I am sure many of you have seen Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, a nostalgic pot-boiler of a film which to us Maltese means that little bit more because of the similarities between us and the Sicilians. I am also sure you will recall one of the most moving scenes when the now- grown-up Salvatore watched the spool of film that was left to him by Alfredo the projectionist. With tears streaming down his face, he watched each of the censored snippets that the parroco, a fierce but endearing Don Camillo-like character, had censored way back in the 1950s. Kiss after kiss followed in rapid succession; performed by legends like Audrey Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, Ava Gardner, Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable and a galaxy of Hollywood stars on a secret roll which Alfredo had, unbeknown to the parroco, kept hidden and painstakingly put together in a bewilderingly sensual cinematic medley.

We have come a long way since then, or perhaps not! Each age has its social mores and its moral tendencies to contend with. In Malta today, we are facing a crisis of monumental proportions. Nobody seems too sure what the definition of freedom of expression is, especially with regard to the arts. Because of the way the world has swung since 9/11, we have a growing reactionary force that is becoming increasingly intolerant while, on the other hand, we have a group of intelligentsia that, in the face of all this, become ever more daring and provocative. Because the law and the establishment are on the side of the reactionaries, the Rhadamanthine judgements that are meted out, as in the most recent case concerning the play Stitching, are like red rags to a bull with the result that drama companies will either knuckle under, which I seriously doubt, or become ever more defiant, which seems to be on the cards. Where will it all end?

The reasons given for the initial banning of the Anthony Nielson play were and still are that it is just too obscene and immoral to be staged. There were various reasons listed, none of which were any different from the content of the two preceding plays produced by Unifaun Productions, namely Mercury Fur and Blasted. In fact, I reviewed both plays which take one straight out of one's comfort zone but which are redeemed in the end by love. Strange but true.

With Stitching, the buck stopped with Teresa Friggieri who, until now, on behalf of the Film and Stage Classification Board, has stuck to her guns and who has had her initial decision confirmed by Mr Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon in a 115-page judgement! The court has ruled that the board's decision has not contravened the right to freedom of expression.

What I fear is that these judgements on works of literature, and here I also include the controversial Vella Gera story, Li Tkisser Sewwi, is that these works are being assessed on a par as if the author and the players are actually committing the said obscenities by acting them out. These are plays. The actors are acting and the audience can choose to attend or not to attend them. By confirming the banning of Stitching we have unleashed yet another Pandora's box of never-ending controversy, which surely will lead to even greater acts of cultural barbarism in future.

From pre-Christian times, plays have dealt with the phantasmagorical unwholesomeness of the human psyche. Ergo, should we ban Euripides' Medea because she killed her own children? Should we not ban The Bacchae, also by Euripides, because a drug-crazed Agave killed her own son Pentheus in a lesbian orgy and drank his blood? Should we not shudder in horror at the matricide of Electra by both Sophocles and Euripides and eschew the added parricide of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, not to mention the incest?

These plays are, in essence, just as morally disturbing as Stitching - provided, that is, the way one's mind works. Therefore, if one were to produce a contemporary stage version of Agamemnon by Aeschylus, for instance, would not the immediacy of the adulterous and murderous elements be too much for the tender sensibilities of the Film and Stage Classification Board? I am sure it would.

One may argue that the Greeks were a pitifully immoral lot and that with the advent of Christianity the Great God Pan was declared dead! But no, let us move forward by 15 centuries to the works of William Shakespeare, whom I am sure nobody will hear a word against and whose very name evinces awe and admiration that have survived and transcended the ages. Yet, let us take Titus Andronicus; not only is the plot horrifyingly immoral but I am sure would definitely more than rival Stitching when, at the end, the Queen of the Goths eats her own sons in a pie served by the vengeful Titus - and that's just the tip of the iceberg! Macbeth is all about regicide and guilt while Hamlet deals with fratricide, matricide and perverted revenge. Antony and Cleopatra's illicit and ill-fated lust cannot be held up as a shining example by any stretch of the imagination, while The Merchant of Venice is horrendously politically incorrect, isn't it? I could go on and on but I am sure that by now you have understood the drift of my argument.

On the same premises as those invoked in Mr Justice Zammit Mc-Keon's extensive judgement with regard to Anthony Nielson's Stitching, the board can, with impunity, ban each and every one of the plays I mentioned irrespective of whether some of them have been performed without interference for over 1,000 years.

Is that not the height of absurdity? Nothing is new under the sun, and all we can conclude is that tales of man's innate perversities have provided such excellent theatrical material that they have kept audiences spellbound from time immemorial.