Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Mannequins

One of the movies on my Netflix queue is 'Mrs Henderson Presents", which is a period piece about a women keeping a theatre open (The Windmill) during the buildup to the second world war.

I was reading a bit about it and discovered that there was a completely bizarre rule regarding nudity in theatres in the 30s and 40s in England -- it was allowed, as long as the women did not move. (and, apparently, were supposed to clutch carefully arranged feathers or bits of scenery to cover their pubic hair). This is is funny enough, but the British, who love beaurocracy, had an agency within the Chamberlain's office to monitor this sort of thing. Their chief official -- who attended each new show to ensure that the rules were being followed -- was named George Titman.

I just got a giggle over the fact that there was actually a specific office required to monitor naked girls on stage. And the name of course. Shallow humor, that's me.

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