Synopses & Reviews
This exploration of the wide variety of censorship that has shaped theatrical performance in twentieth and twenty-first century Britain examines 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.
Synopsis
Theatre has often found itself at the centre of recent debates over censorship and the arts, as a result of coverage of events such as the protests against the play Behzti and the controversy over Jerry Springer: The Opera. This book offers the first sustained study of censorship of the British stage from 1968 into the twenty-first century.
Synopsis
This exploration of the wide variety of censorship that has shaped theatrical performance in twentieth and twenty-first century Britain examines 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.
About the Author
HELEN FRESHWATER is Research Fellow in Theatre Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, UK.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
London's Grand Guignol: Sex, Violence and the Negotiation of the Limit
The Representation of Reproduction: Marie Stopes and the Female Body
Suppressed Desire: Dramatic Inscriptions of Lesbianism
Soldiers: Playing with History
Mary Whitehouse, The Romans in Britain, and 'the Rape of our Senses'
Section 28: Contagion, Control and Protest
Capital Constraint: the Right to Choose?
Competing Fundamentalisms: Behzti, Freedom of Speech, Sacrilege and Silencing
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index