The Blasphemers' Banquet
1989 British film / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about The Blasphemers' Banquet?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
The Blasphemers' Banquet is a film-poem created in 1989 by English poet and playwright Tony Harrison which examines censorship arising from religious issues.[3] It was created in part as a response to the Salman Rushdie controversy surrounding his publication of The Satanic Verses.[4][5] It was aired by the BBC 1's programme Byline on 31 July 1989.[6][7][8][9][10][11]
The Blasphemers' Banquet | |
---|---|
Directed by | Peter Symes[1] |
Written by | Tony Harrison |
Screenplay by | Tony Harrison |
Produced by | BBC[1] |
Release date |
|
Running time | 40 minutes[2] |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
The verse-film is set at the Omar Khayyám restaurant in Bradford where Harrison is holding a banquet with invited guests such as Omar Khayyám, Salman Rushdie, Voltaire, Molière and Byron.[8][12][13][14][15][16]
The film at the time of its airing created a controversy in Britain when then Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie advised the BBC to postpone the showing of the film and the BBC writing a reply to him defending the airing of the broadcast.[2][17]