Tony Harrison BBC Radio 4 feature on v.
Tony Harrison's v. was written during the Miners' Strike of 1984-85 when he visited his parents' grave in a Leeds cemetery and found it vandalised by obscene graffiti. In the book-length poem, he confronts the foul-mouthed skinhead thug responsible, who becomes a foil for his own anger and alienation. The political and media reaction to v. would make a book in itself. This is that book. As well as Tony Harrison's poem and Graham Sykes's photographs, this new edition of v. includes press articles, letters, reviews, a defence of the poem and film by director Richard Eyre, and a transcript of the phone calls logged by Channel 4 on the night of the broadcast. Channel 4’s film of v. won the Royal Television Society’s Best Original Programme Award.
Tony Harrison (1937-2025) was Britain's leading film and theatre poet. He published eight titles with Bloodaxe from 1981 to 1995, including The Gaze of the Gorgon (1992), winner of the Whitbread Poetry Award, and his book-length poem v. (1985/1989).
His films using verse narrative include v., broadcast by Channel 4 television in 1987 in a film directed by Richard Eyre which won a Royal Television Society Award. The controversy around the broadcast led to v. becoming his best-known work.
Bloodaxe's tribute to Tony Harrison is our our website here.
BBC RADIO 4 REBROADCAST OF 2013 FEATURE ON TONY HARRISON’S V.
v. by Tony Harrison, BBC Radio 4, first broadcast Monday 18 February 2013, 11pm, rebroadcast Thursday 6 November 2025, 11pm
In tribute to the late Tony Harrison, BBC Radio 4 rebroadcast v. by Tony Harrison, a feature first broadcast in February 2013. This included a new recording of Tony Harrison, then aged 75, reading his book-length poem v. and was the first broadcast of v. on British radio. In the first half of the programme, the writer Blake Morrison introduced v. and talked to others who were caught up in the storm that surrounded Channel 4's film of the poem.
‘The poet Tony Harrison (1937-2025) recorded this complete reading of his controversial poem v. in 2013 and it is repeated to mark his death in September 2025. It is broadcast in this programme alongside a discussion around the poem's significance, also from 2013. This was the first broadcast of v. on British radio. It was recorded in his hometown of Leeds.
Harrison wrote the poem in 1985, after being angered by graffiti sprayed on his parents' grave by football fans. The writer Blake Morrison introduces us to v. and talks to others who were caught up in the storm of controversy around it. Melvyn Bragg, Simon Armitage and Julie Bindell, as well as then-MP Gerald Howarth, consider its impact.
A filmed version of the poem caused controversy in 1987 when it was announced that it was to be broadcast on Channel 4. The poem, which includes repeated strong and racist language, was denounced by some newspapers as a 'torrent of filth'. A group of MPs signed an Early Day Motion to have the programme pulled from schedules. At that time, Gerald Howarth said that Harrison was 'Probably another bolshie poet wishing to impose his frustrations on the rest of us'. Harrison retorted that Howarth was 'Probably another idiot MP wishing to impose his intellectual limitations on the rest of us'.
Others defended the poet's right to use such language to draw attention to the wanton desecration of his family's grave. It was also seen against the backdrop of the miners' strike and racial intolerance in British cities. Beeston, the poem's setting, was later under focus as the home of Mohammad Sidique Khan, one of the 7/7 bombers.’
Rebroadcast 6 November 2025. Tony Harrison’s reading of v. is introduced at 27:40. The recording was made in Leeds in 2012 by Whistledown Productions and is used on Bloodaxe's e-book with audio edition of v..
BBC CULTURE FEATURE ON TONY HARRISON’s v.
BBC Culture, ‘Tony Harrison's v: Why a poem outraged 1980s Britain’, online 6 March 2025
A feature about Tony Harrison’s controversial 1985 book-length poem v. went online on BBC Culture on 6 March 2025 to mark the 40th anniversary of the poem's first publication in London Review of Books.
Neil Armstrong spoke to Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley in connection with this piece.
'...if you read the poem today, it feels every bit as vital and relevant as it was 40 years ago.' – Neil Astley, on v.
‘Forty years ago, Northern English poet Harrison published a powerful work inspired by vandalised gravestones in his hometown Leeds. Then, when it was screened on TV in 1987, a national furore erupted.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20250305-tony-harrisons-v-why-a-poem-outraged-1980s-britain
Still available on BBC Sounds:
SUNDAY FEATURE WITH TONY HARRISON
Sunday Feature: Tony Harrison's Prague Spring, BBC Radio 3, Sunday 8 July 2018, 6.45pm (repeated Thursday 8 Aug 2019, 10pm)
In 2018, Tony Harrison travelled to Prague with his son-in-law Chris Bowlby to make this BBC Radio 3 Sunday Feature about his formative time in Prague in the 1960s.
‘Chris Bowlby travels with Tony Harrison to Prague, to discover how one of Britain's best known poets was shaped by the cultural energy and tragedy of 1960s Czechoslovakia. Harrison reads from his Prague poems in the locations where they were written. And he relives with Czech friends stories of cafes and cartoons, sex and surveillance and the hope and despair of a people fighting Soviet tanks and secret police with words, plays and tragic self-sacrifice.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b91r0z
RADIO 3 PROFILE OF TONY HARRISON
Sunday Feature: v Is for Tony, BBC Radio 3, Sunday 23 April 2017, 6.45pm – a BBC Radio 4 Pick of the Week Choice
BBC Radio 3’s Sunday Feature marked Tony Harrison’s 80th birthday with a 45-minute profile. Tony Harrison took Paul Farley on a tour of some of his significant places, including the cemetery in Leeds where his 'raw and urgent' long poem v. is set. They discussed the poem and the controversy that followed the broadcast of Richard Eyre's Channel Four film version of v. in 1987. With contributions from Richard Eyre. Tony Harrison also read an extract from the poem.
‘Poetry sometimes has astonishing public moments and points of ignition: this was one of them.’ – Paul Farley’s response to watching the film of v.
'To mark Tony Harrison's 80th birthday, Paul Farley presents a profile of this unique poet, playwright and filmmaker - author of the controversial long poem v. and game-changing theatre productions of The Mysteries, The Oresteia and The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus, among many others.'
Click here to listen and to view photos in the gallery. The poem v. is discussed from 26.11
Bookclub: Tony Harrison's v., BBC Radio 4, Sunday 5 June 2016, 4pm
James Naughtie and a group of readers talked to Tony Harrison about his controversial poem v. on Radio 4's Bookclub on 5 June 2016. The programme was recorded at the Hexham Book Festival on 29 April 2016.
‘Harrison wrote the poem in 1985, after being angered by graffiti sprayed on his par-ents' grave by football fans in his home town of Leeds. A filmed version of the poem, directed by Richard Eyre, caused controversy two years later when it was announced that it was to be broadcast on Channel 4. The poem, which includes repeated strong language was denounced by tabloid news-papers as a "torrent of filth". A group of Conservative MPs signed an early day mo-tion to have the programme pulled from the schedules. Others defended the poet's right to use such language to draw attention to the wanton desecration of his family's grave. It was also seen against the backdrop of the Miners' strike and racial intolerance in British cities.’
Click here to listen to the programme
Click here to listen to a short clip: "We'll occupy your lousy leasehold poetry!"
A recording of Tony Harrison reading the poem in full is included on the e-book of v. This was made by Thistledown Productions and first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 16 February 2013, then rebroadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 6 November 2025.
[06 November 2025]
