Why does television ignore our finest dramatists?

To TV executives, the word drama now means soaps and detective stories

Not long ago I asked a very senior executive at the BBC why it was we never saw a Chekhov play on TV. "Chekhov did not write for television," she replied. There is, as they say, no answer to that. The only depressing conclusion that can be drawn from such logic is that we may never see a Chekhov play on TV again in our lifetimes. But he's far from unique in that. How often do we see a play on television by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Noël Coward or, come to that, our own contemporaries such as Pinter, Stoppard, Caryl Churchill and Alan Ayckbourn?

TV drama commissioners don't like plays. It's odd when you think of it. Comedy commissioners tend to like jokes; current affairs chiefs enjoy politics (though there's a bit of soul searching there, too); but in drama departments, commissioning a play is not a good career move.

The lack of plays on TV was the subject of a discussion at the launch of a National Film Theatre season that will highlight the long-gone glory days of the television play.

The Wednesday Play and other single dramas were, of course, a different exercise from showing works by the likes of Ibsen and Chekhov. They highlighted new writers such as Dennis Potter or made-for-TV works by playwrights such as John Osborne. But we seem to have lost sight of both genres, the new TV play by contemporary writers and dramatisations of classic works.

At the NFT launch, Harold Pinter mentioned that when he offered the BBC his play Ashes to Ashes four years ago, his call was not even returned. "I have a good record with the BBC," he said, "but these were totally different people." Indeed, they are. Harold, himself, has on occasion been guilty of not returning a phone call, but for the BBC not even to consider a new play by one of the greatest living playwrights does show that a different breed now inhabits Television Centre.

Also at the NFT season launch, David Hare recalled the days when television plays attracted eight million viewers and "galvanised people in the most extraordinary way". It is true, of course. Cathy Come Home provoked even more discussion around the watercooler equivalents of its day than EastEnders does now. But if television executives don't even have the confidence that a contemporary play will enthral and provoke debate among its viewers, what chance is there of them putting on, say, Ibsen? Though I bet that A Doll's House would provoke many a post-feminist watercooler discussion the next day.

There have been rare attempts at reviving single dramas on daytime TV and on BBC4, but the lack of single plays on prime-time terrestrial television has effects beyond the most important consequence of whole generations missing out on great drama. It also means we rarely see on TV some of our greatest actors, as there are so few vehicles for their talents. Simon Russell Beale, winner of every theatre award going, is barely known to TV viewers. Likewise, the multi-award-winning Clare Higgins, who gave one of the most affecting performances on the London stage last year in Vincent in Brixton.

Another knock-on effect is that the word drama has now been redefined by TV executives to mean soaps and detective stories. I certainly don't look down my nose at these. I was hooked on EastEnders for many years; it's fun, but great drama and great acting it ain't. The wild changes of personality that almost every character undergoes to fit in with new storylines must bewilder genuine dramatists as much as they bewilder viewers. Poor Laura in EastEnders has made the journey from do-gooding, kind-hearted, loving partner and surrogate mum to spiteful fishwife with an alacrity that should make an executive producer blush.

By abandoning single plays, both new works and classic dramas, television, and the BBC in particular as a public service broadcaster, has deprived viewers of some of Britain's most stimulating writing and acting. And what an irony that it is left to the National Film Theatre to devote a season to one of the small screen's greatest achievements. Go see television's great single dramas at the cinema. You won't see them on television. Pinter and Hare are right to be alarmed. Greg Dyke should be ashamed.

¿ Javier Tellez, the artist selected to represent Venezuela at this year's Venice Biennale, has written to the Biennale organisers to withdraw from the event. In an open letter he says that "as an artist responsible and aware of our reality" he is "resigning" as the official artist for the Venezuelan national pavilion in Venice in order to protest against the acceleration of social and cultural problems in his country. "The absence-presence," he concludes, "is the only answer." The absence-presence is an interesting form of cultural protest, but a lot less effective I suspect than a poignant art work which could speak to the world. Indeed, making art about injustices in their own countries is part of the artist's job description. The absence-presence is a piece of conceptualism that should be discouraged.

d.lister@independent.co.uk