Chief executive of Royal Exchange resigns over censorship row

The chief executive of Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre has resigned following the publication of an independent review into a decision to cancel a contentious play last year.

Stephen Freeman, who had been chief executive of the Royal Exchange since 2018, said he was standing down “for personal reasons linked to the impact of the last few months”, adding he was “comforted that the report has concluded that censorship was not at play”.

An independent review into the circumstances of the cancellation of a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, published yesterday (6 March), concluded that although there were “leadership failures”, the theatre management’s actions “did not constitute censorship”.

According to the Manchester Evening News, a row broke out following an internal preview of the show over a song which referred to trans rights and the phrase ‘free Palestine’.

The newspaper reported theatre bosses called for the section to be removed, but the show’s director, Stef O’Driscoll, insisted it should remain in the show, with the support of her cast.

The play was due to run from September 6 until October 12, but ticket holders were contacted to say the production’s run was cancelled due to a “number of issues with the production”.

‘Lack of senior artistic leadership’

The independent review concluded that failure to maintain robust support during a period of leadership change “led to multiple issues [for the play] and its ultimate cancellation”.

“[Royal Exchange Theatre] has a history of producing bold, brave and ambitious work, but its handling of [A Midsummer Night’s Dream] revealed significant systemic organisational and leadership failures rather than the deliberate suppression of political content,” a statement issued by people make it work, the consultancy that conducted the review, said.

“The lack of senior artistic leadership and properly documented producing processes created conditions where legitimate concerns about artistic developments in the production became entangled with allegations of censorship.

“The principal recommendation of our review is that [Royal Exchange Theatre] embarks on a programme of change wherein it restates its commitment to artistic innovation and daring, and publicly acknowledges the leadership failures that led to the cancellation of [the play].”

The co-chairs of Royal Exchange Theatre, afshan d’souza-lodhi and Jo Taylor, said while they are reassured the review did not support accusations of censorship, they “recognise that more needs to be done to support artists and other partners, especially in a period of leadership transition”.

“The board apologises to all those involved in the production, whose work was not able to be seen, as well as to staff and audiences for these shortcomings,” the pair said.

“We are embarking on a process designed to reinstate our organisation’s core values, culture and guiding principles, led by senior management with support from the board.

“Change of this scale takes time in order to be truly impactful, but this work has already started and we commit to prioritising it so that significant progress can be made over the next six months. The board’s commitment to ambitious and courageous work at the Royal Exchange remains undiminished.”