Those were the days - the Lord Chamberlain (member of the Royal
Household) and his malign influence on the British Theatre. In another
email list, a long time ago, I mooted the theory that shakespeare's
continuing popularity down the ages was due in part to the Bard's
acceptability before the LC. My logic, fwiw, ran thus: you want to put
on a play and in those days, the least likeliest plays to get banned
were Shakespeares. So, you play safe, put on the Bard. Until the 60s,
when the LC threw away his blue pencil. Nowadays, S hardly appears on
the commercial stage.
American bannings are two a penny: their school libraries have
committees which are battle-grounds for the inclusion/exclusion of
books. Harry Potter is a notorious example of this - the poor, deluded
fundies trying to stave off the influence of the heathen (WTF?). There
are lists on line of books that have been banned in the US. Are there
any for the UK?
Roger
On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 9:38 AM, David Bircumshaw
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Lear was banned from performance between 1788-1820 when George III
> was considered insane, and the link between stage and royalty would be
> too close for official comfort. Contemporaneously with this Tom Paine
> was also banned in England and, famously, Coleridge and Wordsworth
> were watched for talking about Spinoza (Spy-noza)
>
> While 'Silas Marner' was banned in Anaheim CA in 1978 (?!) and '1984'
> in Florida in 1981 because it was considered 'pro-communist' (?)
>
>
>
> --
> David Bircumshaw
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>
--
My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
"She went out with her paint box, paints the chapel blue
She went out with her matches, torched the car-wash too"
The Go-Betweens
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