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This discontented Cynick would turn all time into midnight, and all learning into melancholy Magick. He is so offended at Mirth, as if he would accuse even Nature her self to want gravity, for bringing in the Spring so merrily with the Musick of Birds. 22 No attempt at impartiality is evident: Aristophanes not only refutes Diogenes point by point, but is given the more attractive and persuasive speech, for example when he describes the power of theatre to translate its audience, in imagination, to any site in the world-a power which outrages Diogenes: He is offended at Scenes in the Opera, as at the useless Visions of Imagination. Is it not the safest and shortest way to understanding, when you are brought to see vast Seas and Provinces, Fleets, Armies, and Forts, without the hazards of a Voyage, or pains of a long March? Nor is that deception where we are prepar'd and consent to be deceiv'd. Nor is there much loss in that deceit, where we gain some variety of experience by a short journey of the sight. When he gives you advice not to lay out time in prospect of Woods and Medows, which you can never possess, he may as well shut up his own little Window (which is the Bung-hole of his Tub) and still remain in the dark, because the light can only shew him that which he can neither purchase nor beg. 23

This chapter offers a comparative impression of how the BBC and the independent television company Associated-Rediffusion produced Greek tragedy for non-specialist teen audiences via schools drama strands in the early 1960s, considering the different ways in which these dramas were presented in order to address the potency of teenagers and their imagined role in society at the beginning of this socially and culturally progressive decade. An assessment of the archival evidence for a number of schools productions of Greek tragedy in this period, together with textual analysis of extant programmes, suggests characteristic differences in pedagogic style and broader motivations between the BBC and Associated-Rediffusion, with the BBC focusing on the modernity of the theatrical canon and the independent company being primarily concerned with the imaginative and emotional engagement of the teen viewer. The evidence for audience engagement (pupils and teachers) bears out the greater success of the ITV broadcasts in communicating with teenagers in 1960s secondary moderns (where these ‘off-syllabus’ programmes were most often viewed), especially via the documentary framing techniques which integrated welcome contextual and historical information within the dramatic presentation.

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