No Politics Please We're British

On Friday 2 June, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a rather good play by Mark Lawson called "The Third Soldier Holds His Thighs". The Guardian Guide previewed this as : "Mary Whitehouse files charges against the National Theatre Company". Reading this description, I had decided not to listen, but did so nevertheless. I thought this was one of the best radio plays I'd come across. The medium fitted the message perfectly, and their was some excellent performances from the likes of Simon Callow. The "story" behind the drama concerned Peter Hall's staging of Howard Brenton's play "The Romans in Britain", whilst Hall was director of the National Theatre, and the subsequent court case and media furore about the portrayal of male rape on stage. However, as the character of Peter Hall points out, a central issue of Lawson's play - and a particularly important lesson for the present time - is how the British press used sex as a distraction from politics...