ABSTRACT
Under the system of theatre censorship administered in the United Kingdom by the Lord Chamberlain from 1737 to 1968, nobody lost their lives, and nobody was imprisoned. The parliamentary enquiry established by the government in 1966 undertook an extensive comparative investigation involving over thirty other countries, and although their nal recommendations led directly to the abolition of the system of theatre censorship, their research clearly showed that much more draconian and less benign forms of control were practised elsewhere. Often it was in the hands of the state and the police, whereas the Lord Chamberlain was supposedly removed from the immediate political sphere because, as a servant of the royal household, he was not answerable to Parliament. When managers or playwrights came to see him, the discussions about theatre were usually polite and gentlemanly affairs which took place not in the threatening surroundings of state ofcialdom, but in ornate rooms at St James’s Palace, quite possibly over a glass of sherry.
