Revolting listeners

A rare but threatened species, in dire need of a campaign to save it from extinction, could be heard on Saturday night. Stages of Independence, showcasing the work of ten African playwrights, is likely to be one of the last-ever original World Service productions when the threatened cut to its budget goes through. Twenty-six BBC reporters and cameramen were rushed off to the Chilean desert to film what was undeniably a fantastically dramatic story. But were that many really needed? Meanwhile, a staple output of the BBC, and part of its Reithian mission — free access (at the touch of a button, and no longer at the cost of a licence) into the mind’s interior, to the interplay of voices, words and the imagination — is under threat. Once drama’s gone, we’ll never get it back.

When Marion Nancarrow took over as head of World Service drama in 2001 she was mistress of two-and-a-half hours of drama production each week.