The Royal Court Theater has been taking votes for the #1 favorite production from their venue. The winner was Rocky Horror Show. RHS was possible in 1973 following a change in laws that lifted the oppression of censorship.
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Excerpt: “Censorship is implicitly to blame for the fact that the whole panorama of British theatre contains only a handful of plays dealing at all controversially with sex, politics, the law, the Church, the Armed Forces and the Crown.”
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Visit the Royal Court Theater and Rocky Horror Show vote results
THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE
Earlier this year the Royal Court asked the public to vote for their favourite Royal Court plays, and the votes have come in thick and fast for the last three months. The plays that are the people’s choice can now be revealed. In third place is DEATH AND THE MAIDEN by Ariel Dorfman, which received its UK premiere at the Royal Court in 1991 (in association with LIFT and the National Theatre Studio), directed by Lindsay Posner. In second is LOOK BACK IN ANGER by John Osborne, the first production of which opened on 8 May 1956, directed by Tony Richardson. In first place is THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW by Richard O’Brien, which opened in the Theatre Upstairs in 1973, directed by Jim Sharman. The three winners of our People’s Choice vote will be commemorated by special events during our 50th celebrations.
CENSORSHIP
Between 1824 and 1968 British theatre was controlled by censorship. As Kenneth Tynan described it, “Censorship is implicitly to blame for the fact that the whole panorama of British theatre contains only a handful of plays dealing at all controversially with sex, politics, the law, the Church, the Armed Forces and the Crown”. When the English Stage Company was founded in 1956 with a programme of staging the very best contemporary drama, it was bound to come into conflict with the Office of the Lord Chamberlain.
The key productions of the English Stage Company’s first twelve years all involved at the least skirmishes (LOOK BACK IN ANGER) or full-blown battles with the Censor. Plays like John Osborne’s A PATRIOT FOR ME and Edward Bond’s SAVED were refused licence to be performed at all. The fact that they were seen at all involved the theatre transforming itself into a private members’ club. Even so the production of SAVED brought criminal proceedings against it.
But as the 1960s really began to swing the writing was on the wall for the whole idea of censorship. By the time Edward Bond’s next play EARLY MORNING was performed in April 1968, despite the fact that it contravened almost every taboo that censorship sought to preclude, no prosecution was brought and on September 26, 1968 a new Theatres Act became law, effectively abolishing the power of the Lord Chamberlain Office over the theatre.
We will be looking back over the detail of this turbulent era with the help of critic and author Nicholas de Jongh and featuring performed extracts from some of the key moments both before and after censorship. We will bring the debate on censorship up-to-date with a panel of distinguished guests.