Harold Nicolson,Ulysses, Reithianism: Censorship on BBC Radio, 1931

Abstract

At 8.30pm on 24 November 1931, writer, diplomat and broadcaster Harold Nicolson came to the microphone in a BBC studio to deliver a thirty minute talk, ninth in a series of twelve titled 'The New Spirit in Literature'. Nicolson had promised his listeners in the closing minutes of his previous broadcast in the series (17 November) that the talk would be a discussion of James Joyce and his work. 1 Word of this had made its way to Paris, as Joyce prepared to listen in with a group of friends, at the house of Adrienne Monnier. 2 Instead of speaking on Joyce, however, Nicolson delivered an apology, as described by Joyce in a letter written three days later to Harriet Shaw Weaver. Nicolson announced at once that pressure had been brought to bear on him etc etc and that the expected talk on James Joyce could not take place. The company expressed itself volubly in French about the BBC directors etc after which we all went in to table and had a merry meal. 3 This letter reveals two things. The first is seemingly unambiguous evidence of censorship at the BBC, whereby 'pressure had been brought to bear' on Nicolson, and a broadcast on modernist authors had been prevented. The second is that such censorship was immediately understood as unremarkable by the 'company' surrounding Joyce at dinner. Indeed, censorship of Joyce's work itself (if not, perhaps, discussion of it) was an accepted fact. Considering merely the British context, as Alistair McCleery relates, Ulysses was banned from entering the country soon after it was published in 1922. 4 Just a few years before this broadcast, F. R. Leavis had attracted attention from the police and the Home Office when he attempted to get hold of a copy in order to teach a class at Cambridge. 5 The government position softened in the thirties-an individual was permitted to import a copy for teaching purposes in 1933-but domestic publication was not permitted until 1936. 6 Even if censorship itself was nothing new, it is difficult not to detect a particular attitude to the BBC in this slightly weary relation of 'pressure … etc' being brought on Nicolson by the 'BBC directors etc'. For Joyce, one suspects, this censorship was not just unsurprising given the nature of his work, but precisely what was expected from the BBC. He thus finds himself in a tradition of commentators who saw the corporation operating always in