Why onstage nudity deserves respect

It is the very opposite of essential for illegal shots of Norton to be taken during the show – an activity anticipated by the producers, who nightly issue a stern warning forbidding all photography with stickers placed on all camera phones. Worse still, the images were then published by the Daily Mail on page three with a “taster” on the front page and online. Given that the Mail is the paper most likely to write censoriously about the appallingly liberal use of onstage nudity, running salacious nude photos of a star is the very definition of cynicism. Mercifully, the outcry that greeted this shamelessness meant the photos were swiftly taken down.

Back in 2000, it was female nudity that caused uproar. “Kathleen dares to bare all,” cried the Evening Standard on its front page about the 31 seconds (one reporter counted) that Kathleen Turner stood naked (but very carefully lit) in the stage version of The Graduate, the novel made famous by Mike Nichols’ movie in which middle-aged Anne Bancroft removes her stockings to bed a young Dustin Hoffman. 

I know what it’s like to be naked on stage with hundreds watching

The prospect of that moment sent almost every British newspaper editor into frenzied anticipation, with the press embargo loudly broken by reporters sent to the first preview to ogle... wait, I’m sorry, to review. And although the production proved forgettable, its notoriety was enough to see it through several cast changes with Anne Archer, Jerry Hall and Linda Gray all confident enough to step into the role. 

That overexcitement was particularly odd (and tiresome), since theatrical nudity had been around since stage censorship was abolished in 1968 when the gloves – and everything else – came off.

The “tribal love-rock musical” Hair arrived in London fresh from Broadway in 1968 and broke the mould with the cast standing naked for approximately 20 seconds. That was equal-opportunity nudity since it applied to everyone on stage. Ever since, with the exceptions of best-forgotten, wannabe-raunchy musicals called, I kid you not, The Dirtiest Show in Town (hardly) and Let My People Come (why?), men have generally got away with keeping their genitals covered. Directors, invariably male, argued that female nudity was far more ‘necessary’ than male.

One of the famous early exceptions was Peter Shaffer’s Equus, which demanded the actor playing the central boy be naked throughout the climactic scene where he plays out his trauma. I remember this vividly, since, in a regional theatre production, I played him, so I know what it feels like to be naked with hundreds of people watching.

During the scene, naturally, it’s the last thing you’re thinking about. You’re focusing on what’s happening between you, the other actors, the text and the production. It’s about what your character is going through and what you’re trying to express. Only afterwards did it sink in, somewhat unsettlingly, that all those people knew what I looked like naked. 

Happily, no photographs exist. This was long before mobile phones. James Norton isn’t so lucky. And although he’s been naked on TV, there the agreed camera angles and edits control what is and isn’t seen.

Snapping him illegally on stage happens in public but it is theft: his privacy is being stolen. Some people argue telling audiences how to behave is wrong, but surely this behaviour makes the inarguable case that audiences should think of more than their own selfish gratification?