Censorship and the Permissive Society: British Cinema and Theatre, 1955-1965

A key decade in the postwar social and cultural history of Britain, the period saw the country emerge from the "doldrums era" of the fifties, to the permissive society of the "swinging sixties." A noticeable move towards "decensorship" increasingly loosened the traditional constraints imposed on literature, stage, and films. Anthony Aldgate shows, however, that censorship impeded the progression of the artistic and creative renaissance of this period. Drawing upon a mass of recently released or hitherto unseen documentation, the author charts the impact of the censorship process between 1955 and 1965 upon playwrights and directors, many of whom endured the rigorous scrutiny of the film and theatre censors.