Ancient Greece on British Television

Exploring the cultural politics of televisual engagements with the history, literature and material culture of ancient Greece
Ancient Greece has inspired television producers and captivated viewing audiences in the United Kingdom for over half a century. By examining how and why political, social and cultural narratives of Greece have been constructed through television's distinctive audiovisual languages, and also in relation to its influential sister-medium radio, this volume explores the nature and function of these public engagements with the written and material remains of the Hellenic past.
Through ten case studies drawn from feature programmes, educational broadcasts, children's animations, theatre play productions, dramatic fiction and documentaries broadcast across the decades, this collection offers wide-ranging insights into the significance of ancient Greece on British television.
Fiona Hobden is Senior Lecturer in Greek Culture at the University of Liverpool. Amanda Wrigley is Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Film, Theatre and Television at the University of Reading.
Cover image: Sophocles' Electra, performed as Play Of The Month on BBC1, 1974 © BBC Photo Library
Cover design:
[EUP logo]
edinburghuniversitypress.com
ISBN 978-1-4744-1259-9
Barcode

Fiona Hobden is Senior Lecturer in Greek Culture at the University of Liverpool, where her teaching and research extends from the politics, culture and society of ancient Greece to the reception of Classical antiquity today. She is the author of The Symposion in Ancient Greek Society and Thought (Cambridge, 2013). Recent publications have examined the representation of ancient Greece and Rome on television, with a focus on documentaries.
Amanda Wrigley works in the Department of Film, Theatre and Television at the University of Reading. She specialises in the contextual histories of radio and television in 20th-century Britain, exploring issues of adaptation, intermediality, audiences and education as they pertain to imaginative programming which adapts and creates dramatic and literary forms. She is currently writing Greece on Screen: Greek Plays on British Television, a companion volume to her Greece on Air: Engagements with Ancient Greece on BBC Radio, 1920s-1960s (Oxford, 2015).