Acceptable in a public place ?

This morning's Cabinet meeting was held in Bathgate at the Regal Community Theatre and was followed by a very good public meeting, focussing on "Scotland's Future".

As all the Ministers were lining up to go on stage I got chatting to one of the ladies who runs the community theatre and she told me that the artwork beside the stage had been the cause of a delay to the building's opening as a cinema in the 1930's as there was a doubt about the suitability for public exhibition of nude images. It was an odd thought as I walked past the offending items and onto the stage and odder still as I sat for an hour and a half beneath them listening to good questions (and, I hope, good answers) about a new Scotland.

After the meeting I had a closer look at the two very fine plasterwork panels and this is a picture of one of them. Later I looked up the building on line and found this :

".....of great interest are the large fibrous plasterwork panels with integrated grillwork on the splay walls above the side exits created by John Alexander. They depict a nude chariot rider driving his horse into the sky. The controversy of this theme delayed the cinemas opening by several days while it was determined if such images were acceptable in a public place. The only other cinema in the UK to retain plasterwork by Alexander is the Grade II listed Northwick Cinema in Worcester, making the Regal building of far more than just local interest. "