Content area
Full Text
THEATRE CENSORSHIP: FROM WALPOLE TO WILSON. By David Thomas, David Carlton, and Anne Etienne. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008; pp. xvi + 280. $99.00 cloth.
Theatre Censorship: From Walpole to Wilson is the first comprehensive history of British theatre censorship legislation. Authors Thomas, Carlton, and Etienne draw on previously unpublished archival material, including papers relating to the 1968 abolition of censorship, which were only made public in 1999. This work complements Steve Nicholson's exhaustive research into the Lord Chamberlain's readers' reports, further illuminating the work of the court official who shaped the history of British theatre. Theatre Censorship is a rich scholarly resource, although the authors' analysis of events is not always as rigorous as their research.
The book begins with Henry VIII's appointment of the first Master of the Revels, and ends with contemporary protests over plays such as Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's Behzti. This broad scope allows themes to resonate across centuries; for example, Queen Elizabeth's decree that plays addressing religion or government are only to be performed for "graue and discreete persons" (8) anticipates the Lord Chamberlain's twentieth-century tolerance of theatre clubs as "a sort of safety valve," where a small, elite audience could see plays that had been refused a license (119). However, the book focuses primarily on five parliamentary fights over censorship: Prime Minister Robert Walpole's establishment of the Lord Chamberlain as theatre censor in 1737; unsuccessful attempts to repeal or reform Walpole's act in 1843, 1909, and 1949; and the...