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The Lord Chamberlain's Plays
The Lord Chamberlain's plays are a collection of manuscripts held by the British Library comprising scripts of all new plays in Britain that needed to be approved for performance by the Lord Chamberlain, a senior official of the British royal household, between 1824 and 1968. This was a requirement of both the Licensing Act 1737 and the Theatres Act 1843, though his office was not legally entitled to retain the texts until 1912. The collection represents an extensive and unusual research resource curated through censorship of the theatrical medium and also includes letters and administrative documents that provide an insight to the censorship process. History The Master of the Revels had overseen theatrical performance since 1545 with the Lord Chamberlain becoming involved in censorship after the Stuart Restoration in 1660. In 1737, responding to satirical performances critical of his government, Robert Walpole introduced statutory censorship through the Licensing Act 1737, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit library, it receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the United Kingdom. The library operates as a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The British Library is a major research library, with items in many languages and in many formats, both print and digital: books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, videos, play-scripts, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings. The Library's collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial holdings of manuscripts and items dating as far back as 2000 BC. The library maintains a programme for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatres Act 1968
The Theatres Act 1968 (c. 54) abolished stage censorship in the United Kingdom, receiving royal assent on 26 July 1968, after passing both Houses of Parliament. www.legislation.gov.uk Since 1737, scripts had been licensed for performance by the Lord Chamberlain's Office (under the Theatres Act 1843, a continuation of the Licensing Act 1737) a measure initially introduced to protect Robert Walpole's administration from political satire. By the late 19th century the Lord Chamberlain's Office had become the arbiter of moral taste on the stage, and the "Angry Young Men" of the 1950s were in some ways a reaction against the banality of the morally conservative and formally restricted period of theatre that had preceded them. Theatre critic Kenneth Tynan, whilst working with Laurence Olivier as literary manager and Dramaturg of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Censored Plays
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments and private institutions. When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of their own works or speech, it is referred to as ''self-censorship''. General censorship occurs in a variety of different media, including speech, books, music, films, and other arts, the press, radio, television, and the Internet for a variety of claimed reasons including national security, to control obscenity, pornography, and hate speech, to protect children or other vulnerable groups, to promote or restrict political or religious views, and to prevent slander and libel. Specific rules and regulations regarding censorship vary between legal jurisdictions and/or private organizations. History Socrates, while defying attempts b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatre In England
Theatre of United Kingdom plays an important part in British culture, and the countries that constitute the UK have had a vibrant tradition of theatre since the Renaissance with roots going back to the Roman occupation. Beginnings Theatre was introduced from Europe to what is now the United Kingdom by the Romans and auditoriums were constructed across the country for this purpose (an example has been excavated at Verulamium). By the medieval period, theatre had developed with the mummers' plays, a form of early street theatre associated with the Morris dance, concentrating on themes such as Saint George and the Dragon and Robin Hood. These were folk tales re-telling old stories, and the actors travelled from town to town performing these for their audiences in return for money and hospitality. Medieval theatre: 500–1500 The medieval mystery plays and morality plays, which dealt with Christian themes, were performed at religious festivals. The most important work of li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Library Cyberattack
In October 2023, Rhysida (hacker group), Rhysida, a hacker group, attacked the online information systems of the British Library. They demanded a ransom of 20 bitcoin, at the time around , to restore services and return the stolen data. When the British Library did not acquiesce to the attempt, Rhysida publicly released approximately 600GB of leaked material online. It has been described as "one of the worst cyber incidents in British history". The main catalogue returned online on 15 January 2024 in a Read-only access, read-only format, although some of the library's services are expected to remain unavailable for months. The British Library will use about 40 percent of its financial reserves, around Pound sterling, £6–7 million, to recover from the attack. Background The British Library is a non-departmental public body which in 2023 held around 14 million books, as well as millions of other items. It is the largest library in the United Kingdom. The Library was protecte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the island containing Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and southeast of the Cayman Islands (a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory). With million people, Jamaica is the third most populous English-speaking world, Anglophone country in the Americas and the fourth most populous country in the Caribbean. Kingston, Jamaica, Kingston is the country's capital and largest city. The indigenous Taíno peoples of the island gradually came under Spanish Empire, Spanish rule after the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1494. Many of the indigenous people either were killed or died of diseases, after which the Spanish brought large numbers of Africans to Jamaica as slaves. The island remained a possession of Spain, under the name Colo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Una Marson
Una Maud Victoria Marson (6 February 1905 – 6 May 1965) was a Jamaican feminist, activist and writer, producing poems, plays and radio programmes. She travelled to London in 1932 and became the first black woman to be employed by the BBC, during World War II. In 1942, she became producer of the programme ''Calling the West Indies'', turning it into '' Caribbean Voices'', which became an important forum for Caribbean literary work. Her biographer Delia Jarrett-Macauley described her (in ''The Life of Una Marson, 1905–1965'') as the first "Black British feminist to speak out against racism and sexism in Britain". British civil rights leader Billy Strachan credited Una Marson with educating him on political and racial issues. Early years, 1905–1932 Una Marson was born on 6 February 1905, at Sharon Mission House, Sharon village, near Santa Cruz, Jamaica, in the parish of St Elizabeth, as the youngest of six children of Baptist parson Solomon Isaac Marson (1858–1916 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
At What A Price
''At What A Price'' is a play by Jamaican feminist and writer Una Marson. It was co-written with her friend Horace Vaz in 1931 when Marson was 26 and first performed in Jamaica in 1932, the play was successful enough for Marson to travel to London on the profits where it would be staged at the Scala Theatre on Charlotte Street in January 1934. in Virginia Woolf and the Common(wealth) Reader Selected Papers from the Twenty third Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf ed. Wussow, H., and Gillies, M. A. Other performances in London included at the YWCA Central Hall on Great Russell Street on 23 November 1933. This performance featured an all Black cast, and was described by Harold Moody as "the first time anything of the kind has been done by an amateur group." Marson herself performed in the production at the Scala Theatre which was staged by civil-rights organisation The League of Coloured Peoples. It was the first all Black production in London's West End which is more ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homophobia
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, Gay men, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, or antipathy, may be based on irrational fear and may sometimes be attributed to religious beliefs.* * * * * Homophobia is observable in critical and hostile behavior such as discrimination and Violence against LGBTQ people, violence on the basis of sexual orientations that are non-heterosexual. Recognized types of homophobia include ''institutionalized'' homophobia, e.g. religious homophobia and state-sponsored homophobia, and ''internalized'' homophobia, experienced by people who have same-sex attractions, regardless of how they identify. According to 2010 Hate Crimes Statistics released by the FBI National Press Office, 19.3 percent of hate crimes across the United States "were motivated by a sexual orientation bias." Moreover, in a Southern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Osborne
John James Osborne (12 December 1929 – 24 December 1994) was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, and entrepreneur, who is regarded as one of the most influential figures in post-war theatre. Born in London, he briefly worked as a journalist. before starting out in theatre as a stage manager and actor.. He lived in poverty for several years before his third produced play, '' Look Back in Anger'' (1956), brought him national fame. Based on Osborne's volatile relationship with his first wife, Pamela Lane, it is considered the first work of kitchen sink realism, initiating a movement which made use of social realism and domestic settings to address disillusion with British society in the waning years of the Empire.Heilpern, pp. 93–102 The phrase “ angry young man”, coined by George Fearon to describe Osborne when promoting the play, came to embody the predominantly working class and left-wing writers within this movement. Osborne was considered its leading figure ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Patriot For Me
''A Patriot for Me'' is a 1965 play by the English playwright John Osborne, based on the true story of Alfred Redl. The controversial refusal of a performance licence by the Lord Chamberlain's Office played a role in the passage of the Theatres Act 1968. Plot The play depicts Redl, a homosexual in the Austro-Hungarian intelligence service in the 1890s, as he is blackmailed by the Russians into a series of treasonous betrayals. The play highlights the dangers that a non-conformist faces in a declining empire. Its dramatic climax, and the scene that most excited the censor, is the Drag Ball, in which members of the upper echelons of Viennese society appear in drag. Mary McCarthy, the American novelist, wrote in ''The Observer'' that the play's "chief merit is to provide work for a number of homosexual actors, or normal actors who can pass as homosexual". ''A Patriot for Me'' remains rarely performed because of the large cast required. Production issues When the Royal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exclusively to people of the same sex or gender. It also denotes Sexual identity, identity based on attraction, related behavior, and community affiliation. Along with bisexuality and heterosexuality, homosexuality is one of the three main categories of sexual orientation within the heterosexual–homosexual continuum. Although no single theory on the cause of sexual orientation has yet gained widespread support, scientists favor Biology and sexual orientation, biological theories. There is considerably more evidence supporting nonsocial, biological causes of sexual orientation than social ones, especially for males. A major hypothesis implicates the Prenatal development, prenatal environment, specifically the organizationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
