Stitched up

I vaguely remember seeing Stitching at the Edinburgh Festival in 2002. What I do remember was how mindnumbingly tired and hungover I was after a late Saturday night trying to drunkenly find a hotel of which I didn't know the name or location. Sitting in a dark theatre on a Sunday morning was work itself, nevermind that it was a brutal and graphic play about a couple struggling to transition from sexual (dys)function to impending parenthood. It was startling. It was sinister. It stood in sharp contrast to the lesbian sockpuppet musical of the day before. It was also Mamet-esque in its ability to make poetry of cruelty.

Now Malta has banned it. There's a Facebook group to protest the ban. I can't claim to have loved (or remembered) the play, but don't believe that a European cultural capital in the 21st C. should be banning plays in which language and thought provoke. Are there limits? Undoutedly. But ideals will always be tested by values and in this case the freedom of the arts must withstand value-based legislation. and whilst Stitching is vulgar, it isn't the extreme of the test.

Plus, the very handsome Andrew Haydon told us to do so.