‘Good manners, decorum or the public peace'

This chapter discusses the Translating Classical Plays and on Good Manners, Decorum or the Public Peace'. The 'play' referred to was a new translation by Trevor Vibert of a composite of the three Ubu plays of Alfred Jarry. All new plays or 'additions' to old ones had to be submitted to the Lord Chamberlain for a licence before performance. Plays were still confined in London to the patent houses though restrictions in the provinces appear to have been less stringent. In the years that followed, cuts were demanded in a numbers of plays and many whole plays banned in their entirety, without the need for the holder of the office to account for, his motives. Cyclops is the only play of its kind to survive in its entirety though all the major tragedians composed similar and they were a standard part of the tragic submission of four plays to the archon in charge of the Great Dionysia.