This woke MADNESS goes from Bard to worse

WAR Horse author Sir Michael Morpurgo is refusing to include The Merchant Of Venice in a new book adapting Shakespeare’s plays for children under 16.

He has decided the anti-Semitic portrayal of Jewish money lender Shylock is too ‘raw’ for young minds.

Without doubt, the play may be considered offensive by modern standards. But that doesn’t mean it should be expunged from the canon of the greatest playwright in the English language.

It’s one thing social media sewer rats stirring up hatred against everything from Dad’s Army to J.K. Rowling. It’s quite another when one of our most distinguished writers aligns himself with intolerant statue-topplers and book-burners.

I studied The Merchant Of Venice at school and it didn’t turn me into a raging anti- Semite. Quite the opposite, as it happens. Yes, the portrayal of Shylock is unpleasant, but the play is also a powerful plea for racial and religious tolerance. (‘If you prick us, do we not bleed?’) Should we now ban Morpurgo’s War Horse because it’s hideously white?

Of course not, but in the current febrile mania for erasing the past and rewriting history, don’t be surprised when it happens.

Most of our civic institutions have embarked on a deranged orgy of self-flagellation in the wake of the Black Lives Matter madness.

How long before the Royal Shakespeare Company capitulates, too? Soon every single one of the Bard’s plays will have to be scrutinised line by line by the censors for anything which might possibly cause offence to anyone.

You can just imagine the RSC committee meeting at Stratford . . .

GOOD morning, colleagues. I’ve called you all together to discuss our proposed summer season, that’s if we ever come out of lockdown. As you are aware, in the current climate certain productions may be considered problematic. So we must tread carefully in selecting our programme. Let’s start with Romeo And Juliet. Any thoughts?

Celebrates paedophilia. Juliet is only 13. We’ll have the Jimmy Savile squad kicking the door in before the interval. OK, how about Richard III? He was a hunchback. The disability lobby aren’t going to like that.

Technically he wasn’t a hunchback. He had adolescent scoliosis. We could always claim to be raising awareness and get Cumberbatch to make a speech at the end asking for donations to The Scoliosis Society. Not a bad idea. Put it down as a maybe. Hamlet? Wasn’t he bipolar? Mental health issues are always a bit of a minefield. And that’s not counting Ophelia’s suicide. As You Like It? That’s the one where Rosalind dresses up as a Greek shepherd boy and tries to seduce Orlando before revealing she’s actually a girl. How do you think that will go down with the trans brigade?

Probably best to give it a miss.

We’re going to have the same trouble with Twelfth Night. Eh? If you remember, Viola disguises herself as a young man. But in Shakespeare’s day, female parts were always played by men. So Viola would have been played by a male actor, dressing as a woman dressing as a man.

We could always cast Eddie Izzard as Viola.

It’s a thought. How about Taming Of The Shrew?

Glorifies misogyny. The feminists will throw a right wobbly.

Measure For Measure?

Rapey.

All’s Well That Ends Well? Grooming. Count Bertram spends half the play trying to seduce a young virgin. Hmmm. Comedy Of Errors? Slavery. A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Homophobia. Homophobia? Featuring a comedy character called Bottom, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more. We’ll have Stonewall all over us. Titus Andronicus? Where do you want to start? With the rape and murder of the daughter or the two brothers Titus kills and bakes in a pie he serves to their mother before killing her, too?

Fair point. What does that leave us with? Richard II?

Too Brexity. This sceptered isle, this blessed plot and so on. Henry V? Anti-EU. Borderline racist. All that ‘God for Harry, England and St George’ stuff . . . Othello? You must be joking. Not unless you want Black Lives Matter running riot. It was bad enough when Extinction Rebellion glued themselves to the stage blaming The Tempest on climate change.

That’s about it, then. The Merchant Of Venice is a definite non- starter. Why don’t we just forget about Shakespeare and put on something less controversial? Such as? War Horse? The RSPCA might have something to say about that . . .