The Other Third

Think you know the BBC Third Programme? Think again.

Alan Dein explores the 'other voice' of the Third - not the plummy accent, or the rarefied readings and art music, but the articulate and expressive voice of so-called ordinary people, brought to the airwaves via a group of producers fascinated with everyday lives and the wild sounds they could collect beyond the confines of the radio studio.

There's a significant omission to most studies of the life and times of the BBC Third Programme. In the words of a title of one of the Third's own history programmes, there are 'Gaps in the Record'.

The gap which the Third helped to fill - through the work of figures like Douglas Cleverdon, Philip O'Connor, AL Lloyd, Alan Lomax and David Thomson - was to harness the stories of ordinary people's lives with a collection of creative and ground-breaking radio features and talks spanning the Third's two decades.
These programmes changed our conception of what radio should sound like - and their influence continues in the programmes we hear today.

Featuring: Andrew Barrow, Alecky Blythe, Dame Julia Cleverdon, Tim Dee, Johnny Handle, Doreen Henderson and Sir Jonathan Miller.

Producer: Martin Williams.