Church Pull Porn Flyer

Cast and crew of new play ‘Pornography’ were surprised to find residents, including church staff, have been pulling down their posters.

ADC cuadc great st mary's church porn pornography priest verger vicar

Cast and crew of upcoming play Pornography were outraged to find angry Cambridge residents, including the verger of Great St Mary’s Church, tearing down their posters.

Despite neither the play nor the poster containing actual pornography, Cambridge residents have been angered by the play’s provocative title, and posters have been mysteriously going missing across the City Centre.

Director Nikki Moss actually caught the verger of Great St Mary’s Church removing the posters, which contain no images, from the church railings.

“He even had a wheelbarrow,” she told The Tab.

The poster in question

Yet the verger claims he was “only doing his job.” He said there were no moral or religious motives behind his actions, but that the posters simply broke regulations.

He argued that the Pornography publicity crew had gone a step too far in their quest to make a controversial impact, putting up four or more posters side-by-side.

He told The Tab that so many posters had been put up outside the Church that: “the whole railing was black with them.”

But, the church receptionist was less diplomatic about the posters. She described the posters as being “deliberately provocative,” and reported that members of the congregation were of the same opinion.

The nature of the advertising has certainly been controversial; one man refused to take a flyer, declaring: “Actually, I’m training to be a vicar.”

But director Moss insists the flyer is, “not sensationalist, or there for the sake of controversy.

“The reason for the title is a comment on the detachment with which society objectifies people and divests them of their status as flesh-and-blood beings.”

The cast of Pornography rehearse

The play, by Simon Stephens, is billed as “violently dark” and “startlingly poignant.”

Pornography is playing as the ADC late show from Wednesday this week. See what The Tab’s Theatre Guide Dog has to say about the show here.