Nanny Bans Marlowe

I must commend Nanny's view of her own powers, not only does she seek to change the present but now she seeks to change the past.

Stalin used to do the same thing, he would doctor photographs of people that had "disappeared"; in order to eradicate them from history, thus ensuring the past always reflected his view of the present.

Nanny is now playing a very similar game.

Theatre producers at the Barbican in London have decided to rewrite parts of Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great, written in the 16th century, to avoid upsetting Muslims.

Tamburlaine the Great includes a reference to Muhammad being "not worthy to be worshipped", and a scene where the Koran is burnt.

The production at the Barbican has altered these scenes over fears they might offend.

Stage director Terry Hands thinks that this idea is bollocks.

Quote:

"I don't believe you should interfere with any classic for reasons of religious or political correctness."

However, Simon Reade, artistic director of the Bristol Old Vic where the production initiated said that not changing the original text "would have unnecessarily raised the hackles of one of the world's great religions".

He ignores several fundamental points:

• Muslims are not stupid, they are able to differentiate between a play written in the 16th century and a modern day bigot



• A religion, if it is to survive, must allow itself to be debated and criticised. Only then will its intellectual rigour be tested and proven



• You can no more dis-invent your past than you can dis-invent the wheel



• This form of unrequested censorship merely isolates and patronises those that it was intended to protect

Nanny does not have the right to judge and alter the past.