It still remains unclear what precisely the statue represents. Gill was rather bemused by his commission, never quite understanding what precisely Prospero and Ariel had to do with broadcasting: “[Ariel’s] very name has affinity with the apparatus of radio broadcasting”, was the best he could come up with in an article for The Listener in 1933. 

He later said that “the figures… are as much God the Father and God the Son as they are Shakespeare’s characters”, while Fiona MacCarthy suggested that they represented Gill himself and his adopted son Gordian: “the father hieratic, wise, protective, optimistic, closer to a Gill self-portrait than the Prospero of Shakespeare; the son nervy, tense and eager but bound closely to his father.”

It is perfectly possible that Gill deliberately set out to cause a fuss with his sculpture; he liked to shock for the sake of it. A rumour emerged that he wore no underpants under his smock while he worked away.

The question remains: what is to be done about the statue? One can sympathise with those who are made queasy by it, while also appreciating the view that there is no direct link between its subject matter and Gill’s horrific abuse of his daughters. If the BBC gave into public pressure and took it down, one could reasonably ask when they were going to start removing other Gill works from the premises: The Sower, also known as The Broadcaster, a striking sculpture of a male figure distributing corn that stands in the reception of Broadcasting House; and further reliefs of Ariel.