Shout: Voices Against Censorship

Audience member Paul Steeples, taken from www.juliemyers.org.uk: I remember going to an event protesting about censorship, mainly to see Tony Benn performing with Test Department (which he did, and it was good). Halfway through the evening, Salman Rushdie got up on stage and said he had been made the subject of a fatwah for The Satanic Verses. He then read out all the bits of the novel that had been condemned. All I can remember about it was that he seemed to go on for hours, and I was thinking ‘Why doesn’t he bugger off and let the rest of the show go on?’ Because he went on so long, I had to leave before the end and I was really angry at him. Little did I know what would happen next . . . .

Hard as it is to imagine, Tony Benn was actually backed that night by Test Dept. The band’s Angus Farquar remembers that ‘He said it was the most frightening experience he’d ever had on stage. He said it was like standing on the edge of the cliff of Dover and someone was about to push him over.’  (Taken from www.factmag.com)