SOURCE: "'Disgusted, Shepherd's Bush': Brimstone and Treacle at the BBC," in Essays and Studies, 1993: Literature and Censorship, Vol. 46, 1993, pp. 131-43.

In the following essay, Wiggins discusses Brimstone and Treacle and the issue of censorship in relation to the themes and dramatic features of Potter's teleplay.

Any discussion of censorship at the BBC will necessarily contain an element of speculation. All successful censorship makes its object invisible, but at the BBC the censorship itself is also invisible. The decision not to broadcast an item is entirely an internal matter, closed to public scrutiny and accountable to no outside body: there is no right of appeal, and there can be no informed public debate, since the BBC has no statutory obligation to explain its actions. This is one reason why the suppression in 1976 of Dennis Potter's television play Brimstone and Treacle did not become the cause célèbre that...