The Censorship of British Drama 1900-1968 (review)

after 1922 it could be argued that the lack of overt legislative control over Irish theatre was an aspect of the internalized self-control, policed by a Catholic social order, that governed so many facets of Irish society in the middle decades of the twentieth century. It must be said, however, that there is much in Riot and Great Anger that is new (particularly twentieth-century material), culled with obvious care and effort from the archives. The book is at its best when the author makes full use of her detailed research by analysing individual instances of stage censorship in their rich contexts. So the chapter here dealing with the tumultuous response to George A. Birmingham’s General John Regan in Westport on 4 February 1914 is arguably the strongest in the book, weaving a vivid account of the micro-politics that made a particular group of people, on a particular night, decide to break the social contract between actors and audience (in this case, by throwing chairs at the stage). Equally successful is the section of the book dealing with Lennox Robinson’s Roly Poly in 1942. The book is less successful when it attempts to hammer this kind of detail into lasting patterns of Irish identity – patterns that the specificity of the individual theatrical event constantly resists.