By Paul Farley. Just before dawn breaks, deep in the basement of Broadcasting House, George Orwell and Louis MacNeice, two of the most famous wnters to have worked forthe BBC, meet for the first time. During their chance encounter, they debate the effect of the war on their writing and their work for the Corporation. But who recorded their conversation? And why have the tapes suddenly turned up in 2003? Director Rob Ketteridge

Deep in the bowels of the BBC, two radio archivists discover a recording of two famous writers in conversation

When Louis Met George

2.15pm R4 That's Louis MacNeice and George Orwell. And where do they meet? In the deepest underground room of the BBC's Broadcasting House: the gentlemen's toilets. This play by Paul Farley (winner of this year's Whitbread Book Award for Poetry) opens with two radio archivists going through the contents of a BBC storeroom. One of the tapes found features MacNeice and Orwell, both employed as BBC writers, caught unawares in conversation, not knowing they were being recorded. They discuss the role of art in a time of war, with "time" being at the very core of this drama. Darting between the dialogues of the 21st-century archivists and the wartime writers creates moments when time seems suspended - two worlds entwined in a BBC basement. When Orwell declares that broadcasting has made us become "acclimatised to misery and inequality... we hear what's happening all over the world", it could just as easily be 2003 as 1943. A poetic, poignant piece.