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Censorship - The Legal PositionDateline: 4th August, 2004Is there theatre censorship in Britain? It's a question we are occasionally asked. Here's the situation as we understand it. There is no theatre censorship in Britain before a play is performed. There used to be: the Lord Chamberlain's office had an Examiner of Plays whose job it was to censor any play before it could be performed to the public (although private theatre clubs did not come under his jurisdiction). Although outright bans were not common, he would frequently insist on changes being made to the script before giving approval for performance. However that post and that kind of censorship was abolished in the 1960s. That does not mean that anything can be performed. Now plays are in the same category as books: in other words, a company or theatre can be prosecuted is a play is judged to be obscene, libellous (in printed form) or slanderous (when performed), blasphemous (although this is rarely used nowadays as society is increasingly secular), liable to incite racial hatred, liable to cause public disorder, or any other of a number of other "liable to..." offences - but it has to be performed (or published in the case of libel) before any action can be taken. I suspect that treason is also a possible offence, although I have never heard of it being invoked except in wartime. Libel and slander are different from the other offences in that they are civil, not criminal offences. In other words, the individual who is libelled or slandered must take action through the civil courts. They are not matters for the police, although it is possible that, like assaults, a libel or slander could be "racially aggravated", therefore becoming a criminal offence. I have not heard of anything like this ever happening, but it would appear to be within the bounds of possibilty. However the police will not normally take any action against a performance unless there is a complaint from a member of the public and the police themselves have satisfied themselves that an offence has been committed. It has to be said that the member of the public need not - in law - have actually seen the performance to make such a complaint. If a prosecution is embarked upon, the burden of proof is on the police. It is also possible for an individual citizen to take out a private prosecution against a theatre or theatre company for any of these offences. Cases of obscenity in particular are difficult as there is no clear definition of what "obscene" means. The legal definition is "liable to deprave or corrupt", but establishing this is very difficult and what is liable to deprave or corrupt does change through time. In the 1950s, for example, a nude figure on stage was not allowed to move. If it (she - usually!) was still, it was not judged to be obscene: if there was movement, it was! Which just goes to show how impossible it is to lay down clear guidelines. The perfect example of change over time, of course, is the trial which took place over the publication of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover. In 1959 Parliament passed The Obscene Publications Act which, for the first time, required that a judgement about the obscenity of otherwise of a book (and, by extension, a play or film) should be based upon the book as a whole, and not just on isolated passages. It was under this legislation that the 1960 trial of Penguin Books for the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover was held. The end result of the six week trial was that Penguin were found not guilty of publishing what is called, in legal terms, an obscene libel. Twenty years earlier the result would have been very different. As far as children are concerned, most theatre companies and theatres will - indeed should! - specify in their publicity if a show is not considered suitable for children of a specific age (e.g. they will advertise a show as being "not suitable for children under x years of age"). There is no statutory body to certificate plays as there is for film, nor is there a requirement for theatres etc. to make this kind of announcement, although any theatre or company which doesn't would suffer bad publicity at the very least for not doing so. This is my understanding of the law, but I am not a lawyer, just a reasonably informed layman, and so I cannot, of course, guarantee that it is correct in every or any detail. In other words, I cannot be liable for any action that you might take as a result of reading what I have written! As I am sure you will appreciate, I must make this disclaimer for my own protection! Articles Indices:
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