Drama on 3: The Present Experiment, by Robin Brooks

As part of Sound Frontiers, celebrating 70 years to the hour that the Third Programme was launched, this comedy explores the first hours of the station's life, in fact and fantasy. In 1946 inside Broadcasting House, BBC director-general William Hayley and chosen head George Barnes meet to discuss a new arts radio station, Programme C, with the aim of improving the cultural life of the nation by its bootstraps. The play's opening scene is performed live in front of an audience at Southbank Centre alongside Radio 3's pop-up studio. With Pippa Bennett-Warner, Pip Torrens, Trystan Gravelle, Jonjo O'Neill, Christopher Godwin, Tim Potter, Gunnar Cauthery, Michael Bertenshaw, Adrian Scarborough, Carolyn Pickles, Catriona McFarlane, Natasha Cowley, Nicholas Murchie and John Dougall. Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting