Drawing on Sharon Macdonald’s concept of ‘difficult heritage’¹, this paper explores how Eric Gill’s Prospero and Ariel (1931–32), at BBC Broadcasting House, represents a new category of contested heritage: structurally difficult heritage. Unlike standalone contested monuments that may be removed when they become morally problematic, structurally difficult heritage is integrated into protected building fabric; therefore, removal is complex and damaging to the integrity of the listed building it adorns. Commanding one of London’s most prominent apex views at Regent Street’s termination, the curved BBC frontage forces Prospero and Ariel upon a compulsory public audience. This case questions whether some sculptures are ultimately too problematic to impose as public art as part of the everyday urban environment, especially if, as figural depictions, they are enmeshed with unethical, immoral, and therefore hurtful representations.

The sculpture has been controversial since its creation, experiencing a reduction in the size of the boy’s genitalia at the BBC’s request² and vitriol in Parliament as ‘objectionable to public morals and decency’³. Yet this cannot be dismissed as Victorian prudishness. What distinguishes Gill’s Ariel from ubiquitous nude cherubic decoration on London’s buildings is that it abandons established artistic conventions that made such imagery morally acceptable. In Shakespeare’s play, Ariel’s gender is deliberately ambiguous, allowing for his relationship with Prospero to remain asexual. Yet Gill clearly abandoned this ambiguity for an explicitly male child in a state of undress. His genitalia prominent, his form lean — a boy old enough to be conscious of his own nudity and vulnerability, positioned in intimate dependence with an adult man whose long robes emphasise his nakedness. The problem then was not the unclothed boy, but the inappropriate power dynamic that formed the context for this juxtaposition.

Since Fiona MacCarthy’s 1989 biography exposed Gill’s sexual abuse of his sisters, daughters and family dog⁴, there have been calls to remove the statue. However, its architectural integration into the Grade II* Listed building complicates matters. The sculpture was carved onsite in the same Portland stone as the building’s facade, in a specifically designated niche. As Gill himself theorised, architectural sculpture is not merely decorative but integral to the building itself⁵. To remove the sculpture risks violating Historic England’s listing protection, potentially compromising the architectural integrity of one of Britain’s most significant Art Deco buildings. But to leave it unprotected risks further vandalism. David Chick’s attacks in 2022 and 2023 revealed that some heritage has become so contested that it requires physical protection from the public it was intended to serve. Throughout this controversy, the BBC has firmly maintained that separation between Gill and his work is both possible and necessary.

The convergence of revelations about Gill’s crimes with the BBC’s own institutional failures — Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris, and accusations against founding Director-General Lord Reith — fundamentally altered how the sculpture could be perceived. Within this context, the sculpture’s content has become profoundly inappropriate. Separation is now impossible. What was once an architectural ornament and metaphor for broadcasting has been exposed as a monument to institutional failure that enabled such crimes to flourish.

Many support the BBC’s position, however, we must forgo this selective blindness — Gill’s work cannot be viewed as wholly discrete from who he was and what he did. MacCarthy posits that the true subjects of Ariel and Prospero are not the Shakespearean characters but in fact Gill and his adopted son, Gordian⁶. Throughout his work, Gill systematically inserted himself into sacred father-son iconography, conflating his earthly paternal role with divine meaning. When we view the sculpture through this biographical lens and Gill’s documented crimes against children, it becomes increasingly difficult to justify continuing to celebrate this work simply as a mythological allegory for the BBC.

In 2025, the BBC unveiled its response: a restored sculpture enclosed in what clumsily resembles a museum vitrine in the sky. The BBC paradoxically achieves the very separation from its architecture it claimed to want to avoid, transforming it into an artefact divorced from its context. The steelwork plate slices the globe awkwardly off-centre, severing the conceptual foundation from which Ariel is to be released into the world. The sculpture can no longer be read through Gill’s definition of architectural sculpture, as ‘a flowering…of the very stones of which the building is made’⁷. Instead, this continuity is interrupted by the vitrine. By separating the sculpture from the public, rendering it untouchable and separate from the architecture, the acrylic barrier inadvertently deploys the visual language of museumification that amplifies rather than manages its cultural legitimacy.

The BBC’s attempt at contextualisation fails to protect the public from the sculpture. The QR code mounted within the ground-floor window feels like an afterthought. Buried six paragraphs in, the BBC has only this to say on the sculpture’s creator: ‘revelations about Gill’s private life in a 1980s biography created a backlash against him; and while the BBC in no way condones his abusive behaviour, it draws a line between his life and his artistic creations’⁸. The words are careful, concise, and diplomatically evasive. The QR code is performative and meaningless while enabling the BBC to claim engagement while keeping Gill’s crimes obscured.

The vitrine in the sky can satisfy no one — it neither preserves the integrity of the imagery nor adequately addresses concerns about the artist’s motivations. Removal would represent a new path forward for the BBC. An empty niche would represent the BBC’s transparency, humility, and accountability. There would be a direct message in the emptiness — one that aligns with the BBC’s stated commitment to truth-telling.

This case illuminates the inadequacies of the government’s ‘retain and explain’ policy, suggesting that heritage management must evolve from prioritising historical over contemporary values and should never outweigh public welfare. Arguably, an empty niche on the front facade of Broadcasting House would become a more powerful symbol for the BBC than Gill’s sculpture ever was. This would not constitute heritage destruction, but heritage evolution — demonstrating that our relationship with the past can and must evolve to serve contemporary society.