Rise and Fall of Radio Features

Marilyn Butler

  • Louis MacNeice in the BBC by Barbara Coulton
    Faber, 215 pp, £12.50, May 1980, ISBN 0 571 11537 3
  • Best Radio Plays of 1979
    Eyre Methuen/BBC, 192 pp, £6.95, June 1980, ISBN 0 413 47130 6

Louis MacNeice wrote stylish lyric poems and was at his best when brief and autobiographical. One way or another, he always was autobiographical. But the short poems often succeed because they seem sincere and understated; longer works, like his Autumn Journal and Autumn Sequel and many of his radio plays, run the risk of monotony and a kind of narcissism. And yet MacNeice’s radio plays of the post-war period, which he produced himself, are commonly cited as the best creative work done for the medium in its twenty-year heyday, before television captured the audience. The appearance of Louis MacNeice in the BBC makes one wonder about that judgment. On reflection, it seems hard to tell whether it was MacNeice or radio drama which suffered more from their association.

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