On May 17th, 1966, in the House of Lords, Lord Stonham, a junior minister at the Home Office under Harold Wilson’s government, moved “that it is desirable that a Joint Committee of both Houses be appointed to review the law and practice relating to the censorship of stage plays” (quoted from the Report of the Joint Committee in Censorship in the Theatre 1966-7).

With that simple statement the process started. The Committee was chaired by George Strauss (Labour MP for Vauxhall) and its number included many notable politicians of the day including Michael Foot (who would become Labour leader) and Norman St John Stevas (Conservative MP for Chelmsford, later Minister of State for the Arts). Many meetings, interviews, and reports later, held over a period of nineteen months, the Committee recommended that “pre-censorship and licensing of plays should cease”.

Nowhere else in the free world did one man, the Lord Chamberlain, whose traditional role had always been that of Head of the Sovereign’s Household, have the right to censor material for the stage; nor was there any other form of creative art where a censor held absolute power to determine its circulation. The Committee did not seek to confer any special privileges on the theatre that weren’t enjoyed by other forms of art. Its report concluded: “The effect of the recommendations will be to allow freedom of speech in the theatre subject to the overriding requirements of the criminal law which, generally speaking, applies to other forms of art in this country”.

Sounds straightforward, doesn’t it? Let’s first consider the nature of a censor. Originally he was a Roman officer in charge of maintaining the Census; rather like a supreme Administrator. His other function was that of overseer of public morals. The last time magistrates were elected into this position was in 22 BC. Funny how little that changed over a couple of millennia! Certainly in Britain the censor was an unelected post.

Since the fourteenth century the Lord Chamberlain or the Master of the Revels, under his command, had supervised the production of plays. There’s a splendid old book called Censorship in England by F Fowell and F Palmer published in 1913, which states that the earliest recorded date of the Master of the Revels’ work is 1347, when he took charge of Edward III’s Christmas entertainment.

I am sure that this role was resented even at its inception. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for instance, Shakespeare includes the brief appearance of Philostrate, described in the Dramatis Personae as “Theseus’ Master of the Revels”. Theseus himself refers to him as “our usual manager of mirth” when he calls for some entertainment. Philostrate tries to take control of the situation, but Shakespeare is having none of it. He is a fussy and futile character, and Shakespeare delights in poking fun at him.

Theseus asks Philostrate: “Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?” Learned literature students will tell you that the meaning of this question means “what do you have to shorten or while away the time?” But I also sense there’s a double meaning, implying that Philostrate likes to exercise his blue pencil and cut passages of which he did not approve from the words of the author; as would all censors throughout the ages. The same word is used in Shakespeare’s epic poem, The Rape of Lucrece: “This brief abridgement of my will I make: My soul and body to the skies and ground; My resolution, husband, do thou take”. It’s clear to me that Shakespeare uses the word in the sense that we are listening to an abridged version of a longer original piece of writing.

Later at Theseus’ request to hear the dreaded Pyramus and Thisbe, we actually witness Philostrate step in as the shameless censor, and try to prevent Theseus from seeing it: “No, my noble Lord, it is not for you: I have heard it over, and it is nothing, nothing in the world”. Thus Philostrate reveals the arrogant belief of the censor that a grown adult – indeed, no less than the King himself – is not qualified to exercise sufficient discretion in choosing his own entertainment. The censor is exposed as a killjoy, an upstart and a control freak; and no doubt to Shakespeare’s extreme satisfaction, Theseus ignores Philostrate’s plea and insists on seeing the play that he chooses.

In my next blog post we’ll look at a couple of brushes that Shakespeare had with the censor.