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You’re sending the nation to work far more thoughtful’
THE hand-written letter with its printed heading, “From the Controller of Radio 4,” made my day: “Dear Piers, my congratulations on your gripping production of The Caine Mutiny.
I’m sure it’s sending Britain to work each morning in a far more thoughtful mood. Please pass my compliments on to Peter Marinker, who manages all the voices so superbly. Yours sincerely, Tony Whitby.”
It was the summer of 1973 and my first production of anything for Radio 4: 15, 15-minute readings, from Herman Wouk’s
best-selling novel and broadcast at the peak listening hour of 8.45am.
I’d joined the BBC at the end of 1967, just as Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4 were getting going, but it wasn’t till 1973 that I got a chance to make real programmes for them. As a very new member of the Radio Drama Script Unit, my main job was to read scripts sent in by writers and recommend some of them to my betters, the most charismatic and famous of whom was the Head of Drama, the formidable Martin Esslin.
My ambition was to direct the kind of plays Martin championed, be heard on Radio 3, and be talked about at Hampstead dinner parties. I spent 30 years of my life with Auntie.
If Radio 3 was my natural home, Radio 4 gave me some of my happiest and most hilarious experiences. None more so than in 1983, when, learning at the last moment that I’d won a Prix Italia, I leapt on a plane for Naples, via Paris and Zurich, grabbed a taxi, dashed into the Opera House for the presentation and on to a stage that was in mid-performance of Verdi’s Aida. I did not sing.
PP
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