{"id":68721,"date":"2015-08-17T10:29:18","date_gmt":"2015-08-17T09:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=68721"},"modified":"2017-07-21T09:59:01","modified_gmt":"2017-07-21T08:59:01","slug":"letter-why-was-homegrown-cancelled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=68721","title":{"rendered":"Letter: Why was Homegrown cancelled?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following letter was published in The Times<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Sir, The abrupt cancellation of the National Youth Theatre\u2019s production of Homegrown is a troubling moment for British theatre and freedom of expression. The play seeks to examine radicalisation and disaffection among British youth. Its cancellation serves only to shut down conversation on these important issues. We fear that government policy in response to extremism may be creating a culture of caution in the arts.<\/p>\n

We are deeply concerned by reports that the NYT may have been put under external pressure to change the location and then cancel the production. Police, local authorities and arts organisations have a duty to respect and protect freedom of expression \u2014 even, and most especially, where they disagree with the message or find it controversial.We urge the NYT to give a full account of what led to the decision, and hope that a way can be found to stage it so that the young voices involved can be heard and the production can be judged on its merits.<\/p>\n

Maureen Freely, president, English PEN
\nDavid Aaronovitch, chair, Index on Censorship
\nJodie Ginsberg, chief executive, Index on Censorship
\nJo Glanville, director, English PEN
\nShami Chakrabarti, director, Liberty
\nAnish Kapoor, artist
\nAnneliese Davidsen, executive director, Unicorn Theatre
\nChristopher Haydon, artistic director, Gate Theatre
\nSir David Hare, playwright
\nDavid Lan, artistic director, Young Vic
\nGurpreet Kaur Bhatti, playwright
\nHeydon Prowse, actor
\nJolyon Rubinstein, actor
\nHoward Brenton, playwright
\nJosie Rourke, artistic director, Donmar Warehouse
\nLorne Campbell, artistic director, Northern Stage
\nMonica Ali, writer
\nTimberlake Wertenbake, playwright
\nNell Leyshon, playwright
\nNick Williams, executive director, Actors Touring Company
\nRamin Gray, artistic director, Actors Touring Company
\nSabrina Mahfouz, playwright
\nSarah Frankcom, artistic director, Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester
\nSimon Callow, actor
\nStella Odunlami, artist and performer<\/p>\n

Related<\/strong>:
\n\u2022 The Times: Why was Homegrown cancelled?<\/a>
\n\u2022 Index calls for transparency on Homegrown cancellation<\/a> (13 August 2015)
\n\u2022 Creative team behind Homegrown \u201cdeeply shocked\u201d by cancellation<\/a> (13 August 2015)
\n\u2022 Cancellation of Homegrown is very worrying<\/a> (5 August 2015)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"law-pack-promo-art-3\"
\n<\/a><\/td>\n		\n

Child Protection: PDF<\/a> | web<\/a><\/h3>\n

Counter Terrorism: PDF<\/a> | web<\/a><\/h3>\n

Public Order: PDF<\/a> | web<\/a><\/h3>\n

Obscene Publications (available autumn 2015)
\nRace and Religion (available autumn 2015)<\/p>\n

Art and the Law main page<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Index on Censorship joined English PEN in a letter calling for transparency around the cancellation of the National Youth Theatre production of Homegrown<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":67556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[366,6534],"tags":[3669,1458,7296,561],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68721"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68721"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81464,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68721\/revisions\/81464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/67556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}