Too sexy for Shefford?

It was curtains for a saucy play deemed too risque to be performed.

The production, Britain – Loosely Speaking, was to be put on in Shefford by the St Michael’s Players with profits going to a children’s hospital. But when the parochial church council insisted the company axe two sexy scenes following six months of rehearsals, the play was scrapped due to ill feeling.

With attempts to reach a compromise having failed, disillusioned co-director Paul Jellis said at the time: “I think we have reached crunch point. We have got to change our name and become completely independent.”

However, St Michael’s Players president, churchwarden Miss Elsie Coates responded that the scenes in question “were not the things we thought were really suitable to be performed in a church hall.”

And Players secretary Dorothy Speight felt they were not suitable to be performed in any hall.

The vicar at the time, Rev Alan Taylor, refused to comment.