The Third way

We now think of Radio 3 as the music station, but when it was created in 1946 as the Third Programme music was only meant to take up one third of its output. Dramas, features, talks were just as crucial to its identity, and poetry especially was to be heard ‘three times a week and usually at a peak listening hour, not near midnight’ to quote a contemporary news bulletin from the Manchester Guardian. Last night the station began celebrating its 70th anniversary with a concert broadcast live from the Southbank Centre in London, where for the next fortnight there’s to be an ‘immersive’ Radio 3 experience designed to remind us of the station’s original intentions, with concerts, talks, live happenings. Tea dances with a swing band, yoga sessions accompanied by suitably relaxing classical music, poetry readings from a glass-fronted pop-up studio are planned. Anyone just passing along the riverbank is welcome to join in, yoga mats and leotards at the ready. Next Thursday, a new drama by Robin Brooks, The Present Experiment, will recreate (imaginatively) the station’s first couple of hours. It will be the first new play commissioned by the station for a while as it battles with cuts that have drastically reduced its ability to innovate and develop.

It’s difficult to justify spending on a station that attracts just 2.2 million listeners, compared with 15.2 million for Radio 2. That’s why these celebrations are so crucial, reminding us (and especially those who make decisions on funding) of why Radio 3 is such an essential aspect of the BBC, alongside Chris Evans, Today and The Archers. Tom Stoppard, Joe Orton, Harold Pinter all had their first plays produced by the station. It gave them their first experience of an audience, paid the bills (well, some of them, radio never being a very generous benefactor) and, most importantly, guaranteed them the confidence, the support, the motivation to continue.