"Until 1958 the law in Britain forbade the public performance of any play that dealt openly with homosexuality." "Not in Front of the Audience" is a pioneering study of a neglected terrain; examining the way in which the theatres of London and New York have reflected contemporary social and cultural attitudes to homosexuals and homosexuality. In the 1920s and 30s the theatre sought to represent homosexuals as either essentially corrupt, or else morally pitiful. Paradoxically however, de Jongh argues, no matter how much homosexual characters were derided and despised, by refusing to conform they subverted conventional sexual expectations. The woman with a past, who inspired many late Victorian melodramas, sought happiness through social acceptance. The homosexual looked to a future outside the confines of a conservative heterosexual society. During the Cold War, under the influence of McCarthysism, homosexuality became perceived as not only morally reprehensible, but also politically dangerous. Only, briefly, in the late 60s did the theatres of London and New York dare to confront the issue of heterosexual prejudice and its devastating impact upon the lives of gay men and lesbians.

"Not in Front of the Audience" is a pioneering and important study of a neglected terrain, examining the way in which the theatres of London and New York have reflected contemporary social and cultural attitudes to "gay men" and homosexuality. In the 1920s and 1930s the theatre represented homosexuals as either corrupt, or morally pitiful. De Jongh argues that no matter how much homosexual characters were derided and despised, by refusing to conform they endowed conventional plays with unorthodox perspectives. During the Cold War, under the influence of McCarthyism, homosexuality was perceived as not only morally reprehensible but also politically dangerous and the theatre dutifully reflected such perceptions. Until 1958, direct discussion or depiction of homosexuality was banned from the stage in Britain. But by the late 1960s the theatres of London and New York had begun to confront the issue of heterosexual prejudice and its devastating impact upon the lives of gay men and lesbians. In the wake of the AIDS epidemic, the author concludes, the representation of homosexuality in the theatre has again become an urgent and highly charged issue. This book should be of interest to unde

Late on 20th October, 1953, Sir John Gielgud, then at the zenith of his theatrical career, was arrested in a Chelsea public lavatory. He pleaded guilty the next day to the charge of persistently importuning male persons for immoral purposes. In the prim, homophobic Britain of the 1950s, Gielgud's offence attracted vicious criticism from public and press alike and threatened to terminate his career. A few weeks later, however, when Gielgud opened in London in a new play, something extraordinary happened. Nicholas de Jongh's Plague Over England is not just a dramatized account of a scandal. It relates Gielgud's emergency to the country's political mood and depicts a nation in the grip of a gay witch-hunt.