Moor Moors controversy

Vicky Featherstone, artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland, is in The Scotsman today after a BBC programme to which she contributed was pulled from the schedule. It seems she said she'd have been interested to have dinner with Myra Hindley, one of the Moors Murderers. Having met Hindley in prison, Featherstone is convinced she was a reformed person and had a fascinating experience to share.

Despite all the terrible crimes that have happened over the past 40 years, the Moors Murders have not lost their capacity to provoke outrage in the UK. So sensitive the subject, so raw the wound of the victims' families, that it's impossible to say anything about the crime without causing upset.

There's a show called Wasted coming to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe based on transcripts of appeals by Myra Hindley against her life sentence. According to reports, it was banned by the Lakeside Arts Centre in Nottingham on grounds of taste. It's interesting that a verbatim transcript of something that was said in public can be considered bad taste when put in a theatrical setting.

You don't have to believe it's OK to kill five children to question the degree of thought control that's going on here.

Back to more frivolous concerns, new additions to Mark Fisher's Scottish Theatre Links include reviews of Summer Lightning and Chimneys at Pitlochry and a news report on the Edinburgh Fringe for Variety.