The Third Programme: A Literary History (Oxford English Monographs)

From 1946 to 1970, the BBC's Third Programme was an important patron of Britain's creative writers, providing a forum in which poets, novelists, and playwrights could experiment with new forms of writing, free from commercial constraints. This book is the first to assess the influence of the Third Programme's spoken-word policy on contemporary British writing. Drawing on a number of new documentary sources, Whitehead traces the development of the Programme from the period of postwar optimism to the pop culture of the 1960s and the artistic and political controversies that led to the Programme's demise.