AT a time when the Octagon is seeking to woo audiences and make the theatre an integral part of the community, it seems remarkably ill advised to have such a play as The Censor there.

As the BEN reviewer reported yesterday the controversial play contains a scene which included defecation as a sexual fantasy.

It seems that the Bill Naughton Theatre at the Octagon was hired by the Rocket Theatre Company who staged the play.

That does not absolve the Octagon Management from responsibility. They should know what is being staged in their theatre and whether it projects the right image for it.

Members of the public will not separate the Octagon from productions staged in the theatre and neither do we.

There's an element of "the emperor's new clothes" in the attitude of some people towards controversial drama. If anyone dares to suggest that artistic freedom should not embrace offensive material, they are deemed to be too much of a philistine to understand the higher things of life.

But there comes a point when somebody has to say that the boundaries have been pushed beyond the point of decency and this is one of them.

The supreme arrogance of the Rocket Theatre Company spokesman Martin Harris who said that anyone who may be offended should not buy a ticket is breathtaking.

It may not matter to the Rocket Theatre Company whether the majority of Bolton people visit the Octagon. It certainly matters to us.

Our message to the management is: You made a mistake with this production. For goodness sake learn from it. You are sending out the wrong messages to the majority of theatre-goers whose idea of a good evening's theatre does not include seeing what purports to be human excreta on stage.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.