Walker, The Cambridge Quarterly
"Wrigley and Harrison have done a valuable service to reception studies. Film and television may still draw the lion's share of attention, but with the appearance of this impressive volume, it will now be impossible to deny the important place of radio in the history of twentieth-century reception of the classics." --- Thomas R. Keith, The Classical Journal
"without exception lucid and informative." --- Philip Burton, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
The essays have a particular focus on how acts of translation, performance, and reception of Greek drama represent and encourage reflections on international dialogues in this period. As will be seen, the authors have interpreted international dialogues in a variety of ways, including commentary on war and global politics, the creative exchange of ideas and promotion of ideologies, trends in performance, and internationally touring theater productions. Common themes arising from these discussions include the often interlinked concepts of tradition, identity, and migration.
ESSAYS
Greek Drama in the First Six Decades of the Twentieth Century: Tradition, Identity, Migration
read first paragraph
Amanda Wrigley
Toward a National Heterotopia: Ancient Theaters and the Cultural Politics of Performing Ancient Drama in Modern Greece
Eleftheria Ioannidou
Oedipus, Shmedipus: Ancient Greek Drama on the Yiddish Stage
Debra Caplan
‘The Kingdom of Heaven within Us’: Inner (World) Peace in Gilbert Murray’s Trojan Women
Simon Perris
Touring the Ivies with Iphigenia, 1915
Niall W. Slater
Is Mr Euripides a Communist? The Federal Theatre Project’s 1938 Trojan Incident
Robert Davis
Oedipus and Afrikaans Theater
Betine Van Zyl Smit
"Now the struggle is for all!" (Aeschylus's Persians 405): What a Difference a Few Years Make When Interpreting a Classic
Gonda Van Steen
Oedipus, Suez, and Hungary: T. S. Eliot’s Tradition and The Elder Statesman
Michael Simpson
RESEARCH NOTES
African-American Classicist William Sanders Scarborough and the 1921 Film of the Orestia at Cambridge University
Michele Valerie Ronnick
Alberto Savinio’s Alcesti di Samuele in the Aftermath of the Second World War
Giulia Torello
Politics, War, and Adaptation: Ewan MacColl’s Operation Olive Branch, 1947
Claire Warden
Aristophanes and Douglas Young
C. W. Marshall
AFTERWORD
Lorna Hardwick
Interdisciplinary essays by specialists in Classics, Theatre, and Modern Literatures trace the international performance history of Aristophanic comedy, and its implication in aesthetic and political controversies, from antiquity to the twenty-first century. The story encompasses Jonson's satire, Cromwell's Ireland, German classicism, British Imperial India, censorship scandals in France, Greece and South Africa, Brechtian experiments in East Berlin, and musical theatre from Gilbert and Sullivan to Stephen Sondheim.
REVIEWS:
‘This volume, produced under the auspices of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, contains an all-encompassing performance history of three plays of Aristophanes’ Old Comedy from their first performance to the present day. Aristophanic comedy, despite its highly politicized, sexual, and time-bound humour, is shown to be the touchstone of comedy, influential from the Renaissance onwards.’ — Regine May, Modern Language Review 103.3, July 2008, 807-08
‘This exceptionally handsome and well-produced volume... Its scope, as its title indicates, is very broad, and most of its readers are likely to be selective in the use they make of it. Roughly half of the essays discuss twentieth-century productions of Aristophanes’ plays and there is, inevitably, an emphasis upon the problems involved in translation in both the narrower (linguistic) and the broader (theatrical/cultural) senses of the term.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 45.3 (2009), 351-54
‘There are dozens of plates in this volume, and the visual record of the performances described can be of great interpretative value for the reader. There is a healthy range in the scale of these performances: university productions or small-scale professional (or semi-professional) shows stand alongside much better funded and larger scale endeavours. This is, I feel, essential.’ — C. W. Marshall, Phoenix LXIV.1-2, 2010, 172-75
---
En 1962, la chaîne de télévision commerciale du Royaume-Uni diffusait, en grec moderne et sans sous-titres, une version filmée en studio de l’Électre de Sophocle, mise en scène par Dimitris Rondiris et interprétée en tournée internationale par le Peiraïkon Theatron. Contre toute attente, ce fut un succès retentissant. Cet article explore les modalités de ce succès, à la fois parmi les 2,5 millions d’auditeurs et auprès des critiques de presse, à la lumière d’une question cruciale : celle de la barrière linguistique. On s’intéressera notamment à la beauté, à l’intensité, à l’émotion perçues comme émergeant de l’expressivité des chorégraphies, et de la musicalité du grec chanté et parlé. Cette étude aborde également l’importance décisive des autres modes de communication, plus prosaïques, utilisés pour transmettre au public quelques informations essentielles sur les personnages et l’action de la pièce.
Radio 3 thirty years later. This case-study demonstrates the importance of the radio medium in the reception history of Greek tragedy in twentieth-century Britain, and attempts to open up the discussion of the social and cultural impact of these productions. The radio medium, in permeating cultural, economic, and geographical boundaries, undoubtedly brought knowledge and experience of Greek tragedy in performance to an audience which was at once massive and diverse, and situated beyond the theatrical and educational spheres usually occupied by Greek tragedy. Attention is focused on the collaborative relationship between radio producers (such as Val Gielgud, Raymond Raikes, and John Theocharis) and translators and writers (such as Louis MacNeice, Philip Vellacott and Gabriel Josipovici), which secured a steady flow of new scripts for production, introductory talks for broadcast, and explanatory articles for publication in the Radio Times. The process also, importantly, encouraged the emerging function of the producer as textual editor for the medium, manipulating the script for realization in the visualizing imagination of the listener.