NI stage stars debate Ralph Fiennes' criticism of trigger warnings: 'I think it's treating the audience like kids'

In 2001, a group of Free Presbyterians staged a protest outside Belfast’s Grand Opera House on the opening night of global musical blockbuster Jesus Christ Superstar. It was a repeat of scenes outside The Lyric 27 years previously when Free Presbyterians protested the venue in 1974 over the same production. The crowd who formed a picket line outside the Opera House described the production — created by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice — as “blasphemous and irreverent”.The protest prompted the theatre director at the time, Derek Nicholls to tell this newspaper that “people who think the show is wrong are entitled to their own opinion”, adding: “I don’t think anybody comes to Jesus Christ Superstar without knowing what it’s all about.”

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