The Battle of the Brows

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Archive on 4: The Battle of the Brows

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, The Battle of the Brows

Philip Hensher looks at how debates over culture have played out at the BBC and beyond.

Philip Hensher takes a sharp and witty look at how public debates over 'high' and 'low' culture have played out at the BBC and beyond, since the 1920s.

In January 1923, one of the earliest outside broadcasts from the newly formed BBC took place - The Magic Flute performed at Covent Garden by The British National Opera Company. The programme was a statement of intent by the early BBC as broadcasting was a revolutionary way in which culture could be brought to many people through their new wireless sets. Ever since its foundation 100 years ago, the BBC has been an arena in which debates have played out about what sorts of culture the British people want or need. 

In 1932, a BBC broadcast by the writer J.B. Priestley brought The Battle of the Brows to the airwaves. With a combative, sometimes abrupt, tone, Priestley's talk To A Highbrow poked fun at the tastes and manners of the cultural elite. It provoked a furious response from Virginia Woolf, one of Priestley’s targets - and an unapologetic ‘highbrow’.  Woolf’s impassioned response revealed the depth of feeling around the question of what was worth valuing in culture. Radio, cheaper printing techniques and ongoing education reforms had expanded opportunities for cultural access. The mudslinging represented far wider anxieties about modern Britain. 

The BBC further entered the fray with the launch of the Third Programme in 1946, established to build on the BBC's founding mission to 'forge a link between the dispersed and separate listeners and the symbolic heartland of national life'. Yet it was selective from the start and, for some, the Third Programme was an intellectual and cultural haven - for others, it was 'highbrow' trendsetting of the worst kind.

In The Battle of the Brows, which marks a century of the BBC, Philip Hensher delves into the archival history of a culture war that swept the broadcaster up in its wake. He explores how we rank and value culture and how debates over 'high' and 'low' culture have played out at the BBC and beyond, since the 1920s.

With Melvyn Bragg, Melba Cuddy-Keane, William Davies, David Hendy, Charlotte Higgins, Fiona Maddocks, James Marriott, Chi-Chi Nwanoku, Will Self and Ed Vaizey.

Produced by Melissa FitzGerald and Sarah O’Reilly 
Historical Consultant: William Davies
Readers: Rebecca Crankshaw and Will Huggins

A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4

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