The Scottish Play

Nanny's great obsession is our well being and health, so she says. She likes nothing better than to poke her nose into our eating, exercise, drinking and smoking habits.

One particular "bete noir" (how very continental of me) of hers is smoking. We all know that she is striving mercilessly to banish smoking from our lives, I wonder where she will make up the tax shortfall that this will produce?

Although Nanny, has in many cases managed to ban smoking in offices and other public places, she is still not happy. One area that concerns her is the theatre, and the depiction of smoking on stage.

Nanny, not surprisingly, is against it.

Seemingly we are very stupid, and the sight of someone smoking will simply encourage us to do the same. I am 42, and have been exposed to smokers in pubs, in movies and in theatres; yet I don't smoke...How can this be?

Anyhoo, Nanny's special friends in the Scottish Executive have threatened to ban performances of Tomek Borkowy's plays in Scotland.

Eh?

Tomek Borkowy is a fringe venue manager, who runs the Hill Street Theatre at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Guess what his crime is?

He wants actors in his plays to smoke on stage.

Unfortunately, Nanny's lousy Scottish Executive banned all smoking on stage; even "herbal" cigarettes, whatever they are?

Mr Borkowy intends to defy the ban on smoking on stage, because he believes it is an "interference with art".

The irony is that Mr Borkowy gave up smoking ten years ago, and believes that people should not smoke in bars etc. However, he plans to defy Nanny's lackeys in the Scottish Executive and stand firm with fellow protester John Byrne.

Mr Byrne is a playwright who has threatened to block performances of his work in Scotland, unless the ban is lifted.

Nanny's morons on the Scottish Executive have turned down appeals for exemption from theatre producers, advising them to use fake cigarettes with powder instead.

Eh?

Fake fags, with powder?

If it weren't so serious, it would be laughable!

Surely, if a fake fags look realistic won't they encourage people to smoke anyway?

Mr Borkowy thinks Nanny is a moron:

"As a venue manager, how do I react to the company that is coming from down south or abroad and they have smoking on stage?

I have to ban the scene with the cigarette or break the law.

I decided as a venue manager to break the law.

This is interference with art.

This shows how our beautiful politicians don't think about the art

and the theatre at all.

They don't give a damn.

I would like someone to take me to the court,

because I will go as far as the European Court of Human Rights."

Mr B runs the risk of a few fines if he defies Nanny's chumps in the Scottish Executive.

There is a £50 fine for individuals who flout the legislation, and a £200 penalty for the manager or person in control of any no-smoking premises who allows others to smoke there or fails to display warning notices. Failure to pay brings on a hefty £2,500 fine.

Mr Borkowy said:

"You have to allow actors to smoke.

I am for the ban, but I am against the stupidity of politicians.

They measure everybody with one stick.

I came from Poland, and fought all my life any kind of censorship.

For me, this is a part of censorship, because as a director I cannot have the freedom to show Princess Margaret with a cigarette, Churchill with a cigar, Sherlock Holmes with a pipe.

This is inconceivable."

The theatre and comedy producer, David Johnson, quite rightly pointed out how stupid Nanny is:

"The ban is ludicrous, it's pathetic, frankly.

You can show sex on stage but you couldn't show them smoking afterwards."

This just goes to show how ridiculous Nanny has become. More interestingly it shows, as other articles on this site have done, how particularly ridiculous and extreme the Scottish Executive has become.

A clear case, if ever one were needed, for making sure that the dour Scottish potato head Brown does not replace Blairy.

If that were to happen, God knows where we will end up!