poem Archives - Index on Censorship

Staging Shakespearean Dissent: plays that protest, provoke and slip by the censors

22 Apr 16 | Magazine, Volume 45.01 Spring 2016 Extras

Order your copy of the spring issue of Index on Censorship here.

Saturday 23 April marks the 400^th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. The Bard’s work has long been used to tackle difficult or controversial issues; issues that most often only received an audience due to the cloak of his respectability. To honour the occasion Index has put together a list of all things Shakespeare.

Shakespeare special report

Shakespeare and his role in protest and dissent is the theme of the spring 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine: Staging Shakespearean Dissent; Plays That Protest, Provoke and Slip by the Censors. The issue features pieces that explore how the bard’s plays have been used to circumvent censorship and tackle difficult issues around the world; from Bollywood adaptions to Othello in apartheid-era South Africa and a ground-breaking recent performance of Romeo and Juliet between Kosovan and Serbian theatres, along with reports on theatre upsetting people in the USA, and interviews with directors around the world

How Shakespeare’s plays smuggle in protest

Index on Censorship magazine editor Rachael Jolley introduces our Shakespeare special issue with her editorial piece, How Shakespeare’s plays smuggle protest. In this piece Jolley discusses how the work of “established” or “historic” playwrights gave actors the chance to tackle themes that would otherwise never be allowed.

Simon Callow: Plays, protest and the censor’s pen

Shakespeare was no stranger to censorship, from the Elizabethan to Jacobean police states. In this extract actor and theatre director Simon Callow looks at how his plays amused monarchs and dictators but also prompted their anger.

My Mate Shakespeare

My Mate Shakespeare recasts the playwright as a brandy loving bingo addict, struggling in a war zone. The poem, which was published in the spring issue of Index on Censorship magazine, was written by poet Edin Suljic following a visit to his home country, Former Yugoslavia. The issue also features an interview with the poet, who fled to London in 1991 ahead of the country’s impending war, discussing his inspiration for the poem and his involvement with theatre group Bards Without Borders.

Quiz: Are you a Shakespeare expert?

How well do you know Shakespeare? Take our quiz and see how much you know about the Bard and his work.

Student reading list: theatre and censorship

The theatre and censorship reading list is a compilation of articles from the magazine archive covering theatre censorship across the world. From the censorship of Romeo and Juliet in US high school textbooks to Janet Suzman’s controversial production of Othello in apartheid-era South Africa, to the banning of performances of Macbeth in actors’ homes in Czechoslovakia.

Ben Jennings: Modern Shakespearean imagery

In an interview with magazine editor Rachael Jolley an award-winning cartoonist, Ben Jennings, discusses his design for the latest Index on Censorship magazine cover on the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.

A global guide to using Shakespeare to battle power

Hitler was a Shakespeare fan; Stalin feared Hamlet; Othello broke ground in apartheid-era South Africa; and Brazil’s current political crisis can be reflected by Julius Caesar. Across the world different Shakespearean plays have different significance and power. In our global guide to using Shakespeare to battle power some of our writers talk about some of the most controversial performances and their consequences.

Order your full-colour print copy of our Shakespeare magazine special here, or take out a digital subscription from anywhere in the world via Exact Editions (just £18* for the year). Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship fight for free expression worldwide.

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Magazines are also on sale in bookshops, including at the BFI and MagCulture in London as well as on Amazon and iTunes. MagCulture will ship anywhere in the world.

Borderless Bard: Shakespeare as a bingo addict

18 Apr 16 | Magazine, mobile, Volume 45.01 Spring 2016

Poet Edin Suljic was inspired to write My Mate Shakespeare after a recent trip to his home country

My Mate Shakespeare

The first time I met Shakespeare, he looked nothing like himself, nothing like that

depiction of a poster boy with a hipster beard one comes across every so often.

No, he was tall, scrawny, flamboyant, thin-moustached and bespectacled, with large

hands into which his guitar almost disappeared as he sang perched on a low

stool, in the theatre’s green room, where we would occasionally be allowed to

sneak into as aspiring writers and actors, to join the post-press-night party.

In those days we shared many breakfasts, mainly a coffee and cigarettes, and

sometimes a boiled egg given to us by a kind cook in the theatre’s canteen.

And our fortunes took many turns …

Some claimed his work as if it was their own, they complained about too many foreigners

in his plays (As if we don’t have our own trulls – they’d say). Others even claimed he

never wrote anything, or worse, that he never existed. My mate Shakespeare …

Every so often he’d ask me if I am still writing, then say:

– Keep writing, keep writing, me duck …

But then, he ripped apart my first play.

That’s too serious boyo – he said, and inserted an innuendo into every second paragraph.

He was madly in love with this blonde, petite, round-eyed actress who was patiently

waiting for her lucky break on stage, and for him to come to her garret.

Almost addicted to bingo and drinking a lot of poor-quality brandy, he got himself into

many troubles by attacking so many kings, offending so many celebrities and ridiculing

politicians; and he wrote too many plays about deformity and cross dressing.

Even his small girlfriend turned out to be a man in disguise.

Then the war tore everything apart, and I haven’t seen him since.

The world entered into this never-ending war.

I heard the stories … He married a very different girl and they had two beautiful

children and they lived somewhere in the outskirts of the City.

He doesn’t go to the theatre anymore.

But then, like most stories about him, these too, turned out to be unreliable.

I saw him once more – in the East End. That last time I saw him, he

looked like a broken man. My friend. My indestructible friend.

Something or somebody managed to do it to him.

I suppressed a cry inside myself. What is left for the rest of us? What

will happen to us if people like him could be broken?

Then he leaned over his glass of cheap brandy and whispered

– Keep writing, keep writing, boyo …

Spring 2016 cover

Read an interview with Suljic in the latest magazine. This Saturday (April 23) marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. To commemorate this, the spring issue of Index on Censorship magazine is a Shakespeare and protest special, featuring pieces that explore how the bard’s plays have been used to circumvent censorship and tackle difficult issues around the world; from Bollywood adaptions to Othello in apartheid-era South Africa and a ground-breaking recent performance of Romeo and Juliet between Kosovan and Serbian theatres, along with reports on theatre upsetting people in the USA, and interviews with directors around the world. Historian Tom Holland writes about how a Middle Eastern performance of Measure for Measure would hit the spot, and playwright Elizabeth Zaza Muchemwa on how Shakespeare sneaks tricky debates into Zimbabwean culture.

*Will be charged at local exchange rate outside the UK.

Magazines are also on sale in bookshops, including at the BFI and MagCulture in London, News from Nowhere in Liverpool and Home in Manchester; as well as on Amazon and iTunes. MagCulture will ship to anywhere in the world.