BroadcastingAs a broadcaster with the BBC from 1939-1948, Stephen Potter produced and wrote between 150 and 200 radio programmes. A new book Stephen Potter at the BBC has just been published covering this work. Some of his most memorable programmes are described below: |
Literary BooksStephen Potter's early work included a number of literary books, some of which are described below. |
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| In December 1938, when on a part-time
contract with the BBC, Stephen Potter wrote and produced The Last
Crusade, a programme about the Spanish Armada, written from the
perspective of King Philip of Spain. |
During the 1930s, while Stephen Potter wrote several books about Coleridge. Minnow among Tritons explored Coleridge and the Lake District poets, such as Wordsworth, from the unsympathetic perspective of the letters of Mrs Coleridge. Coleridge and S.T.C., explored the dual nature of Coleridge. He also selected and edited The Nonesuch Coleridge. | |
| In June 1939, Stephen Potter wrote and
produced Air Raid, a simulation of an air raid on London, to get
people used to the idea that it might happen and persuade them to take
ARP precautions. |
In 1937, he wrote The Muse in Chains, an attack on methods of teaching English Literature in Universities. He coined the phrase Eng.Lit. in this work. | |
| The "How" series was a
series of satirical radio programmes making fun of people's behaviour.
There were 29 programmes in total (mainly from 1943 to 1949), produced
by Stephen Potter, and written by Stephen Potter and Joyce Grenfell. The
"How" repertory company (of which Joyce Grenfell was the
leading member and in which Stephen Potter also participated) performed
all the programmes. The first "How", How to Talk to Children (including How not to and How they used to), was transmitted in June 1943. When, on 29 September 1946, the BBC launched the Third Programme (the third radio station, which was the fore-runner of current BBC Radios 3 and 4), a Potter/Grenfell collaboration, How to Listen, opened the new station. |
He also wrote in 1930, D.H.Lawrence: a First Study, the first book about D.H.Lawrence. |