Back to index of Nerve 11 - Winter 2007 | Merseyside Resistance Calendar February

5th February 1953: City Council bans Unity Theatre film show from Philharmonic Hall on political grounds

The Unity Theatre Membership Bulletin for February 1953 stated:

"The City Council has confirmed the Finance Committee’s refusal of our application of another film show at the Philharmonic Hall. At the Council Meeting no justification of the decision was attempted and no reason has since been given to us. But it is obvious that we have been turned down because we have always worked openly as a political theatre at the service of the broad labour movement. A few years ago such an abuse of political power would have roused immediate protest. - But despite the warning of Germany and, more recently, of America there are some who are prepared to watch the disappearance of our traditional liberties with complacent apathy.

The Campaign went on-the March film show was among those officially confirmed earlier. The programme was changed so that all the films planned for the banned date were shown — Song of the People, a Co-op short tracing the history of the English people from the Peasant Revolt to the present day, The Woodcarver a Polish documentary about a sixteenth century altar-piece, and The Road to Hope, the Italian Golden Laurel winner at the Venice Film Festival. The programme quoted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948;

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Resolutions, letters, petitions and press publicity had no effect. An application to show The Marriage of Figaro in May was rejected. The Manchester Guardian mocked its liberal traditions when it described the Council Meeting:

'It was good clean council fun, indulged in perhaps because the size of the Conservative majority had settled the debate before it began.'"

Exert from: The Unity Theatre

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