Letter: 'Performance' fits the single classic play bill

Sir: Your correspondent John Campbell (Letters, 15 July) bewails the lack of single classic plays on BBC Television. I am sorry that he seems to have missed two series of Performance, which featured classic plays such as Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author. Could I use your columns to draw his attention to the next season of Performance, which contains plays by Ibsen, John Osborne and Tennessee Williams?

On the related matter of classic serials, Dr Campbell may well find Stendhal's The Scarlet and the Black and George Eliot's Middlemarch to his taste when we screen these two major productions in the next programme year.

BBC Drama Group will this year produce more than 400 hours of original drama, and I assure Dr Campbell that we are just as concerned with range and quality as he is.

Yours faithfully,

CHARLES DENTON

Head of Drama Group

BBC Television

London, W12

15 July