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The Lord Chamberlain demanded the words “piss” and “arse” and “his hand pressed to his pubis” were excised from the script of Waiting for Godot in 1954. A scene from the play performed at the Barbican Theatre in 2015. Photo: Vibrant Pictures When Index first started to explore censorship in the arts more than 10 years ago, we called for arts organisations to be “more transparent about the dilemmas they face and more willing to open up dialogue about critical decisions.” We had just held a conference about censorship, and had encouraged people to talk, often for the first time, about the problems they had encountered. We hoped that our work would lead to an opening up of the arts. But in fact, over the last seven years and particularly since the Covid pandemic, the opposite has happened. What we are witnessing is a creeping, insidious form of self-censorship, barely visible and yet omnipresent. There are any number of reasons for this: a fear of “causing offence”, the perception that the world of the arts is too left-leaning and should rein itself in, an uncertainty about how to engage with the current issues of the day, a contraction in the range of subjects that British theatre is willing to touch. A few honourable exceptions aside, there is very little political theatre now being made in the UK. Huge funding constraints, coupled with a government clampdown on protest, means that theatremakers and artists are not inclined to take risks with challenging works. And virtually everyone in the industry is in denial about the extent of censorship at all. There are fewer and fewer opportunities for artists to explore the contradictions and complexity of our times. Creatives now have less motivation to tackle tricky subjects. Institutions that seek to bring order into an unpredictable world by playing safe are squeezing out new voices, and tugging their forelock to older middle-class audiences – often the only ones able to afford increasingly expensive ticket prices. In the course of this investigation into censorship and self-censorship in theatre and the arts more widely, Index spoke to more than 40 people – producers, directors, creative managers of theatres in England and Scotland, curators, arts journalists and other people working in the arts. Many only agreed to participate on the condition of anonymity. Speaking freely, they said, could harm their career. Some declined to speak with us at all. National institutions like The Tate and the Barbican – both caught up in censorship rows in the recent past – decided, after some to-ing and fro-ing, not to contribute to this investigation. Indhu Rubasingham, executive director of the National Theatre, turned down an interview request, even though she had recently delivered a significant speech on censorship, which we have quoted from below. The Arts Council England (ACE), the national development agency for creativity – and a principal funding body – awards grants to organisations like Index as part of its anti-censorship work. ACE still gives us money. In the years leading up to the 2020 Covid pandemic ACE gave money for a Rights, Risks and Reputation programme Index developed jointly with Cause4 and What Next? – as well as an Arts Censorship Support Service. We also circulated a limited survey on the topic. The respondents, in the main, were “gender-critical women”, as they’re often called, who perhaps have been the most outspoken in the public sphere about their experiences of censorship and being silenced. We also drew up a catalogue of all the cases of censorship discussed in the press over the last five years. Censorship, in the view of Index, happens when an artistic work is banned or is prevented from being performed or displayed. We are not interested in the political stance of the performer or artistic group, so long as they are acting within transparent democratic norms. For us, space for a plurality of artistic views and voices in civil society is not negotiable. In a society free from the constraints of censorship, institutions should have the confidence and freedom to take independent artistic decisions. Art should be allowed to take on taboos and to offend in doing so. It is often the only tool that exists to do so. This history of arts censorship in Britain In the UK, arts censorship has always been exercised in one form or another. From 1495 onwards the Master of Revels regulated court festivities, and later licensed theatres. (All Shakespeare’s plays, for example, had to be approved before being performed.) In 1737, censorship of the theatre began to be regulated through the Licensing Act, with the role passing on to another royal official, the Lord Chamberlain. Until the 1960s, it can be argued, the telling of the history of English theatre ought to be diffracted through the prism of censorship – and attempts to circumvent the censor’s pen. It was only after Parliament passed the Theatres Act of 1968, which abolished formal theatre censorship and the role of the Lord Chamberlain, that theatrical productions actively addressing taboo subjects started to flourish. Hair, a musical tackling issues of race, politics and sex, was timed to hit the West End with the demise of the office of the Lord Chamberlain. It was, unsurprisingly, a huge commercial success. State sponsorship of theatre was managed through the Arts Council of Great Britain (precursor to the current Arts Council England, ACE), which was set up on the urging of the economist John Maynard Keynes after World War II. Public arts funding was at its peak in the late 1960s and 1970s, encouraged by the Labour politician Jennie Lee, the UK’s first minister of the arts. In the 1967 white paper which established the modern Arts Council charter, Lee wrote: “No one would wish state patronage to dictate taste or in any way restrict the liberty of even the most unorthodox and experimental of artists.” As a consequence the body, operating at arms-length from government, facilitated the production of political – for this, read less commercial – plays which otherwise might have struggled to secure production funding. In an interview with Index, the playwright David Hare said: “Peggy Ramsey, who was a very famous play agent, always said that the first thing about the new is that it’s very ugly. And that’s your first reaction to the new. She said she remembers reading Waiting for Godot before anybody had heard of it … and going, ‘Oh, my God, this play is so ugly.’ “But we in the theatre, and at the Royal Court in particular, knew that there were these extraordinary individuals called Samuel Beckett and John Osborne and Harold Pinter and Edward Bond. Every one of whom had been catastrophically received when they first did their work.” With the arrival of a Conservative government in 1979, the very notion of large state subsidies for the arts was challenged. Prominent cabinet members like Norman Tebbit argued that the arts were too left-wing; pushing back, many in the arts argued that theatre and art were there, in part, to reflect social realities and advocate for underrepresented groups. That argument has continued in various guises ever since. The latest review of the future of arts funding in the UK, published in December 2025 and overseen by Labour peer Margaret Hodge, criticised the last Conservative government for its “interference” in funding decisions and cuts to the arts. The order from the then Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries to redistribute £24 million of arts funding from London to the north of England was one such example. Hodge wrote: “There have been attempts to exert more political control over ACE decisions in recent years and this has to stop. The Arts Council must remain free from political interference. This matters. It ensures that artistic freedom is protected, that creativity is not stifled and that public trust is maintained. Political interference, even by those with the best of intentions, could lead to political bias, or even censorship.” Index fighting theatre censorship Index has monitored the decline in freedom of expression of the arts for more than 10 years. Taking the Offensive, the aforementioned conference and subsequent report organised by our arts coordinator Julia Farrington in 2013, was convened to debate “the growth in self-censorship in contemporary culture, the social, political and legal challenges to artistic freedom of expression and the sources of these new challenges.” The conference concluded that censorship and self-censorship had both become significant influences in the arts. While manifestations of censorship were complex, all had the effect of controlling free expression. The challenges of censorship were particularly marked for people from ethnic minority groups, who often faced additional obstacles. These included the possibility of plays dealing with religion or race issues being closed down for fear of causing offence, and corporate sponsors being worried about art being too political. Theatre writers from minority groups felt that they were being boxed in by theatre institutions and commissioners with very narrow expectations of what they, as minorities, should be interested in. Index’s research came at a time when some of these tensions were erupting very publicly. These pressures led, at times, to the involvement of the police, asking that a production be closed down for fear of public order disruptions. In 2004, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s drama Behzti was shut down after protesters clashed with police outside its Birmingham venue during a performance. Behzti’s depiction of a rape inside a Gurdwara – a Sikh place of worship – was considered unacceptable by some members of the community. In 2014, Exhibit B, a production by South African artist and playwright Brett Bailey, was cancelled by The Barbican – who commissioned the play – even before its opening night. Exhibit B was conceived as a “walkthrough installation of live tableaux referencing 19th-century human zoos and colonial display, intended to confront the racist foundations of European colonial power”. Even though actors in the production were themselves of African and African Caribbean heritage, protesters outside the venue – the Vaults in Waterloo – insisted the play was racist. Cultural consultant Diane Morgan, who worked first as the production’s casting director and then as consultant, mediator and producer of the relationship-building programme that followed, was inside the building with the team, cast and crew during protests; they were eventually told by the Barbican to vacate the premises for their own safety, and were guided out of the building by the police. Morgan told Index that Exhibit B had been conceived as a “vital anti-racist critique”. She continued: “With more cultural nuance embedded in the planning and communication, it might not have been perceived by protesters as racist, exploitative and demeaning.” Farrington has written an authoritative account of what happened in terms of policing. Ultimately, Farrington wrote, the police advised that the venue couldn’t be secured properly because too many resources would be required to ensure that the show could run without incident. Accepting the advice, The Barbican cancelled it. A year later, the National Youth Theatre scrapped its original production of Homegrown. The play, by Omar El-Khairy and Nadia Latif, tells the story of the three girls (including Shamima Begum, a cause celebre due to the UK government subsequently stripping her of her British citizenship) who travelled to Syria to join Isis. The theatre said that the play had been pulled because it was “one-dimensional” and did not show “editorial balance”. Observers cried censorship, though, following reports that the Metropolitan Police had been involved in the decision. Homegrown has not been performed since, although an extract was staged by Index at London’s Conway Hall in 2017. One contributor to Index’s initial research noted that Britain was reaching a point where “art is not for debate, controversy and disagreement, it is to please”. The evidence we gathered over the course of this investigation strongly indicates that the situation is now worse; productions like Behzti, Exhibit B and even Homegrown would probably not even be commissioned today. And what about productions that may upset religious communities? Cinema chain Cineworld cancelled screenings of the film The Lady of Heaven in 2022 “to ensure the safety of staff and customers” after protests by local Muslim communities in Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Bolton, Blackburn, Birmingham and Stratford. The main objection to the film was that it was from a Shia standpoint and depicted Muslim prophets. Theatre self-censors to please In the intervening decade or so since Index’s last survey, theatre and the arts seem to have become even more about “pleasing”, and avoiding potentially contentious material. A 2020 report on freedom of expression, carried out by the independent magazine and news service Arts Professional and based on a survey of people working in the arts, highlighted a whole range of issues under public discussion where artists and arts organisations felt censored or obliged to self-censor. The named topics included Brexit, religion (antisemitism, but also Christianity, the Ulster Volunteer Force and Northern Ireland), China, conservatism, and general equality and diversity issues including gender identity. Six years on and a pandemic later, the catalogue of press reports compiled by Index for this report – together with the survey responses – suggests that self-censorship and censorship today is now much more extensive. There is an over-amplification of the proxy fights over gender and the war in Gaza, fights in which Jewish people and Muslims, women and the LGBTQ+ community, are pitted against each other to no one’s benefit. The replacement of spirited but respectful debate with vituperation and silencing is a problem that theatres and arts venues mostly don’t want to talk about. Combatants take sides and express their anger at having their voices silenced – while showing themselves all too keen to do the same to people with points of view that contradict their own. The New Boycott, a 2026 report by the advocacy group Freedom in the Arts (FITA), highlights the very real threat of censorship confronting (the mostly older) gender-critical women, who have lost jobs and have been hounded on social media because of their views on gender. Others reported feeling that they can’t express themselves without opprobrium being rained down on them from managers and fellow workers. One anonymous respondent to our survey wrote: “[I was] not allowed to have an exhibition of female artists; told works showing the life of working women wouldn’t be accepted as it didn’t include trans women. Most of my colleagues are vocal TRAs (trans rights activists) and Hamas supporters so impossible to be myself, offer any different perspectives as I know I would be cancelled as they’ve gleefully done to others.” FITA’s report also focuses on Jewish performers who have been cancelled in the recent past. While there have recently been several plays about Jewish life on the London stage – most notably Sam Grabiner’s widely acclaimed play Christmas Day at the Almeida Theatre – Jewish performers (bands and comedians particularly) have found themselves de-platformed at fringe venues largely because young people and pro-Palestinian activists who work at those venues have complained about feeling “unsafe”. Some performers were targeted because of their connection to Israel, others just for being Jewish. In 2023, guidance issued by Arts Council England (ACE) went so far as to warn the arts organisations it funds that “overtly political or activist statements” by performers and artists, even in a personal capacity, could constitute a reputational risk. These, the guidance continues, should be avoided if they went “beyond your company’s core purpose and partnerships with organisations that might be perceived as being in conflict with the purposes of public funding of culture”. The guidance triggered an angry response and was re-issued with the wording changed. But the warning continues, subliminally, to influence artistic decisions today. None of this has been helped by a generally censorious political atmosphere in the UK. In the last five years in particular, successive governments have sought to limit protest and control speech. Politicians including Sir Keir Starmer, the current prime minister (and a one-time human rights lawyer), have repeatedly challenged what can be said by performers in a democratic society, particularly in relation to the war in Gaza. In May 2026, a series of arson attacks on synagogues and Jewish institutions, and the stabbing of two “visibly Jewish” people in North London (marked out by their dress code as Orthodox Jews), contributed to an understandable sense of fear in the British Jewish community. Turning on Arts Council England, Starmer singled out antisemitism in the arts as a contributory factor, telling a forum on tackling antisemitism: “Where public funding is being used to promote or platform antisemitism, the Arts Council must act, using its powers to suspend, withdraw and claw back funding. “And, today, we are mandating an independent audit of how allegations are handled.” It was an extraordinary demand from a Prime Minister. Would a play featuring a character expressing an antisemitic view have its funding withdrawn? Would it matter if that character was unsympathetic or not? Who would judge? What exactly did the government deem antisemitic? And what other viewpoints might the government suddenly determine unsuitable for exploration by the British arts? Triggering a backlash Instead of giving police more resources to police venues, recent governments have suggested by their actions that supporting free expression in the arts is not important; it is easier to have an event cancelled than to brave it out. Some of these decisions are high profile. Others simply pass under the radar. Mike Tweddle, now director of the Oxford Playhouse, told Index that several years ago when working for a different organisation, he was obliged to pull a production because the police had warned of the possibility of “coachloads of protesters” turning up: cuts to police funding meant they couldn’t protect the venue. Meanwhile, individuals perceived as having stepped over an invisible, or at least fuzzy, line are in danger of experiencing vituperation and even punishment. It’s never happened to the playwright Karim Khan who feels that in theatre he has a lot of freedom to write the stories of ordinary life that interest him – his latest play, Sweetmeats, about an elderly South Asian couple, was very well-received when it was staged at the Bush Theatre in London earlier this year. But in a wide-ranging discussion with Index he did note that writers would not necessarily be guaranteed protection in the event of a backlash. And who knows what might trigger a backlash? The funding models of most arts organisations and theatres are heavily dependent on ticket sales, corporate sponsorship and philanthropic trusts. In practice, this means that not many theatres and institutions are prepared to take big risks. It’s worth noting that even theatre buildings, the physical structures themselves, are often owned by large corporations. The Manchester Royal Exchange theatre, for example, is part of a portfolio managed by one of Germany’s biggest pension funds. Freedom of expression or the financial bottom line? Sometimes the choice isn’t that stark at all. It was at the Royal Exchange that one the most high-profile cases of alleged censorship in recent years unfolded. The case is worth going into in detail because it highlights a lot of the challenges faced by theatre today. The aborted production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream by director Stef O’Driscoll – it was cancelled in the autumn of 2024 – came up again and again in conversations about UK theatre and censorship. Whether it was censorship or a matter of poor judgement compounded several times over is still contested. While O’Driscoll called out the cancellation of the production as censorship, an independent review commissioned by the theatre concluded that it was mismanagement. Of the production itself, the initial attraction is evident, even in retrospect. O’Driscoll is a well-known, respected and original theatre director, at the time recognised as a rising star. Her proposal for a re-interpretation of the Shakespeare play, turning it into a rave, resonated with Manchester’s reputation as the heart of the UK music scene. A Midsummer’s Night Dream is on the English literature GCSE curriculum, and so the production was marketed to all Manchester secondary schools, with posters plastered across the city. Everything seemed to be going well at first. But then, two weeks before opening night, the management of the theatre came in to see what had been described by Manchester news website The Mill as a “chaotic” technical rehearsal. What the management and the marketing team saw horrified them. In particular, they were perturbed by the “Free Palestine” and pro-trans rights chants featured in the play within the play. What ensued was a huge argument about artistic direction, culminating with the cancellation of the entire run just two hours before the opening night performance. Various excuses were proffered, ranging from technical issues to an actor incurring an injury. O’Driscoll, for her part, said that a rap that “expressed solidarity with transpeople and the people of Palestine” had been unacceptable to the Royal Exchange’s leadership, who had made her feel “devalued, invisible, problematic and unsafe”. According to reports, the cost to the theatre ran into the hundreds of thousands of pounds. In March 2025, Stephen Freeman, director of the theatre, tendered his resignation. Most of the arts professionals who spoke with Index were sceptical of the central censorship charge. The general feeling, rather, was that the Royal Exchange should have thought a little more carefully about its target audience. One interviewee pointed out that an edgy play about the Manchester dance scene with a director like O’Driscoll should have been put on in a studio theatre. Trying to shoehorn her ideas into A Midsummer’s Night Dream was a conceptual mistake. Danny Moar, director of Theatre Royal Bath, considered taking on the play himself, but objected to O’Driscoll’s vision of the audience chanting “from the river to the sea”. Art is fiction and should show different points of view on stage, Moar told Index. But it shouldn’t, he continued, coerce its audience into taking a political stance. The external report commissioned by the theatre board – made available to the public in abridged form – put the problem with the play firmly down to management failures. “[The Royal Exchange’s] handling of A Midsummer’s Night Dream revealed significant systemic organisational and leadership failures rather than the deliberate suppression of political content. The lack of senior artistic leadership and properly documented producing processes created conditions where legitimate concerns about artistic developments in the production became entangled with allegations of censorship.” The director of another regional playhouse who spoke with Index was sympathetic both to the theatre and to O’Driscoll. Funding cuts, the director said, meant that the internal checks and balances which may have prevented this kind of blow-up were probably not in place. While O’Driscoll declined to speak to Index about the incident, she did not dispute the basic version of events described in The Mill. She did, however, take issue with claims on the news website that as part of the performance, “baggies” with white powder and Palestinian flags were to have been distributed to the audience. Also in Manchester, another arts professional, curator Alistair Hudson was fired over the Palestine/Israel issue. [See p29]. Due to his decision to run an exhibition looking at conflicts around the world at the Whitworth Gallery, he today finds himself an exile in Germany. What are the consequences of this increasingly polarised generational, social and economic environment within the arts itself? What Index has learnt over the course of our investigation is that theatre’s response has been either to avoid difficult issues altogether, or to highlight the need to represent “all sides” in any controversial debate. Anything more politically contentious has to be set firmly in the past, added to a revival, squeezed into a Shakespeare classic or buried in a play by Sophocles. While some theatres have bucked the trend, they are rare and small-scale. London’s Arcola Theatre, for instance, put on a number of short political plays dealing with Palestine (a direct response to the 2023 ACE warning to avoid political statements), and more recently staged a series of plays about the war in Ukraine. Art reflecting the concerns of more marginalised communities has also found itself, well, marginalised. In 2023, the National Theatre commissioned Gillian Slovo to write a verbatim play about the 2017 Grenfell disaster, with Phyllida Lloyd (of Mamma Mia fame) directing. More than 70 people, including many children, were killed in the fire that swept a west London tower block. The fire quickly morphed into a national scandal as it became clear that it had been preventable. The theatre makers spent a lot of time interviewing people who lived in or around Grenfell Tower about their experiences, creating out of this Grenfell: In the Words of Survivors. Positioned as an incisive piece of political theatre about a contemporary scandal, a large-scale, three-year co-creation and talent development programme ran alongside the production. But, an insider told Index, the leadership of the National Theatre at the time decided that the production should not be staged (as originally intended) at the main Olivier theatre, which seats more than 1000 people. It would be safer, the thinking went, if it was staged in the much smaller Dorfman Theatre. The reason was a mix of political and legal worries about it being staged before the Grenfell Inquiry report, as well as concerns about its box office appeal. These worries contributed to what was ultimately a financial decision. In effect, the National was not prepared to give full-throttled backing to a controversial play about marginalised communities, for fear that audiences might not turn up and politicians might complain. In February 2026, Indhu Rubasingham, the newly appointed CEO of the National Theatre, delivered the Jennie Lee lecture. The annual public event was inaugurated by the Department of Culture, Media and Sports and Arts Council England as a platform to explore topical issues in the arts. Rubasingham, commenting on what she described as a crisis in new writing for theatre, said that a shyness about controversy was stifling creativity and free expression exercised in good faith. “And when everything feels threatened, we gravitate towards places that make us feel safe,” she said. “Populist tactics are used across the political spectrum to create outrage. Polarisation drives insularity. People retreat to join those who look, feel and think like themselves. “The impact on the arts can be profound. When we’re afraid of being judged, cancelled, called out, we self-censor.” A director based at a central London theatre, who (like many other interviewees) asked not to be named, told Index he was worried that difficult and controversial conversations happening in households in Britain were no longer being reflected in the theatre. He hesitated to call it outright censorship. Instead, he described it more in terms of confusing the views of a playwright and the views expressed on stage. “There is a literalism which has made it very difficult for playwrights to assert poetic distance from their work,” he said. Playwright David Hare, writer of the plays Skylight and Plenty. Photo: Capital Pictures/Alamy In effect, he said, what this meant is that anything controversial said by a character will be interrogated. Playwrights were being discouraged from allowing their characters to say inflammatory things – even if the character being portrayed is a bigot. Writers, he said were under “extraordinary pressure to cut it and have done [with any argument]”. The problem, the interviewee said, was that when these tensions remained unresolved, theatre ran the risk of becoming a flattened version of conversations taking place in the real world. This prompts a crucial question: If literate dramas can no longer give an authentic sense of real life, then what is the point of theatre? The same director, when asked about direct censorship, suggested that no political play that was derogatory about the royal family could be produced by a mainstream theatre. It seems an extraordinary claim, but perhaps not if you consider centuries of censorship by the Crown. While it is difficult to prove an absence, there are no plays which Index has found that would even begin to fit that category. In our discussion, David Hare agreed that theatre no longer represented “the street”, although he disputed suggestions of overt censorship. “Essentially, I think, it is a lack of belief in the idea of the avant garde … when I was young, we believed that people came usually from the streets to bring us news from the streets. You know, John Osborne, Andrea Dunbar, Shelagh Delaney. They came and they told us what was going on, and they were in advance often.” Part of the problem, he commented, was an over-reliance on dramaturges and similar. “What you see on the stage, eventually, is something which has been mediated through the views of many people… I know writers who are put through four or five workshops. The other day, I heard of a workshop that had gone on for three weeks and ended in a full production […] in private. And the authors still don’t know if the work will go on.” In our conversations with theatre professionals, Index took the understanding that toning down content between text and performance was commonplace. And this was after a piece of work had been commissioned. A case in point was the play Giant, about Roald Dahl’s antisemitism. Many believe that a Jewish character’s support of Israel was toned down, for fear of alienating audiences. As a Manchester producer told Index, the simple fact is that little money will be made available to fund anything controversial. This producer had wanted to put on a production about antisemitism and Islamophobia but no one would touch it. In her Jennie Lee address, Rubasingham highlighted this: “Playing safe will be the end of us. If we are conservative in style, in content, in process, we might balance the books today, but we will kill the future of theatre… “We are seeing a steep reduction across the sector in new writing. I feel this is the clearest and most troubling sign of what’s happening.” Bums on seats But the truth, as Rubasingham also acknowledged in her address, is that funding – or the lack of, thereof – is making it more difficult to make challenging theatre. “I believe part of British theatre’s success and global status is because of its unique financial model – balancing commercial income, state investment and philanthropy,” she said. But, as she acknowledged: “This delicate equilibrium is already being disturbed.” The funding models of many arts organisations and theatres are heavily dependent on ticket sales (placing emphasis on “blockbuster” shows with mass appeal), corporate sponsorship and philanthropic trusts, and on public subsidies. The last often comes with strings attached and lengthy reports to fill in. Since the onset of austerity under the Conservative/Liberal Democrat administration in 2010, the arts have experienced enormous financial pressure. Public funding has decreased – a recent report showed that local council funding for the arts had fallen by 55%. Indeed, the National Theatre now receives more money from philanthropic contributions than it does from Arts Council England. The situation deteriorated further in the wake of the Covid pandemic. During the lockdown, theatres were shuttered for months. Arts centres across the country found themselves in terrible debt, with shows cancelled and revenue streams dwindling to nothing. Even large public institutions like the Southbank Centre struggled financially. By the time they finally reopened, they also had to contend with much larger running costs, particularly energy bills. Museums and theatres have similarly experienced significant capital pressures, particularly around the matter of infrastructural maintenance. Many of London’s theatres are more than a century old, and look their age. A 2024 report by SOLT & UK Theatre found that without capital investment in the next five years, nearly 40% of venues risked closure and another 40% would be too unsafe to use. This report also observed that 500 museums and galleries have closed down since 2000. Under the circumstances, it is clear that theatres and arts venues have no choice but to seek out – at least part of the time – the commercial hits that will please their corporate and philanthropic funders by putting bums on seats. One obvious consequence: avoiding anything that might upset or unsettle anticipated audiences. British touring companies, which make their money by taking popular plays around the world, have also experienced severe financial pressures. Since the UK’s exit from the European Union in 2016, touring the continent has become more difficult, and the financial returns from engagements in locations like the USA and Australia have become slimmer. The money to be made tends be in locations with a compromised approach to free expression issues. The RSC is currently touring Matilda the Musical around China; the National Theatre has a deal with Chinese cinemas to screen the Olivier-winning Inter Alia, about a female high court judge in London whose son is accused of rape. Both initiatives have been actively promoted by the British government as proof that the arts are a competitive British international export. Before his recent trip to China, Sir Keir Starmer said: “The success of Great British organisations such as the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company in China showcases the strength and appeal of our world-leading creative industries.” Other theatre companies and producers are making money in Saudi Arabia, China and the UAE. Often, the public justification for taking productions to countries with an ongoing history of political and social repression is that cross-pollination with Western culture encourages social change. Index has reported on the suppression of free expression in all these countries. Exposure and condemnation tends to be the most effective method of challenging, we have found. In any case, there is a more significant issue at state: is taking the yuan from China ever, really, neutral? What if the National or the RSC were to stage a production – about the plight of the Uyghurs, for example – that annoyed Beijing? Making deals with countries that (amongst other things) limit free expression mean that this is unlikely to happen. In 2023, Index raised the growing problem of national galleries like The Tate taking money from Beijing. That year, 18% of the gallery’s funding came from Chinese investors, some with very close links to the Chinese government. Likewise, the new rehang of the National Gallery was funded by CC Land – a Hong Kong-based company owned by Chinese property magnate Cheung Chung-Kiu. Tie-ups of this kind are now normal for some big arts institutions. But there is an increasingly systematic institutional dependency of parts of our arts infrastructure on authoritarian regimes, or companies linked to them, which is a potential danger to freedom of expression. Javaad Alipoor is an independent theatre producer of Iranian heritage who runs a touring production company. His 2023 production of Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World explored transnational repression, focusing on the murder of an exiled 1970s pop star by the Iranian government. He is very clear that he will not go to places where censorship of the arts is exercised. Creative autonomy is crucial to making artistic work like this, Alipoor told Index. “We have a very strict policy in terms of our organisation, which is, we won’t work with anyone, where we have to give up any freedom of editorial or artistic control in terms of censorship. Either in the work or the way that we’re allowed to talk about the work.” With all this incipient censorship, why don’t people just go and put on political theatre at the pub or a similar low-profile venue? This, according to David Hare, is one way to escape the clutches of reputational damage and financial shortfalls. Indeed, Index was told that many performances dealing with trans issues now do happen in pubs and similar venues. But even the pub is no longer an anonymous venue. In the past, writers and creatives could test out outrageous ideas and concepts in smoky back rooms, and learn from the immediate feedback – critical, even harsh, but not punitive or vindictive. But that just can’t be guaranteed today. Anything that happens anywhere is liable to being filmed and posted on social media, often stripped of that all-important qualifier, context. A viral video filmed on a mobile phone can end up stoking global online outrage. Thus, even the most modest arts “venues” are now cautious about what they put on and wary if their often young staff express concerns about hosting an event. Shobu Kapoor as Hema and Rehan Sheikh as Liaquat in Sweetmeats at Bush Theatre, London. Photo: Craig Fuller Safe theatre: the future? While the Lord Chamberlain may no longer censor plays, it does seem that in the last few years British theatre has fallen to censoring itself, thanks to a whole range of complex pressures, both financial and political. The fact that so few people wanted to discuss the problem with Index on the record was telling. It felt that they feared being enmeshed in a culture war if they did, or that they couldn’t trust outsiders to understand. Even Rubasingham, keen to make controversial points in a public address, was unwilling to discuss with Index solutions to the very problem she identified. Theatre and arts organisations are beginning to accept some kind of censorship as the norm, rather than thinking about freedom of expression as a core value. Increasingly, censorship in the UK is taking the form of interest groups trying to shut each other down. Neither are interested in listening to other points of view, or making the case for all parties to have a say. Free speech is all well and good as far as it does not extend to my opponents, in other words. The suppression of theatre, thanks to sometimes muddled concerns about causing offence will continue. Instead of encouraging the theatre to serve as an agora, a public space for airing and engaging with the contentious issues of the day, producers and commissioners will rather avoid these topics. Controversy leaches money, energy and goodwill out of projects. And to stave off bankruptcy, theatres and galleries will increasingly commission “safe theatre”, which will attract audiences rather than principled debate. The thing is, though, that theatre will lose its social relevance if it seeks only to please. Audiences will turn to other art forms for ideas, rather than pay to see heritage productions that haven’t – yet – offended the small sector of society who go out in search of ways to be offended. READ MORE

Market Data Newsletter
Thursday, July 16
Global Free Speech

Members of the activist initiative Most ostaje (The bridge stays) block traffic in front of the Radio Television of Serbia building in 2025 paying respect to the 15 victims of Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse Photo: Emilija Knezevic Download the full report here or read it at the bottom of this article The partners of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) and the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform today present a report which outlines the deteriorating situation for media freedom and safety of journalists in Serbia. The report is a result of an international mission to Belgrade that took place in March 2026. In 2025, Serbia recorded 209 press freedom violations – more than double the 84 documented in 2024 – affecting 359 media workers and entities. As of 16 June, 100 cases affecting 170 media workers have been recorded since January 2026. Since the deadly collapse of the Novi Sad railway station canopy in November 2024, which triggered the largest protests in Serbia’s history, attacks on journalists covering demonstrations have surged. Law enforcement has not only failed to protect journalists, but police officers have increasingly acted as perpetrators themselves, with at least 38 documented police attacks on journalists since 2025. The crisis extends well beyond physical safety. Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) continue to threaten public-interest reporting, with Serbia ranking third in Europe for the number of SLAPP cases, according to the CASE Coalition data for 2025. The continued criminalisation of insult compounds the chilling effect on journalists’ work.  In addition, media pluralism is under severe pressure. The majority state-owned Telekom Srbija has expanded its media holdings, consolidating pro-government narratives across the media landscape. Serbia’s media regulator, the REM Council, has been non-functional for over 18 months, making Serbia the only EU candidate country without a functioning media regulatory body. Coordinated bot attacks and spyware, including NSO Group’s Pegasus, have emerged as tools of digital censorship against journalists and media outlets. The government has launched several legislative initiatives, including efforts to incorporate provisions of the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) into domestic law. However, journalists and civil society actors have largely stopped engaging  with these processes, citing a lack of transparency, rushed timelines, and most prominently a profound absence of trust in the government’s intentions. The international community has a critical role to play to safeguard swiftly deteriorating press freedoms in Serbia and stem the wider democratic decline. The partners of the MFRR and the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform call on the Serbian authorities to:  Immediately cease inflammatory rhetoric targeting journalists and refrain from all verbal, physical, and legal attacks against the press, including the use of SLAPPs. The authorities should also introduce specialised training programmes for police and judicial actors to ensure the consistent application of protective measures for journalists. The partners further call on the European Union to publicly and unequivocally condemn attacks on journalists in Serbia, and to make direct funding to Serbia in strategic areas conditional on measurable improvements in journalist safety and media freedom standards. The full report includes detailed recommendations to Serbian authorities, including the government, parliament, police, and prosecution, on the concrete steps needed to counter this crisis. The mission was coordinated by ARTICLE 19 Europe and joined by the following international organisations: Association of European Journalists (AEJ); European Broadcasting Union (EBU); European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF); European Federation of Journalists (EFJ); International Press Institute (IPI); Reporters Without Borders (RSF); Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT); Index on Censorship; and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The local partner was the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS). The delegation met with journalists, editors, media associations, civil society organisations, law enforcement, the Parliamentary Speaker, and the Chief Prosecutor, among others.    window.option_df_140073 = {“outline”:[],”autoEnableOutline”:”false”,”autoEnableThumbnail”:”false”,”overwritePDFOutline”:”false”,”direction”:”1″,”pageSize”:”0″,”source”:”https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Serbia-Report_Final_Single.pdf”,”wpOptions”:”true”}; if(window.DFLIP && window.DFLIP.parseBooks){window.DFLIP.parseBooks();} READ MORE

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Members of the activist initiative Most ostaje (The bridge stays) block traffic in front of the Radio Television of Serbia building in 2025 paying respect to the 15 victims of Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse Photo: Emilija Knezevic Download the full report here or read it at the bottom of this article The partners of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) and the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform today present a report which outlines the deteriorating situation for media freedom and safety of journalists in Serbia. The report is a result of an international mission to Belgrade that took place in March 2026. In 2025, Serbia recorded 209 press freedom violations – more than double the 84 documented in 2024 – affecting 359 media workers and entities. As of 16 June, 100 cases affecting 170 media workers have been recorded since January 2026. Since the deadly collapse of the Novi Sad railway station canopy in November 2024, which triggered the largest protests in Serbia’s history, attacks on journalists covering demonstrations have surged. Law enforcement has not only failed to protect journalists, but police officers have increasingly acted as perpetrators themselves, with at least 38 documented police attacks on journalists since 2025. The crisis extends well beyond physical safety. Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) continue to threaten public-interest reporting, with Serbia ranking third in Europe for the number of SLAPP cases, according to the CASE Coalition data for 2025. The continued criminalisation of insult compounds the chilling effect on journalists’ work.  In addition, media pluralism is under severe pressure. The majority state-owned Telekom Srbija has expanded its media holdings, consolidating pro-government narratives across the media landscape. Serbia’s media regulator, the REM Council, has been non-functional for over 18 months, making Serbia the only EU candidate country without a functioning media regulatory body. Coordinated bot attacks and spyware, including NSO Group’s Pegasus, have emerged as tools of digital censorship against journalists and media outlets. The government has launched several legislative initiatives, including efforts to incorporate provisions of the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) into domestic law. However, journalists and civil society actors have largely stopped engaging  with these processes, citing a lack of transparency, rushed timelines, and most prominently a profound absence of trust in the government’s intentions. The international community has a critical role to play to safeguard swiftly deteriorating press freedoms in Serbia and stem the wider democratic decline. The partners of the MFRR and the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform call on the Serbian authorities to:  Immediately cease inflammatory rhetoric targeting journalists and refrain from all verbal, physical, and legal attacks against the press, including the use of SLAPPs. The authorities should also introduce specialised training programmes for police and judicial actors to ensure the consistent application of protective measures for journalists. The partners further call on the European Union to publicly and unequivocally condemn attacks on journalists in Serbia, and to make direct funding to Serbia in strategic areas conditional on measurable improvements in journalist safety and media freedom standards. The full report includes detailed recommendations to Serbian authorities, including the government, parliament, police, and prosecution, on the concrete steps needed to counter this crisis. The mission was coordinated by ARTICLE 19 Europe and joined by the following international organisations: Association of European Journalists (AEJ); European Broadcasting Union (EBU); European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF); European Federation of Journalists (EFJ); International Press Institute (IPI); Reporters Without Borders (RSF); Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT); Index on Censorship; and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The local partner was the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS). The delegation met with journalists, editors, media associations, civil society organisations, law enforcement, the Parliamentary Speaker, and the Chief Prosecutor, among others.    window.option_df_140073 = {“outline”:[],”autoEnableOutline”:”false”,”autoEnableThumbnail”:”false”,”overwritePDFOutline”:”false”,”direction”:”1″,”pageSize”:”0″,”source”:”https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Serbia-Report_Final_Single.pdf”,”wpOptions”:”true”}; if(window.DFLIP && window.DFLIP.parseBooks){window.DFLIP.parseBooks();} READ MORE

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The partners of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) and the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform today present a report which outlines the deteriorating situation for media freedom and safety of journalists in Serbia. The report is a result of an international mission to Belgrade that took place in March 2026.

In 2025, Serbia recorded 209 press freedom violations – more than double the 84 documented in 2024 – affecting 359 media workers and entities. As of 16 June, 100 cases affecting 170 media workers have been recorded since January 2026.

Since the deadly collapse of the Novi Sad railway station canopy in November 2024, which triggered the largest protests in Serbia’s history, attacks on journalists covering demonstrations have surged. Law enforcement has not only failed to protect journalists, but police officers have increasingly acted as perpetrators themselves, with at least 38 documented police attacks on journalists since 2025.

The crisis extends well beyond physical safety. Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) continue to threaten public-interest reporting, with Serbia ranking third in Europe for the number of SLAPP cases, according to the CASE Coalition data for 2025. The continued criminalisation of insult compounds the chilling effect on journalists’ work. 

In addition, media pluralism is under severe pressure. The majority state-owned Telekom Srbija has expanded its media holdings, consolidating pro-government narratives across the media landscape. Serbia’s media regulator, the REM Council, has been non-functional for over 18 months, making Serbia the only EU candidate country without a functioning media regulatory body. Coordinated bot attacks and spyware, including NSO Group’s Pegasus, have emerged as tools of digital censorship against journalists and media outlets.

The government has launched several legislative initiatives, including efforts to incorporate provisions of the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) into domestic law. However, journalists and civil society actors have largely stopped engaging  with these processes, citing a lack of transparency, rushed timelines, and most prominently a profound absence of trust in the government’s intentions. The international community has a critical role to play to safeguard swiftly deteriorating press freedoms in Serbia and stem the wider democratic decline.

The partners of the MFRR and the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform call on the Serbian authorities to: 

Immediately cease inflammatory rhetoric targeting journalists and refrain from all verbal, physical, and legal attacks against the press, including the use of SLAPPs. The authorities should also introduce specialised training programmes for police and judicial actors to ensure the consistent application of protective measures for journalists.

The partners further call on the European Union to publicly and unequivocally condemn attacks on journalists in Serbia, and to make direct funding to Serbia in strategic areas conditional on measurable improvements in journalist safety and media freedom standards.

The full report includes detailed recommendations to Serbian authorities, including the government, parliament, police, and prosecution, on the concrete steps needed to counter this crisis.

The mission was coordinated by ARTICLE 19 Europe and joined by the following international organisations: Association of European Journalists (AEJ); European Broadcasting Union (EBU); European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF); European Federation of Journalists (EFJ); International Press Institute (IPI); Reporters Without Borders (RSF); Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT); Index on Censorship; and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The local partner was the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS). The delegation met with journalists, editors, media associations, civil society organisations, law enforcement, the Parliamentary Speaker, and the Chief Prosecutor, among others. 

 

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Global Free Speech

The Lord Chamberlain demanded the words “piss” and “arse” and “his hand pressed to his pubis” were excised from the script of Waiting for Godot in 1954. A scene from the play performed at the Barbican Theatre in 2015. Photo: Vibrant Pictures When Index first started to explore censorship in the arts more than 10 years ago, we called for arts organisations to be “more transparent about the dilemmas they face and more willing to open up dialogue about critical decisions.” We had just held a conference about censorship, and had encouraged people to talk, often for the first time, about the problems they had encountered. We hoped that our work would lead to an opening up of the arts. But in fact, over the last seven years and particularly since the Covid pandemic, the opposite has happened. What we are witnessing is a creeping, insidious form of self-censorship, barely visible and yet omnipresent. There are any number of reasons for this: a fear of “causing offence”, the perception that the world of the arts is too left-leaning and should rein itself in, an uncertainty about how to engage with the current issues of the day, a contraction in the range of subjects that British theatre is willing to touch. A few honourable exceptions aside, there is very little political theatre now being made in the UK. Huge funding constraints, coupled with a government clampdown on protest, means that theatremakers and artists are not inclined to take risks with challenging works. And virtually everyone in the industry is in denial about the extent of censorship at all. There are fewer and fewer opportunities for artists to explore the contradictions and complexity of our times. Creatives now have less motivation to tackle tricky subjects. Institutions that seek to bring order into an unpredictable world by playing safe are squeezing out new voices, and tugging their forelock to older middle-class audiences – often the only ones able to afford increasingly expensive ticket prices. In the course of this investigation into censorship and self-censorship in theatre and the arts more widely, Index spoke to more than 40 people – producers, directors, creative managers of theatres in England and Scotland, curators, arts journalists and other people working in the arts. Many only agreed to participate on the condition of anonymity. Speaking freely, they said, could harm their career. Some declined to speak with us at all. National institutions like The Tate and the Barbican – both caught up in censorship rows in the recent past – decided, after some to-ing and fro-ing, not to contribute to this investigation. Indhu Rubasingham, executive director of the National Theatre, turned down an interview request, even though she had recently delivered a significant speech on censorship, which we have quoted from below. The Arts Council England (ACE), the national development agency for creativity – and a principal funding body – awards grants to organisations like Index as part of its anti-censorship work. ACE still gives us money. In the years leading up to the 2020 Covid pandemic ACE gave money for a Rights, Risks and Reputation programme Index developed jointly with Cause4 and What Next? – as well as an Arts Censorship Support Service. We also circulated a limited survey on the topic. The respondents, in the main, were “gender-critical women”, as they’re often called, who perhaps have been the most outspoken in the public sphere about their experiences of censorship and being silenced. We also drew up a catalogue of all the cases of censorship discussed in the press over the last five years. Censorship, in the view of Index, happens when an artistic work is banned or is prevented from being performed or displayed. We are not interested in the political stance of the performer or artistic group, so long as they are acting within transparent democratic norms. For us, space for a plurality of artistic views and voices in civil society is not negotiable. In a society free from the constraints of censorship, institutions should have the confidence and freedom to take independent artistic decisions. Art should be allowed to take on taboos and to offend in doing so. It is often the only tool that exists to do so. This history of arts censorship in Britain In the UK, arts censorship has always been exercised in one form or another. From 1495 onwards the Master of Revels regulated court festivities, and later licensed theatres. (All Shakespeare’s plays, for example, had to be approved before being performed.) In 1737, censorship of the theatre began to be regulated through the Licensing Act, with the role passing on to another royal official, the Lord Chamberlain. Until the 1960s, it can be argued, the telling of the history of English theatre ought to be diffracted through the prism of censorship – and attempts to circumvent the censor’s pen. It was only after Parliament passed the Theatres Act of 1968, which abolished formal theatre censorship and the role of the Lord Chamberlain, that theatrical productions actively addressing taboo subjects started to flourish. Hair, a musical tackling issues of race, politics and sex, was timed to hit the West End with the demise of the office of the Lord Chamberlain. It was, unsurprisingly, a huge commercial success. State sponsorship of theatre was managed through the Arts Council of Great Britain (precursor to the current Arts Council England, ACE), which was set up on the urging of the economist John Maynard Keynes after World War II. Public arts funding was at its peak in the late 1960s and 1970s, encouraged by the Labour politician Jennie Lee, the UK’s first minister of the arts. In the 1967 white paper which established the modern Arts Council charter, Lee wrote: “No one would wish state patronage to dictate taste or in any way restrict the liberty of even the most unorthodox and experimental of artists.” As a consequence the body, operating at arms-length from government, facilitated the production of political – for this, read less commercial – plays which otherwise might have struggled to secure production funding. In an interview with Index, the playwright David Hare said: “Peggy Ramsey, who was a very famous play agent, always said that the first thing about the new is that it’s very ugly. And that’s your first reaction to the new. She said she remembers reading Waiting for Godot before anybody had heard of it … and going, ‘Oh, my God, this play is so ugly.’ “But we in the theatre, and at the Royal Court in particular, knew that there were these extraordinary individuals called Samuel Beckett and John Osborne and Harold Pinter and Edward Bond. Every one of whom had been catastrophically received when they first did their work.” With the arrival of a Conservative government in 1979, the very notion of large state subsidies for the arts was challenged. Prominent cabinet members like Norman Tebbit argued that the arts were too left-wing; pushing back, many in the arts argued that theatre and art were there, in part, to reflect social realities and advocate for underrepresented groups. That argument has continued in various guises ever since. The latest review of the future of arts funding in the UK, published in December 2025 and overseen by Labour peer Margaret Hodge, criticised the last Conservative government for its “interference” in funding decisions and cuts to the arts. The order from the then Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries to redistribute £24 million of arts funding from London to the north of England was one such example. Hodge wrote: “There have been attempts to exert more political control over ACE decisions in recent years and this has to stop. The Arts Council must remain free from political interference. This matters. It ensures that artistic freedom is protected, that creativity is not stifled and that public trust is maintained. Political interference, even by those with the best of intentions, could lead to political bias, or even censorship.” Index fighting theatre censorship Index has monitored the decline in freedom of expression of the arts for more than 10 years. Taking the Offensive, the aforementioned conference and subsequent report organised by our arts coordinator Julia Farrington in 2013, was convened to debate “the growth in self-censorship in contemporary culture, the social, political and legal challenges to artistic freedom of expression and the sources of these new challenges.” The conference concluded that censorship and self-censorship had both become significant influences in the arts. While manifestations of censorship were complex, all had the effect of controlling free expression. The challenges of censorship were particularly marked for people from ethnic minority groups, who often faced additional obstacles. These included the possibility of plays dealing with religion or race issues being closed down for fear of causing offence, and corporate sponsors being worried about art being too political. Theatre writers from minority groups felt that they were being boxed in by theatre institutions and commissioners with very narrow expectations of what they, as minorities, should be interested in. Index’s research came at a time when some of these tensions were erupting very publicly. These pressures led, at times, to the involvement of the police, asking that a production be closed down for fear of public order disruptions. In 2004, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s drama Behzti was shut down after protesters clashed with police outside its Birmingham venue during a performance. Behzti’s depiction of a rape inside a Gurdwara – a Sikh place of worship – was considered unacceptable by some members of the community. In 2014, Exhibit B, a production by South African artist and playwright Brett Bailey, was cancelled by The Barbican – who commissioned the play – even before its opening night. Exhibit B was conceived as a “walkthrough installation of live tableaux referencing 19th-century human zoos and colonial display, intended to confront the racist foundations of European colonial power”. Even though actors in the production were themselves of African and African Caribbean heritage, protesters outside the venue – the Vaults in Waterloo – insisted the play was racist. Cultural consultant Diane Morgan, who worked first as the production’s casting director and then as consultant, mediator and producer of the relationship-building programme that followed, was inside the building with the team, cast and crew during protests; they were eventually told by the Barbican to vacate the premises for their own safety, and were guided out of the building by the police. Morgan told Index that Exhibit B had been conceived as a “vital anti-racist critique”. She continued: “With more cultural nuance embedded in the planning and communication, it might not have been perceived by protesters as racist, exploitative and demeaning.” Farrington has written an authoritative account of what happened in terms of policing. Ultimately, Farrington wrote, the police advised that the venue couldn’t be secured properly because too many resources would be required to ensure that the show could run without incident. Accepting the advice, The Barbican cancelled it. A year later, the National Youth Theatre scrapped its original production of Homegrown. The play, by Omar El-Khairy and Nadia Latif, tells the story of the three girls (including Shamima Begum, a cause celebre due to the UK government subsequently stripping her of her British citizenship) who travelled to Syria to join Isis. The theatre said that the play had been pulled because it was “one-dimensional” and did not show “editorial balance”. Observers cried censorship, though, following reports that the Metropolitan Police had been involved in the decision. Homegrown has not been performed since, although an extract was staged by Index at London’s Conway Hall in 2017. One contributor to Index’s initial research noted that Britain was reaching a point where “art is not for debate, controversy and disagreement, it is to please”. The evidence we gathered over the course of this investigation strongly indicates that the situation is now worse; productions like Behzti, Exhibit B and even Homegrown would probably not even be commissioned today. And what about productions that may upset religious communities? Cinema chain Cineworld cancelled screenings of the film The Lady of Heaven in 2022 “to ensure the safety of staff and customers” after protests by local Muslim communities in Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Bolton, Blackburn, Birmingham and Stratford. The main objection to the film was that it was from a Shia standpoint and depicted Muslim prophets. Theatre self-censors to please In the intervening decade or so since Index’s last survey, theatre and the arts seem to have become even more about “pleasing”, and avoiding potentially contentious material. A 2020 report on freedom of expression, carried out by the independent magazine and news service Arts Professional and based on a survey of people working in the arts, highlighted a whole range of issues under public discussion where artists and arts organisations felt censored or obliged to self-censor. The named topics included Brexit, religion (antisemitism, but also Christianity, the Ulster Volunteer Force and Northern Ireland), China, conservatism, and general equality and diversity issues including gender identity. Six years on and a pandemic later, the catalogue of press reports compiled by Index for this report – together with the survey responses – suggests that self-censorship and censorship today is now much more extensive. There is an over-amplification of the proxy fights over gender and the war in Gaza, fights in which Jewish people and Muslims, women and the LGBTQ+ community, are pitted against each other to no one’s benefit. The replacement of spirited but respectful debate with vituperation and silencing is a problem that theatres and arts venues mostly don’t want to talk about. Combatants take sides and express their anger at having their voices silenced – while showing themselves all too keen to do the same to people with points of view that contradict their own. The New Boycott, a 2026 report by the advocacy group Freedom in the Arts (FITA), highlights the very real threat of censorship confronting (the mostly older) gender-critical women, who have lost jobs and have been hounded on social media because of their views on gender. Others reported feeling that they can’t express themselves without opprobrium being rained down on them from managers and fellow workers. One anonymous respondent to our survey wrote: “[I was] not allowed to have an exhibition of female artists; told works showing the life of working women wouldn’t be accepted as it didn’t include trans women. Most of my colleagues are vocal TRAs (trans rights activists) and Hamas supporters so impossible to be myself, offer any different perspectives as I know I would be cancelled as they’ve gleefully done to others.” FITA’s report also focuses on Jewish performers who have been cancelled in the recent past. While there have recently been several plays about Jewish life on the London stage – most notably Sam Grabiner’s widely acclaimed play Christmas Day at the Almeida Theatre – Jewish performers (bands and comedians particularly) have found themselves de-platformed at fringe venues largely because young people and pro-Palestinian activists who work at those venues have complained about feeling “unsafe”. Some performers were targeted because of their connection to Israel, others just for being Jewish. In 2023, guidance issued by Arts Council England (ACE) went so far as to warn the arts organisations it funds that “overtly political or activist statements” by performers and artists, even in a personal capacity, could constitute a reputational risk. These, the guidance continues, should be avoided if they went “beyond your company’s core purpose and partnerships with organisations that might be perceived as being in conflict with the purposes of public funding of culture”. The guidance triggered an angry response and was re-issued with the wording changed. But the warning continues, subliminally, to influence artistic decisions today. None of this has been helped by a generally censorious political atmosphere in the UK. In the last five years in particular, successive governments have sought to limit protest and control speech. Politicians including Sir Keir Starmer, the current prime minister (and a one-time human rights lawyer), have repeatedly challenged what can be said by performers in a democratic society, particularly in relation to the war in Gaza. In May 2026, a series of arson attacks on synagogues and Jewish institutions, and the stabbing of two “visibly Jewish” people in North London (marked out by their dress code as Orthodox Jews), contributed to an understandable sense of fear in the British Jewish community. Turning on Arts Council England, Starmer singled out antisemitism in the arts as a contributory factor, telling a forum on tackling antisemitism: “Where public funding is being used to promote or platform antisemitism, the Arts Council must act, using its powers to suspend, withdraw and claw back funding. “And, today, we are mandating an independent audit of how allegations are handled.” It was an extraordinary demand from a Prime Minister. Would a play featuring a character expressing an antisemitic view have its funding withdrawn? Would it matter if that character was unsympathetic or not? Who would judge? What exactly did the government deem antisemitic? And what other viewpoints might the government suddenly determine unsuitable for exploration by the British arts? Triggering a backlash Instead of giving police more resources to police venues, recent governments have suggested by their actions that supporting free expression in the arts is not important; it is easier to have an event cancelled than to brave it out. Some of these decisions are high profile. Others simply pass under the radar. Mike Tweddle, now director of the Oxford Playhouse, told Index that several years ago when working for a different organisation, he was obliged to pull a production because the police had warned of the possibility of “coachloads of protesters” turning up: cuts to police funding meant they couldn’t protect the venue. Meanwhile, individuals perceived as having stepped over an invisible, or at least fuzzy, line are in danger of experiencing vituperation and even punishment. It’s never happened to the playwright Karim Khan who feels that in theatre he has a lot of freedom to write the stories of ordinary life that interest him – his latest play, Sweetmeats, about an elderly South Asian couple, was very well-received when it was staged at the Bush Theatre in London earlier this year. But in a wide-ranging discussion with Index he did note that writers would not necessarily be guaranteed protection in the event of a backlash. And who knows what might trigger a backlash? The funding models of most arts organisations and theatres are heavily dependent on ticket sales, corporate sponsorship and philanthropic trusts. In practice, this means that not many theatres and institutions are prepared to take big risks. It’s worth noting that even theatre buildings, the physical structures themselves, are often owned by large corporations. The Manchester Royal Exchange theatre, for example, is part of a portfolio managed by one of Germany’s biggest pension funds. Freedom of expression or the financial bottom line? Sometimes the choice isn’t that stark at all. It was at the Royal Exchange that one the most high-profile cases of alleged censorship in recent years unfolded. The case is worth going into in detail because it highlights a lot of the challenges faced by theatre today. The aborted production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream by director Stef O’Driscoll – it was cancelled in the autumn of 2024 – came up again and again in conversations about UK theatre and censorship. Whether it was censorship or a matter of poor judgement compounded several times over is still contested. While O’Driscoll called out the cancellation of the production as censorship, an independent review commissioned by the theatre concluded that it was mismanagement. Of the production itself, the initial attraction is evident, even in retrospect. O’Driscoll is a well-known, respected and original theatre director, at the time recognised as a rising star. Her proposal for a re-interpretation of the Shakespeare play, turning it into a rave, resonated with Manchester’s reputation as the heart of the UK music scene. A Midsummer’s Night Dream is on the English literature GCSE curriculum, and so the production was marketed to all Manchester secondary schools, with posters plastered across the city. Everything seemed to be going well at first. But then, two weeks before opening night, the management of the theatre came in to see what had been described by Manchester news website The Mill as a “chaotic” technical rehearsal. What the management and the marketing team saw horrified them. In particular, they were perturbed by the “Free Palestine” and pro-trans rights chants featured in the play within the play. What ensued was a huge argument about artistic direction, culminating with the cancellation of the entire run just two hours before the opening night performance. Various excuses were proffered, ranging from technical issues to an actor incurring an injury. O’Driscoll, for her part, said that a rap that “expressed solidarity with transpeople and the people of Palestine” had been unacceptable to the Royal Exchange’s leadership, who had made her feel “devalued, invisible, problematic and unsafe”. According to reports, the cost to the theatre ran into the hundreds of thousands of pounds. In March 2025, Stephen Freeman, director of the theatre, tendered his resignation. Most of the arts professionals who spoke with Index were sceptical of the central censorship charge. The general feeling, rather, was that the Royal Exchange should have thought a little more carefully about its target audience. One interviewee pointed out that an edgy play about the Manchester dance scene with a director like O’Driscoll should have been put on in a studio theatre. Trying to shoehorn her ideas into A Midsummer’s Night Dream was a conceptual mistake. Danny Moar, director of Theatre Royal Bath, considered taking on the play himself, but objected to O’Driscoll’s vision of the audience chanting “from the river to the sea”. Art is fiction and should show different points of view on stage, Moar told Index. But it shouldn’t, he continued, coerce its audience into taking a political stance. The external report commissioned by the theatre board – made available to the public in abridged form – put the problem with the play firmly down to management failures. “[The Royal Exchange’s] handling of A Midsummer’s Night Dream revealed significant systemic organisational and leadership failures rather than the deliberate suppression of political content. The lack of senior artistic leadership and properly documented producing processes created conditions where legitimate concerns about artistic developments in the production became entangled with allegations of censorship.” The director of another regional playhouse who spoke with Index was sympathetic both to the theatre and to O’Driscoll. Funding cuts, the director said, meant that the internal checks and balances which may have prevented this kind of blow-up were probably not in place. While O’Driscoll declined to speak to Index about the incident, she did not dispute the basic version of events described in The Mill. She did, however, take issue with claims on the news website that as part of the performance, “baggies” with white powder and Palestinian flags were to have been distributed to the audience. Also in Manchester, another arts professional, curator Alistair Hudson was fired over the Palestine/Israel issue. [See p29]. Due to his decision to run an exhibition looking at conflicts around the world at the Whitworth Gallery, he today finds himself an exile in Germany. What are the consequences of this increasingly polarised generational, social and economic environment within the arts itself? What Index has learnt over the course of our investigation is that theatre’s response has been either to avoid difficult issues altogether, or to highlight the need to represent “all sides” in any controversial debate. Anything more politically contentious has to be set firmly in the past, added to a revival, squeezed into a Shakespeare classic or buried in a play by Sophocles. While some theatres have bucked the trend, they are rare and small-scale. London’s Arcola Theatre, for instance, put on a number of short political plays dealing with Palestine (a direct response to the 2023 ACE warning to avoid political statements), and more recently staged a series of plays about the war in Ukraine. Art reflecting the concerns of more marginalised communities has also found itself, well, marginalised. In 2023, the National Theatre commissioned Gillian Slovo to write a verbatim play about the 2017 Grenfell disaster, with Phyllida Lloyd (of Mamma Mia fame) directing. More than 70 people, including many children, were killed in the fire that swept a west London tower block. The fire quickly morphed into a national scandal as it became clear that it had been preventable. The theatre makers spent a lot of time interviewing people who lived in or around Grenfell Tower about their experiences, creating out of this Grenfell: In the Words of Survivors. Positioned as an incisive piece of political theatre about a contemporary scandal, a large-scale, three-year co-creation and talent development programme ran alongside the production. But, an insider told Index, the leadership of the National Theatre at the time decided that the production should not be staged (as originally intended) at the main Olivier theatre, which seats more than 1000 people. It would be safer, the thinking went, if it was staged in the much smaller Dorfman Theatre. The reason was a mix of political and legal worries about it being staged before the Grenfell Inquiry report, as well as concerns about its box office appeal. These worries contributed to what was ultimately a financial decision. In effect, the National was not prepared to give full-throttled backing to a controversial play about marginalised communities, for fear that audiences might not turn up and politicians might complain. In February 2026, Indhu Rubasingham, the newly appointed CEO of the National Theatre, delivered the Jennie Lee lecture. The annual public event was inaugurated by the Department of Culture, Media and Sports and Arts Council England as a platform to explore topical issues in the arts. Rubasingham, commenting on what she described as a crisis in new writing for theatre, said that a shyness about controversy was stifling creativity and free expression exercised in good faith. “And when everything feels threatened, we gravitate towards places that make us feel safe,” she said. “Populist tactics are used across the political spectrum to create outrage. Polarisation drives insularity. People retreat to join those who look, feel and think like themselves. “The impact on the arts can be profound. When we’re afraid of being judged, cancelled, called out, we self-censor.” A director based at a central London theatre, who (like many other interviewees) asked not to be named, told Index he was worried that difficult and controversial conversations happening in households in Britain were no longer being reflected in the theatre. He hesitated to call it outright censorship. Instead, he described it more in terms of confusing the views of a playwright and the views expressed on stage. “There is a literalism which has made it very difficult for playwrights to assert poetic distance from their work,” he said. Playwright David Hare, writer of the plays Skylight and Plenty. Photo: Capital Pictures/Alamy In effect, he said, what this meant is that anything controversial said by a character will be interrogated. Playwrights were being discouraged from allowing their characters to say inflammatory things – even if the character being portrayed is a bigot. Writers, he said were under “extraordinary pressure to cut it and have done [with any argument]”. The problem, the interviewee said, was that when these tensions remained unresolved, theatre ran the risk of becoming a flattened version of conversations taking place in the real world. This prompts a crucial question: If literate dramas can no longer give an authentic sense of real life, then what is the point of theatre? The same director, when asked about direct censorship, suggested that no political play that was derogatory about the royal family could be produced by a mainstream theatre. It seems an extraordinary claim, but perhaps not if you consider centuries of censorship by the Crown. While it is difficult to prove an absence, there are no plays which Index has found that would even begin to fit that category. In our discussion, David Hare agreed that theatre no longer represented “the street”, although he disputed suggestions of overt censorship. “Essentially, I think, it is a lack of belief in the idea of the avant garde … when I was young, we believed that people came usually from the streets to bring us news from the streets. You know, John Osborne, Andrea Dunbar, Shelagh Delaney. They came and they told us what was going on, and they were in advance often.” Part of the problem, he commented, was an over-reliance on dramaturges and similar. “What you see on the stage, eventually, is something which has been mediated through the views of many people… I know writers who are put through four or five workshops. The other day, I heard of a workshop that had gone on for three weeks and ended in a full production […] in private. And the authors still don’t know if the work will go on.” In our conversations with theatre professionals, Index took the understanding that toning down content between text and performance was commonplace. And this was after a piece of work had been commissioned. A case in point was the play Giant, about Roald Dahl’s antisemitism. Many believe that a Jewish character’s support of Israel was toned down, for fear of alienating audiences. As a Manchester producer told Index, the simple fact is that little money will be made available to fund anything controversial. This producer had wanted to put on a production about antisemitism and Islamophobia but no one would touch it. In her Jennie Lee address, Rubasingham highlighted this: “Playing safe will be the end of us. If we are conservative in style, in content, in process, we might balance the books today, but we will kill the future of theatre… “We are seeing a steep reduction across the sector in new writing. I feel this is the clearest and most troubling sign of what’s happening.” Bums on seats But the truth, as Rubasingham also acknowledged in her address, is that funding – or the lack of, thereof – is making it more difficult to make challenging theatre. “I believe part of British theatre’s success and global status is because of its unique financial model – balancing commercial income, state investment and philanthropy,” she said. But, as she acknowledged: “This delicate equilibrium is already being disturbed.” The funding models of many arts organisations and theatres are heavily dependent on ticket sales (placing emphasis on “blockbuster” shows with mass appeal), corporate sponsorship and philanthropic trusts, and on public subsidies. The last often comes with strings attached and lengthy reports to fill in. Since the onset of austerity under the Conservative/Liberal Democrat administration in 2010, the arts have experienced enormous financial pressure. Public funding has decreased – a recent report showed that local council funding for the arts had fallen by 55%. Indeed, the National Theatre now receives more money from philanthropic contributions than it does from Arts Council England. The situation deteriorated further in the wake of the Covid pandemic. During the lockdown, theatres were shuttered for months. Arts centres across the country found themselves in terrible debt, with shows cancelled and revenue streams dwindling to nothing. Even large public institutions like the Southbank Centre struggled financially. By the time they finally reopened, they also had to contend with much larger running costs, particularly energy bills. Museums and theatres have similarly experienced significant capital pressures, particularly around the matter of infrastructural maintenance. Many of London’s theatres are more than a century old, and look their age. A 2024 report by SOLT & UK Theatre found that without capital investment in the next five years, nearly 40% of venues risked closure and another 40% would be too unsafe to use. This report also observed that 500 museums and galleries have closed down since 2000. Under the circumstances, it is clear that theatres and arts venues have no choice but to seek out – at least part of the time – the commercial hits that will please their corporate and philanthropic funders by putting bums on seats. One obvious consequence: avoiding anything that might upset or unsettle anticipated audiences. British touring companies, which make their money by taking popular plays around the world, have also experienced severe financial pressures. Since the UK’s exit from the European Union in 2016, touring the continent has become more difficult, and the financial returns from engagements in locations like the USA and Australia have become slimmer. The money to be made tends be in locations with a compromised approach to free expression issues. The RSC is currently touring Matilda the Musical around China; the National Theatre has a deal with Chinese cinemas to screen the Olivier-winning Inter Alia, about a female high court judge in London whose son is accused of rape. Both initiatives have been actively promoted by the British government as proof that the arts are a competitive British international export. Before his recent trip to China, Sir Keir Starmer said: “The success of Great British organisations such as the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company in China showcases the strength and appeal of our world-leading creative industries.” Other theatre companies and producers are making money in Saudi Arabia, China and the UAE. Often, the public justification for taking productions to countries with an ongoing history of political and social repression is that cross-pollination with Western culture encourages social change. Index has reported on the suppression of free expression in all these countries. Exposure and condemnation tends to be the most effective method of challenging, we have found. In any case, there is a more significant issue at state: is taking the yuan from China ever, really, neutral? What if the National or the RSC were to stage a production – about the plight of the Uyghurs, for example – that annoyed Beijing? Making deals with countries that (amongst other things) limit free expression mean that this is unlikely to happen. In 2023, Index raised the growing problem of national galleries like The Tate taking money from Beijing. That year, 18% of the gallery’s funding came from Chinese investors, some with very close links to the Chinese government. Likewise, the new rehang of the National Gallery was funded by CC Land – a Hong Kong-based company owned by Chinese property magnate Cheung Chung-Kiu. Tie-ups of this kind are now normal for some big arts institutions. But there is an increasingly systematic institutional dependency of parts of our arts infrastructure on authoritarian regimes, or companies linked to them, which is a potential danger to freedom of expression. Javaad Alipoor is an independent theatre producer of Iranian heritage who runs a touring production company. His 2023 production of Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World explored transnational repression, focusing on the murder of an exiled 1970s pop star by the Iranian government. He is very clear that he will not go to places where censorship of the arts is exercised. Creative autonomy is crucial to making artistic work like this, Alipoor told Index. “We have a very strict policy in terms of our organisation, which is, we won’t work with anyone, where we have to give up any freedom of editorial or artistic control in terms of censorship. Either in the work or the way that we’re allowed to talk about the work.” With all this incipient censorship, why don’t people just go and put on political theatre at the pub or a similar low-profile venue? This, according to David Hare, is one way to escape the clutches of reputational damage and financial shortfalls. Indeed, Index was told that many performances dealing with trans issues now do happen in pubs and similar venues. But even the pub is no longer an anonymous venue. In the past, writers and creatives could test out outrageous ideas and concepts in smoky back rooms, and learn from the immediate feedback – critical, even harsh, but not punitive or vindictive. But that just can’t be guaranteed today. Anything that happens anywhere is liable to being filmed and posted on social media, often stripped of that all-important qualifier, context. A viral video filmed on a mobile phone can end up stoking global online outrage. Thus, even the most modest arts “venues” are now cautious about what they put on and wary if their often young staff express concerns about hosting an event. Shobu Kapoor as Hema and Rehan Sheikh as Liaquat in Sweetmeats at Bush Theatre, London. Photo: Craig Fuller Safe theatre: the future? While the Lord Chamberlain may no longer censor plays, it does seem that in the last few years British theatre has fallen to censoring itself, thanks to a whole range of complex pressures, both financial and political. The fact that so few people wanted to discuss the problem with Index on the record was telling. It felt that they feared being enmeshed in a culture war if they did, or that they couldn’t trust outsiders to understand. Even Rubasingham, keen to make controversial points in a public address, was unwilling to discuss with Index solutions to the very problem she identified. Theatre and arts organisations are beginning to accept some kind of censorship as the norm, rather than thinking about freedom of expression as a core value. Increasingly, censorship in the UK is taking the form of interest groups trying to shut each other down. Neither are interested in listening to other points of view, or making the case for all parties to have a say. Free speech is all well and good as far as it does not extend to my opponents, in other words. The suppression of theatre, thanks to sometimes muddled concerns about causing offence will continue. Instead of encouraging the theatre to serve as an agora, a public space for airing and engaging with the contentious issues of the day, producers and commissioners will rather avoid these topics. Controversy leaches money, energy and goodwill out of projects. And to stave off bankruptcy, theatres and galleries will increasingly commission “safe theatre”, which will attract audiences rather than principled debate. The thing is, though, that theatre will lose its social relevance if it seeks only to please. Audiences will turn to other art forms for ideas, rather than pay to see heritage productions that haven’t – yet – offended the small sector of society who go out in search of ways to be offended. READ MORE

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