蜜芽传媒

鈥淭hey weren鈥檛 completely round the bend.鈥� This common sense was from Belinda Lang, director of Noel鈥檚 Coward鈥檚 This was a Man, being performed for the first time since it was censored in 1926 for fear of inciting Soviet sympathy, riots and anarchy... because of its upper class adultery.

Every society has taboos which look quaint to others. At a Victorian dinner party you鈥檇 never have dreamt of asking your hostess about her sex life. How coy they were! Try asking a modern hostess about her death and see if that goes down any better. Dying being a more universal experience, we鈥檙e shy about an arguably more important topic.

Some of the contemporary censorship of Shakespeare seems to us almost bizarre. Malvolio, living in an obviously Christian context, oddly exclaims: 鈥淛ove and my stars be praised!鈥� And yet Shakespeare luxuriated in sexual innuendo which had to be bowderlised from our school texts four centuries on.

Taboos can change swiftly. A word so innocent that it gave name to the dog in the fifties family viewing Dam Busters is now so toxic that I was cut off on air when I merely tried to explain its Latin origin. Sensibilities even vary between generations living contemporaneously. My father was far more shocked by the Anglo Saxon Andrew Mitchel never denied, than by the Latin he never uttered.

Like societies everywhere, we mock the taboos of others and fail to see the absurdities of our own. We like to censor censorship. But a certain amount of reticence is essential for a courteous and civilised society. Some words are simply offensive. It is no more than good manners to refrain from language which gratuitously insults those of other faiths, ethnicities or backgrounds.

Some however are dangerous. The n-word represents racism which, at its worst, is not merely offensive but violent and even murderous: yet again, this week, we鈥檝e been reminded of an aspiring young man killed at a bus stop simply because he was black.

And it was partly violence which the 1926 censors feared if Coward鈥檚 play was performed. Who are we, who were not there, to judge that they were overreacting to the instabilities of the time? Even if they were, what of adultery itself? Twee though this sounds, as a teenager I caught myself considering extra marital flirtation cool, because of Coward鈥檚 glamorous characters. How can we, in an age with no social deference, know the effect of such heady role models, and their possible contribution to the breakdown in adult relationships which now causes misery to so many vulnerable children?

A tiny bit can control a vast and powerful horse: a small rudder steers a huge ship. And the tongue, the Apostle James writes in his epistle to the first Christians, has sway way beyond its size and strength.

They were not round the bend. Freedom of speech is very precious. But a little respectful restraint is also a sign of enlightenment, not just for individuals but for society.

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