CONCLUSION
I must conclude by recommending the Government to take my advice
wherever it conflicts with that of the Joint Select Committee. It
is, I think, obviously more deeply considered and better
informed, though I say it that should not. At all events, I have
given my reasons; and at that I must leave it. As the tradition
which makes Malvolio not only Master of the Revels but Master
of the Mind of England, and which has come down to us from Henry
VIII., is manifestly doomed to the dustbin, the sooner it goes
there the better; for the democratic control which naturally
succeeds it can easily be limited so as to prevent it becoming
either a censorship or a tyranny. The Examiner of Plays should
receive a generous pension, and be set free to practise privately
as an expert adviser of theatrical managers. There is no reason
why they should be deprived of the counsel they so highly value.
It only remains to say that public performances of The Shewing-Up
of Blanco Posnet are still prohibited in Great Britain by the
Lord Chamberlain. An attempt was made to prevent even its
performance in Ireland by some indiscreet Castle officials in the
absence of the Lord Lieutenant. This attempt gave extraordinary
publicity to the production of the play; and every possible
effort was made to persuade the Irish public that the
performance would be an outrage to their religion, and to provoke
a repetition of the rioting that attended the first performances
of Synge's Playboy of the Western World before the most sensitive
and, on provocation, the most turbulent audience in the kingdom.
Pages:
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104