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Abstract
The ‘cultural translator’ is an individual who expresses the essence of entanglement in their career choices, moving between genres, media, or nations. This article suggests that the BBC producer and writer, Nesta Pain, was such an individual. Over the course of her career, Pain not only wrote and produced radio features and radio dramas but was also a successful journalist and author. She translated her experience in radio production onto the stage and on television by exploiting the different possibilities offered by these visual media—all evidence of her transmedial cultural translation. Further adding to the transgressive nature of her career, was her place as a woman in male-dominated radio production arenas.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Cotes, “When the Third Came,” 14; Hodgson, “Obituary: Nesta Pain,” 14; “Nesta Pain,” 17.
2. Hilmes, “Entangled Media Histories”, 142.
3. Bradnum, “Obituary Letter: Nesta Pain,” 11.
4. Cronqvist and Hilgert, “Entangled Media Histories,” 130–41.
5. Ibid., 132.
6. Nicholas, “Media History,” 387–89.
7. Hilmes, “Entangled Media Histories,” 143.
8. Ibid., 142.
9. Cronqvist and Hilgert, “Entangled Media Histories,” 135.
10. Pain, “I, a Mother,” 8.
11. Hewlett, “Pain [née Taylor].”
12. Letter, 24 November 1941, BBC WAC, “Left Staff, Pain.” The husband was then Programme Director for the North Region, Andrew Stewart.
13. BBC WAC, “Pain, Nesta: Autobiography,” 1.
14. Although Pain wrote and produced programmes for the Overseas Services Division, she worked for Features and would have had little contact with those working in the Overseas Services Division.
15. Memo, 29 March 1942, BBC WAC, “Policy, Projection of Britain.”
16. Memo, 3 December 1942, BBC WAC, “Policy, Projection of Britain”; The BBC Year Book, 21, 92, 106.
17. See Nicholas, The Echo of War.
18. Hajkowski, The BBC and National, 102–3.
19. Miall, Inside the BBC, 123-33; for the mood of conservatism in the 1950s BBC see Chignell, Public Issue Radio.
20. Thomas, “A History,” 180.
21. Smith and Verma, Anatomy of Sound, 5.
22. “Nesta Pain,” 17.
23. Annual Review, 14 Janury 1943 and Letter, 2 April 1943, BBC WAC, “Left Staff, Pain.”
24. Memo, 9 June 1943, ibid.
25. Listener Research Reports, 2 February 1944, 8 March 1944, and 18 April 1944, ibid.
26. BBC WAC, “Pain, Nesta: Autobiography,” 55.
27. Memos, 23 March 1945 and 4 January 1950, BBC WAC, “Left Staff, Pain.”
28. Letters, 4 April 1944, 9 June 1944, 30 June 1944, 23 February 1945, “Broadcasting on Medical Research.”
29. Letter, 2 April 1944, Ibid.
30. Memo, 29 January 1945, BBC WAC, “Left Staff, Pain.”
31. Letter, 22 February 1944, “Broadcasting on Medical Research.”
32. Jones, “Elite Science,” 701–23; Jones, “Clogging the Machinery,” 436–49.
33. Keller, “A Scientific Impresario,” 112.
34. BBC, Genome, Radio Times.
35. “Some People,”3.
36. Gilliam, B.B.C. Features, 139.
37. Gregory and Miller, Science in Public, Chapter 4.
38. BBC WAC, “Pain, Nesta: Autobiography,” 70–2.
39. Letter, 21 December 1956, BBC WAC, “Left Staff, Pain.”
40. Jones, “Elite Science,” 705–14.
41. The Trial of Thomas Becket, BBC Radio Three, 8 April 1969.
42. Memo, 27 November 1951 and Letter, 30 December 1957, BBC WAC, “Left Staff, Pain”; The Dock Brief, BBC Third Programme, 16 May 1957.
43. “B.B.C. Television,” 11.
44. “Dreams on B.B.C. Television,” 20; A Shaft of Light, BBC Television, 9 October 1958.
45. BBC, Genome, Radio Times; Cotes, “When the Third Came,” 14; Hodgson, “Obituary: Nesta Pain,” 14.
46. Letter, 31 October 1956 and 5 February 1957, BBC WAC, “John Mortimer.”
47. “Borstal Boy’s Hatred,” 18. That Pain was chosen to adapt this very important social realist novel is evidence of the confidence the BBC had in her as a drama producer. That she chose to add music and singing is further testimany to her radically innovative approach to production. The success of the programme is evident form its foreign sales.
48. BBC, Genome, Radio Times.
49. Memo, 15 August 1968, BBC WAC, “Left Staff, Pain.” The files only indicated that Pain received a total of £104.5.3 in royalties from Denmark, Swedish Radio, NDR Hamburg for her adaptation. There is no information on whether the production aired in English or was translated for each market.
50. There Will Come Soft Rains, BBC Third Programme, 12 September 1962.
51. Barsley, BBC Features.
52. BBC WAC, “Pain, Nesta: Autobiography,” 138.
53. Wade, “Radio,” 19.
54. Hewlett, “Pain [née Taylor]”; Pain, “Some People: Dr John,” 35; Pain, “Some People: When a,” 35.
55. Memo, 15 November 1960, BBC WAC, “Left Staff, Pain.”
56. Memo, 11 June 1957, Ibid.
57. Heppenstall, Portrait of the Artist, 64.
58. Memo, 11 June 1957, BBC WAC, “Left Staff, Pain.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Kate Terkanian
Kate Terkanian is a lecturer in history at Bournemouth University. Her research interests include the history of women at the BBC, and in particular during the Second World War, public history and media archives.
Hugh Chignell
Hugh Chignell is Professor of Media History at Bournemouth University. His recent research on the history of radio drama examines the ‘golden age’ of the genre in the 1950s. He has also published widely on radio news and current affairs.