QUEER THEATRE SPECIAL
THE PLAY
FORGET MOST OF WHAT YOU’VE HEARD about the 1960s being the era of freedom and mad excess. For the entire decade in the UK it was almost impossible to buy alcohol after 11pm. You could be imprisoned for smoking a joint or watching porn. And for most of the decade, homosexuality was illegal and the level of censorship — particularly in the theatre — was absurd. Until his government office was abolished in 1968, the Lord Chamberlain would not allow “practical demonstrations of love between homosexuals.”