Edited from the 15th-century
Lincoln Cycle of Mystery Plays arranged for broadcasting in three parts and produced by RAYMOND RAIKES with music by CHRISTOPHER WHELEN
Part 1: Prologue of Demon; The Council of the Jews; The Entry into Jerusalem; The Last Supper; The Conspiracy of the Jews and Judas; The Betrayal; The Lament of the Virgin
The manuscript (ms Vespasian D. viii of the Cotton Collection in the British Museum) contains two groups of Passion plays. Plays from the first group will be broadcast tonight; plays from the second, in two further programmes on Good Friday and Easter Day.
Written in Middle English and in the East Midland dialect, these plays belong to the city of Lincoln. Unlike other extant Mystery cycles, this one is not connected with the trade guilds of a town. It is a compilation of Old and New Testament plays by different authors for performance by professional or semi-professional actors under the jurisdiction of the clergy.
These plays illustrate the advance that was taking place in the drama of the fifteenth century and the widening of its range. They differ from those of the other cycles in being acted not on a sequence of pageants in procession but on a standing group of pageants ranged round a central arena, called ' The Place,' the reverse of the modern ' Theatre in the Round.' The stage directions, which will be spoken during the broadcast, are of great vividness and from them we can reconstruct a graphic picture of the performance of Mystery plays in the late fifteenth century.

ALLEGRI STRING QUARTET Eli Goren (violin)
James Barton (violin) Patrick Ireland (viola) William Pleeth (cello) First of three programmes including Mozart's quartets dedicated to the King of Prussia.

It could be argued that fashions in the use of language change as occasions for its use vary
Stuart HAMPSHIRE, Professor of Mind and Logic at London University
JOHN BOWEN, novelist and critic DONALD Davie. Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cam-bridge, and lecturer in English and ANTHONY WEDGWOOD BENN, former M.P. talk about some influences that have changed the written and the spoken language Second broadcast