This lecture will be given via Zoom Webinar. Web booking is now closed, but we can still send you the links if you email events@str.org.uk

In September 1968, and after 231 years, British theatre was finally liberated from the shackles of censorship operated by the Lord Chamberlain. There was celebration and optimism about a new age of freedom, but also some disquiet and trepidation. By the time the country entered the 1970s, questions were already being asked about exactly what had been gained and whether the struggle had been worth it. In this lecture Professor Steve Nicholson shall look at what was happening on stage that couldn’t have happened before, and at how far some of the hopes and the anxieties were fulfilled.

Steve Nicholson is Emeritus Professor at the University of Sheffield. His publications include British Theatre and the Red Peril: The Portrayal of Communism 1917-1945, Modern British Playwriting: the 1960s, and the 4-volume The Censorship of British Drama 1900-1968 for which he won the STR Theatre Book Prize He is a series editor for the University of Exeter Press, and is currently writing about the contemporary dramatist Howard Barker.