Theatre censorship in the UK was abolished fifty years ago, and London’s Victoria and Albert Museum is marking the anniversary with Censored! Stage, Screen, Society at 50, an exhibition devoted to UK censorship. The exhibition covers theatre, film, music, and media censorship, with exhibits including the 3rd June 1976 issue of Gay News (no. 96, containing James Kirkup’s poem The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name about a Roman centurion’s sex with Christ after the crucifiction) and the ‘School Kids’ issue of Oz (no. 28, which was the subject of a long-running obscenity trial in 1971). Censored! opened on 10th July, and runs until 27th January next year.
Denis Lemon, editor of Gay News, was convicted of blasphemous libel in 1977, following a private prosecution instigated by Mary Whitehouse. A handful of socialist magazines—Anarchist Worker (no. 33, February 1977), Peace News (28th January 1977), Liberator (January 1977), and Freedom (23rd July 1977)—reprinted Kirkup’s poem in solidarity. It was also included as a single-page insert in the 14th July 1977 issue of Socialist Challenge (no. 6), and was reprinted in the San Franciso magazine Gay Sunshine (no. 38–39, Winter 1979). The socialist journal Gay Left (no. 5, Winter 1977) published extracts from the poem, along with an ambivalent analysis: “It is a rather silly poem. It is at times an amusing poem. It is from start to finish an extremely “literary” poem.” Inoffensive extracts also appeared in The Observer (on 17th July 1977), which coyly explained that “the centurion kissed Christ’s body.”
Geoffrey Robertson was a defence barrister in the 1977 trial, and his memoir The Justice Game includes lengthy extracts from the poem, including one stanza “which the judge suggested was so profane not even I would read it aloud”. Reflecting on this, Robertson writes: “after two decades, I wonder whether the reason I could not read it was the awfulness of the poetry rather than the grossness of the blasphemy.” Alan Travis included the same extracts in Bound and Gagged, his history of obscenity, and they are also reprinted in A Voyage Round John Mortimer, Valerie Grove’s biography of the barrister who defended Gay News in court.
The twenty-fifth anniversary of the prosecution revived interest in the case. An analysis in Gay Times (no. 270, March 2001) dismissed any potential literary merit: “The poem itself is tawdry and insignificant.” The Guardian (11th July 2002) was equally dismissive: “as a poem, it’s feeble in the extreme.” Joan Bakewell recited extracts from it in an episode of her BBC2 documentary series Taboo (broadcast on 12th December 2001), and the socialist magazine Weekly Worker (no. 423, 14th March 2002) defended her right to do so. (Extracts later appeared in the Channel 4 documentary The Secret Life of Brian, broadcast on New Year’s Day 2007.) The Weekly Worker reprinted the first four stanzas, though declined to offer any literary criticism: “Whether or not it is a good poem or bad poem I will leave to the reader to decide.”
Denis Lemon, editor of Gay News, was convicted of blasphemous libel in 1977, following a private prosecution instigated by Mary Whitehouse. A handful of socialist magazines—Anarchist Worker (no. 33, February 1977), Peace News (28th January 1977), Liberator (January 1977), and Freedom (23rd July 1977)—reprinted Kirkup’s poem in solidarity. It was also included as a single-page insert in the 14th July 1977 issue of Socialist Challenge (no. 6), and was reprinted in the San Franciso magazine Gay Sunshine (no. 38–39, Winter 1979). The socialist journal Gay Left (no. 5, Winter 1977) published extracts from the poem, along with an ambivalent analysis: “It is a rather silly poem. It is at times an amusing poem. It is from start to finish an extremely “literary” poem.” Inoffensive extracts also appeared in The Observer (on 17th July 1977), which coyly explained that “the centurion kissed Christ’s body.”
Geoffrey Robertson was a defence barrister in the 1977 trial, and his memoir The Justice Game includes lengthy extracts from the poem, including one stanza “which the judge suggested was so profane not even I would read it aloud”. Reflecting on this, Robertson writes: “after two decades, I wonder whether the reason I could not read it was the awfulness of the poetry rather than the grossness of the blasphemy.” Alan Travis included the same extracts in Bound and Gagged, his history of obscenity, and they are also reprinted in A Voyage Round John Mortimer, Valerie Grove’s biography of the barrister who defended Gay News in court.
The twenty-fifth anniversary of the prosecution revived interest in the case. An analysis in Gay Times (no. 270, March 2001) dismissed any potential literary merit: “The poem itself is tawdry and insignificant.” The Guardian (11th July 2002) was equally dismissive: “as a poem, it’s feeble in the extreme.” Joan Bakewell recited extracts from it in an episode of her BBC2 documentary series Taboo (broadcast on 12th December 2001), and the socialist magazine Weekly Worker (no. 423, 14th March 2002) defended her right to do so. (Extracts later appeared in the Channel 4 documentary The Secret Life of Brian, broadcast on New Year’s Day 2007.) The Weekly Worker reprinted the first four stanzas, though declined to offer any literary criticism: “Whether or not it is a good poem or bad poem I will leave to the reader to decide.”
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