Seeing it Through

I just finished listening to Seeing it Through by Neil Brand, which BBC Radio 3 broadcast a week or two ago. It was about Charles Masterman and the de facto ministry of information that he led for England during WWI. It is one of those history plays that is not terribly interesting formally--the play's function is more a presentation of ideas (the disingenuous justifications for England's entry into the war, which could have been avoided; the potential benefits and drawbacks of propaganda) than an artistically innovative drama.

I did admire the way in which intervals in the play were filled with Anglican hymns (wish I knew enough about those hymns to know which one(s)), equating the secular propaganda put out by Masterman and his stable of writers (Arnold Bennett, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, and other very prominent Edwardian authors) with the spiritual justifications for Britain's imperialist adventures.

The play may also be interesting for me down the road because H.G. Wells plays a very prominent part as a somewhat reluctant participant in Masterman's initiative and a frequent sparring partner with him. Wells, by now a utopian thinker and eugenist, believes that a philosopher-king class should openly broadcast acknowledged propaganda in order to lead people towards the greater good.