The Censorship of British Drama 1900-1968 Volume 3
Volume Three, The Fifties
Distributed for University of Exeter Press
This volume is the third part of Steve Nicholson’s four-volume analysis of British theater censorship from 1900 until 1968, based on previously undocumented materials from the Lord Chamberlain’s Correspondence Archives at the British Library and the Royal Archives at Windsor. Charting a range of relevant topics from the period—including the standoffs with Samuel Beckett and with leading American dramatists; the Lord Chamberlain’s determination to keep homosexuality off the stage and to rewrite censorship laws, which resulted in the prohibition of performances of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A View from the Bridge, among other plays; and the early struggles of Royal Court writers such as John Osborne—Nicholson focuses on the plays we know, those we have forgotten, and even those that have been forever silenced.
Introduction: ‘The Happy State’
1. Censorship in a Golden Age
2. ‘Packed with Nancies’: Homosexuality and the Stage (I)
3. Breaking the Rules, Breaking the Lord Chamberlain: Unlicensed Plays in the West End
4. Speaking the Unspoken: Homosexuality and the Stage (II)
5. Not Always on Top: The Lord Chamberlain’s Office and the New Wave
6. Dirty Business: Sex, Religion and International Politics
7. The Tearing Down of Everything: Class, Politics and Aunt Edna
Afterword
Biographies of the principal people working for the Lord Chamberlain’s Office
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
History: British and Irish History
Literature and Literary Criticism: Dramatic Works
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