Theatre Censorship in Britain

Why do people censor? How do we strike a balance between freedom of speech and respect for the sacred? Do we know what we mean by censorship? Theatre Censorship in Britain brings these questions to its exploration of the wide variety of censorship that has shaped theatrical performance in twentieth- and twenty-first century Britainches Its eight case studies assess the interventions of the Lord Chamberlain - who licensed every performance until 1968 - but they also analyse the powers of censure wielded by the media and public interest groups; the self-censorship of playwrights; and the constraints placed upon producers by public funding bodies and corporate sponsors. They examine the unpredictable outcomes of censorship, deep-seated anxieties about the performative influence of the stage, and the complex questions raised by acts of theatrical censorship and silencing in the context of contemporary debates over civil liberties and freedom of speech.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.