'Sexy' play poster banned from county buildings following complaint
New Philadelphia’s Little Theatre is staging the comedy “No Sex Please, We’re British,” which premiered on stage in London’s West End in 1971.
There’ll be no “Sex” in the county courthouse, or any other county building for that matter.
Tuscarawas County commissioners this week decided that two posters advertising the Little Theatre comedy “No Sex Please, We’re British” had to be taken down after they received a complaint about the word “sex” in the title.
“Somebody was offended by the title and didn’t think it was appropriate to be in a public building,” Commissioner Chris Abbuhl said Thursday.
Non-profit groups have historically been allowed to put up posters in the courthouse, including the Little Theatre, Abbuhl said.
“We always try to support things in the community,” he said. “But if we have people complain about it, we review it. We decided to err on the side of caution, so we just agreed to remove the posters.”
Abbuhl said this is the only time he can recall that county officials have had an issue with one of the theater’s posters.
Lee Elliott, the play’s director, defended the advertisements.
“They’re not dirty posters,” she said. “They’re just bright and shiny with a pair of women’s legs.”
The theater had a banner hanging in Dover’s square for a week advertising the play and received no complaints, she said. Flags with the play’s name are also hanging from light poles in New Philadelphia’s square.
“No Sex Please, We’re British,” premiered on stage in London’s West End in 1971. It concerns a frantic British couple dealing with a flood of Scandinavian pornography coming into their apartment.
Elliott described the play as a PG-rated silly romp.
“There is no blaspheming in it and no dirty words,” she said. “There are some innuendoes, but they’re certainly not as bad as you see on television or what the kids are doing on Facebook.”
Audience members never see any of the pornography, she noted.
Sean Clay, a member of the cast and a real estate title examiner, provided the posters for the courthouse, as he has done in the past.
One was placed in the auditor’s office and one in probate court during the last week of October. The recorder’s office rejected the poster, he said.
Clay learned that the posters had been taken down after talking to Abbuhl this week.
“If a vocal minority is allowed to make a decision for everyone, that’s probably a road we don’t want to go down,” he said.
“I was disappointed that it came to that,” Clay said about the posters. “It’s not like we were putting up something overtly sexual. It’s just a comedy.”
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