Platform Papers 10: Satire or Sedition? The Threat of National Insecurity

Biggins, Jonathan
Platform Papers 10: Satire or Sedition? The Threat of National Insecurity

Platform Papers 10: Satire or Sedition? The Threat of National Insecurity

Biggins, Jonathan

$16.00

PUBLISHED OCTOBER 2006

A growing disquiet in the popular press over rising racism led to the introduction in late 2005 of reinvigorated sedition laws. This provoked an angry response from a wide coalition of civil libertarians, authors, publishers, artists, and performers, who saw them as an invasion of the creator’s right to criticise. In this essay one of our favourite creators of satirical revue examines the threat to free speech in the light of these events and claims that the demand for political satire has been fuelled by an increasing audience need for an oppositional viewpoint. He illustrates his argument with songs and sketches from the Wharf Revue for which Biggins, Phil Scott and Drew Forsythe are famous, and concludes that while the defences against charges of seditious intent are as narrow as the definitions of the offences are broad, ‘the greatest and most immediate threat lies in self-censorship’. ‘Good satire,’ he writes, ‘can reawaken a desire for change, because in the hearts of all satirists is a belief in the worth of the institutions and customs they regard as being mismanaged, or, even worse, degraded or corrupt.’

Jonathan Biggins is a versatile writer, performer, and broadcaster who has worked for all the state theatre companies, and for Opera Australia, in productions ranging from David Williamson’s Soulmates to the Mikado and West Side Story. As director of Revue for the Sydney Theatre Company, he features, with Scott and Forsythe in their annual Wharf Revue.

By:   Biggins, Jonathan
Product Code:  

9780975730164


Availability:   In stock
This item is in stock and will be dispatched immediately.

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PUBLISHED OCTOBER 2006

A growing disquiet in the popular press over rising racism led to the introduction in late 2005 of reinvigorated sedition laws. This provoked an angry response from a wide coalition of civil libertarians, authors, publishers, artists, and performers, who saw them as an invasion of the creator’s right to criticise. In this essay one of our favourite creators of satirical revue examines the threat to free speech in the light of these events and claims that the demand for political satire has been fuelled by an increasing audience need for an oppositional viewpoint. He illustrates his argument with songs and sketches from the Wharf Revue for which Biggins, Phil Scott and Drew Forsythe are famous, and concludes that while the defences against charges of seditious intent are as narrow as the definitions of the offences are broad, ‘the greatest and most immediate threat lies in self-censorship’. ‘Good satire,’ he writes, ‘can reawaken a desire for change, because in the hearts of all satirists is a belief in the worth of the institutions and customs they regard as being mismanaged, or, even worse, degraded or corrupt.’

Jonathan Biggins is a versatile writer, performer, and broadcaster who has worked for all the state theatre companies, and for Opera Australia, in productions ranging from David Williamson’s Soulmates to the Mikado and West Side Story. As director of Revue for the Sydney Theatre Company, he features, with Scott and Forsythe in their annual Wharf Revue.

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By:   Biggins, Jonathan
Product Code:  

9780975730164


Availability:   In stock
This item is in stock and will be dispatched immediately.
Reviews

Reviews

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