London director’s trial starts

Press, 17 March 1982, Page 8

London director’s trial starts

NZPA London fi A London theatre director, E Michael Bogdanov, procured c the commission of an act of v gross indecency between two fi actors in the play “Romans t< in Britain,’’ an Old Bailey s' court has been told. lan Kennedy, Q.C., opening . the case against Bogdanov, 5 said the jury would be con- d cerned with part .of a . National Theatre production set at the' time of Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain, d “The case against the de- o: fendant is that he directed w the play and caused that tl play to be played on stage, w

full light and centre stage.” As director, it would be Bogdanov's task to make certain decisions, such as whether to play the scene in full light or shade, whether to show an act of buggery on stage or to suggest it. “The case for the prosecution is that in taking the decisions in the way that he did, he was himself a party to that act.” The prosecution, he said, fid not suggest that directors )f the National Theatre would have put on a play if they supposed, that as a whole it might tend to

deprave and corrupt. But the prosecution did suggest the question was: "Did this production include an act of gross indecency.” Mr Kennedy added: “Nobody here would suggest that the act as performed by the two actors was done for their sexual gratification — or for that matter that Bogdanov enacted the play in that way so as to give anybody sexual gratification.” Bogdanov, aged 42, of south London, pleaded not guilty to two charges under section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act, 1956. The first alleged that on

December 19, 1980, he procured the commission of an act of gross indecency by Peter Sproule with Greg Hicks on the stage of the Olivier Theatre, at the National Theatre, in London. Bogdanov also denied that on the same day he was party to the commission of an act of gross indecency between the two actors. The hearing arises from a private prosecution brought by Mrs Mary Whitehouse, president of the National Viewers and Listeners Association. Mrs Whitehouse was not in court.