Has Theatre Become Too Politically Correct???

Would Jesus Christ Superstar have been a hit – or even seen the light of day – if were written today, rather than in 1971? In an interview this week with Closer magazine ahead of his 60th birthday concert in Hyde Park this Sunday (See News, 15 Aug 2008), Lloyd Webber questions whether he would have been too cowed by the idea if he’d had it today, and wonders how much political correctness is stifling creativity.

“I look back at when I was younger and ask myself, would I have written an opera with Tim Rice? So many people nowadays are obsessed with things offending people. Today people say you can’t do this because it will offend that community, and then you can’t say this because the Muslims will be offended by it, and we’ll end being talked out of it. Talked out of ideas. Whereas when I was 20, I didn’t think about those things – you could just do it.”

Censorship in theatre became a hot topic four years ago when the allegedly “anti-Sikh” play Behzti was pulled after riots in Birmingham (See News, 20 Dec 2004), followed a few weeks later by record complaints to the BBC for its broadcast of the allegedly “anti-Christian” musical Jerry Springer – The Opera (See News, 5 Jan 2005).