Students to hold reading of banned playwright

University students from the Department of English will be holding a reading of a play written by Anthony Neilson, the writer whose script Stitching was banned in Malta.

The Night Before Christmas is a satirical black comedy that pokes fun at the commercialisation of the holiday season and will be performed on December 16 at the University.

But the organisers do not want it to appear as a political statement against the ban of the play or censorship because not all of its members want censorship abolished. The president of the Department of English Students Association (Desa), Neville Bezzina said the students simply wanted to explore another play by the controversial author. "Our members try to be intellectually inquisitive. If one of his plays was banned, what about all his other plays? We read this one and we thought it was good and tongue-in-cheek."

He said the play is for mature audiences. "This is not for children, but then again, none of the literature we study is."

Critics have called the play a "wicked little comedy to warm the cockles of your heart" and "smutty, dangerously funny but warm-hearted".

Scottish playwright Mr Neilson, known for his "in-yer-face" theatre, had come to Malta to testify in court against the ban that was imposed last January. The case is still being battled out in court.

Directing the reading is Erin Stewart Tanti, the 18-year-old student who recently put up another production called Censor Me!

The production included a series of sketches about the censorship issue in Malta and aimed to beat censors at their own game by being too clean to censor, while still satirising people like Therese Friggieri, the chairman of the Board of Stage and Film Classification.