by D. H. Lawrence, abridged for radio in 15 episodes by Alan England.
Read by Ian Hogg
BBC Pebble Mill
R4: This year marks the 30th anniversary of 'the trial of Lady Chatterley'. In this literary and legal test case, Penguin Books were charged under the (then) new Obscene Publications Act for publishing the unexpurgated version - notorious for its four-letter words and explicit sexual descriptions - of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover. Penguin won: the swinging 60s were off to a liberal start.
The six-day trial, in which the prosecuting counsel famously asked the jury, 'Would you allow your wife or your servant to read this book?', is re-enacted and reassessed today. Later this evening the novel itself begins an abridged but unexpurgated reading on Book at Bedtime.
'It's not just a seminal piece of history,' claims Michael Green, Controller of Radio 4. 'The trial throws up a number of issues - like what is permissible to read and to broadcast - that are still very much on the agenda today. And the book itself confronts those issues head on.'
Michael acknowledges that some may still find the work shocking and plans to preface its abridgment with a warning. 'But we have certainly not chosen to take out the "difficult" material. Radio 4 is an adult channel broadcasting to an intelligent and discriminating audience and Lady Chatterley's Lover is an important book which deserves to be heard.'
Thirty years ago many distinguished literary figures, including E.M. Forster and Rebecca West, were called to the book's defence. And Richard Hoggart, then a senior lecturer in English literature and now Chairman of the Broadcasting Research Unit, attracted a great deal of attention by declaring in court that the book was not dirty but puritanical. 'The whole thing was very well stage-managed with a splendid cast - I was the rugged provincial, a bit like Lawrence himself,' he recalls.
Just how important was the trial? 'It came at a time when many forces were working towards change and, looking back, I see it as the glint on a breaking wave. But the wave would have broken
anyway.' (David Gillard)
The Lady Chatterley Trial, 7.20pm; Book at Bedtime, 10. 45pm Radio 4