Royal Exchange Theatre row: 'No art is offensive - we're becoming child-like'

-Credit: (Image: Manchester Evening News)
-Credit: (Image: Manchester Evening News)


It's the controversy that has rocked Manchester's theatreland.

Earlier this week the Royal Exchange theatre cancelled the entire five-week run of A Midsummer Night's Dream over pro-Palestine and pro-trans rights references contained in the show.

An actor's union described the move as an example of a 'growing culture of censorship' and vowed to fight for 'artistic integrity' and 'freedom of expression'.

READ MORE: READ MORE: Actors' union calls out 'censorship' after Royal Exchange Theatre cancels shows

Theatre bosses claimed 'every effort' was made to get the show on, but said a 'number of challenges' including 'injuries, a delayed technical week and changes late in the process', meant they took the 'difficult decision' to cancel.

Here Prof Ellis Cashmore, a sociologist and cultural critic, has his say on the controversy...

Shakespeare has been interpreted in so many ways. There is not one Shakespeare. Each director has their own take and style.

We have almost become accustomed to living within tightened parameters of freedom these days. Being able to express opinions is being eroded. People are now accepting of this.

This [the issue at the theatre] is censorship. The director's freedom of expression has been fatally undermined.

My own view is that the very purpose of art (and I include all types, including cinema, literature, music etc) is to provoke audiences in some way, either intellectually or emotionally. People should be changed by art.

Prof Ellis Cashmore -Credit:Birmingham Mail
Prof Ellis Cashmore -Credit:Birmingham Mail

I know it sounds idealistic, especially when you think of rom-coms or action movies that don't appear to challenge audiences. But actually they do: even making us laugh is effectively prompting a response.

I also think audiences have the ability, or should have the ability, to separate artistic performance from its creator. I'm thinking of artists from Wagner to P. Diddy. We may despise their deeds, but does that prevent us from enjoying their creations?

No art is offensive: audiences take offence – and the sources change through time and space as our sensibilities shift. For example, in 1982, Howard Brenton's play The Romans in Britain, which had opened two years earlier at the National Theatre, was the subject of a private prosecution under the Sexual Offences Act of 1956.

A scene of male homosexual rape was the source of the alleged offence. The prosecution failed. Nowadays, nudity in all forms of art is commonplace and sexual abuse and other forms of coercion, though often difficult to watch, are rarely seen as offensive.

Art, whether in paintings, cinema, television, theatre or any other form, should provoke: it should prompt audiences to feel differently, think differently and even behave differently. It's not always a pleasant experience. That's art's power. I remember, as a teenager, watching Jeremy Sandford's play Cathy Come Home (directed by Ken Loach) on BBC back in 1966.

It was a hard watch but changed popular perceptions of homelessness and what we would now call the 'precariat' – those whose employment and income are insecure. It became a landmark in British TV, just as ITV's Mr Bates vs The Post Office was a turning point earlier this year.

Both programmes were more than just enjoyable: they were illuminating and engaging, forcing us to think and providing raw material for practical action. In other words, they changed us – as all art should.

As I say, we, the audience, decide what is and isn't offensive and, nowadays, we tend to search for offensive material. It's almost as if we feel we should be offended by anything that isn't obviously 'appropriate'.

For me this is an easy escape from hard thinking: we're becoming comfortable in a child-like state in which we let others think for us and decide whether or not we need protecting. Mature people usually don't need protection.

Surely, they can think through culturally and emotionally complex issues like transgender and the Gaza conflict for themselves: if they're incensed by a play that incorporates these issues, so what? They can surely deliberate on them.

We're not empty vessels and [Midsummer Night's Dream director] Stef O'Driscoll isn't pouring ideas into us – she's/they're provoking us. As I say, that's what art is supposed to do.