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THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER
1956.
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"WE'VE GOT A SMASHING BIG CAR COMING TOMORROW, MUM-A PRETTY LADY AT THE SHOW TALKED DAD INTO IT.” ·
DOES VICTORIA
STILL NEED
THE
THE
CENSOR?
censorship of playwrights--waiting to con- two sentences, both actually
Tplays is once again, suit the ampire of their spoken by the Queen.
Me
work-look
large gilt
rejoice to under heavy
albums with photographs of fire Seven years ago the Lord Chamberlain had a narrow escape, when his benevolent despotism was threatened
Parliamentary by
action
They were: "If I ever "The Chapel Royal, as pre- committed adultery it was the wedding of when I married the husband pared for Duke and Duchess of York of Mrs Fitzherbert." and inst in 1898."
"Heirs male of the generation have not been a conspicuous success."
Victoria and Albert, eo (but saved by the Labour hord Scarbrough apparently Government). But now a feels, must be protected. The
Victoria is also excluded, not
Mr Housman then began new resistance movement House of Windsor, on the to write a series of one-act t8 growing against the stage, can never be less than plays about Queen Victoria. surprisingly in this system, from direction of the English perfect. And although the When he submitted the first drama from St James's Chamberlain's office is batch to the Lord Chamber-
Palace.
Vetting plays, pantos and variety sketches is only a part-time job for the senior
revue. In the Punch Revue, for was a sketch example, there depicting Noel Coward's version of Victoria with Groucho Marx as Disraeli, The Lord Chamber-
Once again the censorship of stage plays lain was not amused and struck
officer of the Royal House is under fire. A “banned” play is running in
hajd (assisted by four readers). He is mainly cop- cerned with rather less controversial chores, such as the appointment of the Poet Laureate
the screening of debutantes.
But the eleventh Earl of Scarbrough, current incum- bent of this ancient office, is heir to a long and odlous
tradition of pettifogging, paralysing interference with the English stage.
a London theatre which has been taken
it out of the show.
In music, too, the
grandmother
Queen's out
of bounds. Five years ago Eric Maschwitz and Norman Gins- bury tubmitted to the censor en operetta on Victoria and Albert.
It Wis banned because
over by a theatre club for this purpose. Here "historical inaccuracy."
RICHARD FINDLATER
examines
how the Lord
Chamberlain
of
If censorship on those grounds were appiled to publishing. the libraries of the world woulth be denuded. But Lord Scarbrough still refuses to sanction
thi musical play.
exercises his power in relation to royalty. Globus Days"—–—
prevent the lain, they were banned out- In some directions, the powerless to Chamberlain's men have insubordination of a Crawfle right. Nothing daunted, he moved with the times. It is or a Lytton Strachey, in the continued to write them for a far
cry from the days theatre it can keep authors publication. when "The Mikado" was in their place. banned so as not to hurt the feelings of Japan.
PERFECTION
YET, on other subjects, the taboos are as strict as ever. One of the most curious of these concerns the House of Windsor.
No living member of the English Royal Family may
Yet, oddly enough, Miss Anna Neuglo appeared in London twó years later in a show "The
- which
was scarcely a monument of scholar ship. She was seen na Queen Victoria,
without let or hind- rance from the consor, singing to me only with thine "Drink, eyes" decorating a drummer boy, and teaching Albert to waltz.
DREAM APPROVED
It was only in 1836-on the Intervention, it is reported, of Edward VIII-that nine of Mr TTAD the Lord "Chamberlain' Housman's plays were passed for Huried the iron curtain? Not public performance, And six- at all. Miss Neagle, you see, only icen of them are still banned.
dreamed she was the. Queen, in an advanced slate of concussion, And that apparently made "The Glorious Days" quite. U at St James's Palace.
It is only in the last thirty years. indeed that even George IV has been released from the Chamberlain's custody. Before the 1914-18 war that veteran victim of
Still under the Lord Chamber censorship, Laurence Houg lain's veto, moreover, is Hugh Ross Williamson's "Mr Glod- man, made the mistake of stone"banned in 1937 because writing a play about the it Introduced Queen Victoria. Could Christopher Fry, then, trial of George IV's wife, Yet says the author in his Just write a play about the Duke of Queen Caroline.
published autobiography"-"I Windsor, say, for Alec Guinness?
put nothing of consequence. Into the
Why not-it' there
Queen's mouth which she did The Chamberlain banned not either may or write, except prologie on an operating table, be represented on the stage. it, without explaining why, for one invented sentence, ..." and Mr. Guinness": thinks it all' That is understandable, even Ten years later (and a
up under an anaesthetic. in n constitutional monar- hundred years after Caro- As the play has since been
And in any event someone can' broadcast and televiætxi, ``uncă chy. But the veto on Royal line's trial) the guardian of heating that the Chamberlaine always open up another theatre, appearances goeg.
club, charge a few shillings (for)] relented. Mr office had grown moro liberal, beyond the present genera Housman's play would be Hugh Rom Williamson put it up memberalpant maken
again recently safe for public exhibition, rough. But it is still kept off of a bygone ago. ****
to Lord Bear monkey out of this absurd relle
(COPYRIGHT)" he said, if the author deleted the stage.
tion.
back
our
That is why the Lord
Chamberlain has banned Sir
Basil Bartlett's play, "The
moral
Jersey Lily," which centre Order your copy now
on the life of Lily Langtry,
Lord Scarbrough does not
mind the anthor writing
about the grandmother of
$5.
his wife (Mary Malcolm) 1956 GILES ANNUAL
But he objecta to Bir Basil's
effrontery in presenting the
great-grandfather of the
Queen (Edward VII).
The conso alvėto, god
back farther ag
Victorjayaka (A156
portfalter
the w
SOUTH
stock will be limited
Concluding: KEIR HARDIE, THE REBEL IN POLITICS
HE STOOD ALONE DURING THE WAR
By EMRYS HUGH ÉS
·ARDIE continued as of that meeting yet. When it was Commons should be in defence;
a bodyguard of working-class children, rouri Hardlo and made our
H
and
Chairman of the Par over we formed Hamentary Labour way, followed by the mod, to He hade his way back to his Party for only two years. the house he was staying in. It home in Scotishd, weary He was not entirely happy was no new experience for Keir worn out. He knew that his work in the role nor did it entire Hardie to be shouted down and was over and that his life tras
mobbed, but as we sat around ebbing out. ly suit him.
the fire we could see that he was
deeply distressed. He had not He lingered on through the It was not that he was expected this in Aberdare, summer, and at the end o Incapable of doing hum- among the mining folk. It seem- September he went into a libis- ed that all his life work Hnd gow nursing home. Pneubbonia drum detail work. In hla
been in vain, ·
had set in On Sunday, Septem- Jife he had done an
ber 20, 1910, in the preseTICU to enormous amount of it and
Fenner of his wife and daughter, ho Was meticulous and Brockway, wrote of him at the died peacefully in his sleep. methodical in what he time. "Although only fifty-eight,
he seemed an old, old man, If in Great Britain today do thought were the important crumpled in body and broken in things that mattered.
Another
colleague,
sent
spirit. The lines in his forehead Child is cast on the streets to were deep as his head sank on earn his living as an errand boy
at the age of eight or is In his "Life of Ramsay Mac- his hand. 'I can't aght this war down to work long hours in the Donald," Lori Elton, referring like 1 fought the Boer War,' he darkness of the mine at the
to the of twelve; if the lives of the to Hardie, writes: "Tempera- said, 'I must leave that mentally, like many idealists, he younger comrades."" was an individualist, accustomed
to follow his own intuitions and apt, in Parliament, to take his own
Bre Independent of colleagues. Unwaveringly clear
his
Insulted
as to the end, he was adven Indifferent to the indispensable WHEN he returned to Londars of the ingete were full means,"
marching soldier and excited
easily crowds. Ho, woa cognisable and he was frequent- ly insulted on his way to the House of Commons,
an
He remained, of course, M.P. and continued the crusado both in and out of Parliament. In the 1911 election he saw the Aumber of Labour MPs Ti30 from 29 to 42. Then came the shadow of war.
Deserted
TC-
working people, especially thong living in the mining areas, “afro Infinitely brighter than they were a hundred years ago, it is largely due to the advent of the Labour Party which Kelz Hardle did so much to bring into being. Undaunted
By DUT if better social conditions
have come in Britai result of a bloodless revalition, The war struck Hardle like a that does not mean that the
and a spiritual chuig bas physical blow
comme swithout blight. He had had such faith struggle, md self-escrilicsi that the international forces of road of the pioneers of the the working class would resist it Labour Party was a hard one, -and now in every country the and on the way there were thony Socialist leaders
were
voting temptations
To stand alone as Keir Hardio did in the House of Commons, scoffed at, ineered ut, shouted down, and; to coriázfIÓ ON: UNI-
and urging their HARDIE bitterly opposed the war credits
war but found himself followers to dight. Hardie waa of his sup- utterly crushed by the tragedy deserted by many porters. Onco again
he war of it
He went to his constituency and he made his last speech in mondod, great
alone.
He never recovered from this daunted and unpength, of char...
soon after the declaration of the House of Commons on war and faced a. bitter
dard February 26, 1915, when he In Aferdard. hostile audience The meeting was equently in: opposed the proposal relax the
to education by-lows enable to bo with boos and jeers, children under twelve terrupted the singing of
Rule Britanale
employed in agricultural work, and the National Anthem. The WBA house he was staying surrounded by a crowd shouting "Throw the German dut."
ת!
After forty years the writer of this article has vivid memories
acter hd supreme
courage.
he were the qualities that marked Keir Hardie out from the other politician of his day, Indeed, Hardie could hardly be described as a politicias at all. He spoke slowly, with diff-He was a mixture of working culty, asking for the, indulgence, class landas, idealist, and Vistors of the House on the ground of
In front of his time. ill-health. It was ditting was the ry, fifty it not a hundred. Pokra
in the House of
· (COPYRIGHT) last words
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