 |
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
News
|
||||
|
News
|
Dateline: 28th June, 2007
NI's McGimpsey Changes His Mind In spite of expectations that Northern Ireland's health minister Ulster Unionist Michael McGimpsey, who was arts minister in a former government, would exempt smoking on stage from the ban on smoking in public places, he has refused to do so as "performers smoking on stage would undermine the smoke-free legislation." This has angered many theatre companies and playwrights. Owen McCafferty, whose play Scenes From the Big Picture is to have its NI premiere in September told The Stage that the ban would be "disastrous" for his play and added, "It’s not a health issue, it’s censorship. You can put on stage every form of debauchery you can think of, but you now can’t show characters smoking. It’s absurd." In England smoking is allowed on stage when required by the play and in the Republic of Ireland herbal cigarettes are allowed, In Wales and Scotland, and now Northern Ireland, no smoking of any kind is allowed. Two scenes in the Belfast Lyric production of Dancing at Lughnasa had to be rewritten to compy with the ban.
Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
|
|||
|
|
