John Betjeman - BBC Radio Interviews

Synopsis: Extracts from two BBC radio interviews with the English poet, journalist and architectural critic John Betjeman. Poet Laureate in 1972, Betjeman’s popular verse celebrated architecture, but concentrated mainly on middle-class social life in the metropolitan suburbs and Home Counties. In the first interview, broadcast in the BBC Home Service series PEOPLE TODAY on 24/12/1959, John Betjeman talks to Irene Slade about his terror at Marlborough 3 min 17; life at Oxford, hearties and aesthetes, being sent down 1 min 45. In the second interview, broadcast in Radio 3’s SOUND ARCHIVE on 25/12/1971, Betjeman talks to Alan Pryce Jones about WH Auden at Oxford, the sort of man he was, his influence 0 min 55; churchgoing, the aesthetic experience more important than dogma, Anglicanism and Catholicism 2 min 21
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Year of release: 2003
Year of production: 1959 1971
Availability: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/
Online
Notes: Available free online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/betjemanj1.shtml. Requires Realplayer.
Subjects: English language and literature
Keywords: Auden, W H; Betjeman, John; literature - English; poetry; social history; writers - English; radio interviews

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