Add MS 88070-88079

J. Papers relating to ‘That Word’.

88070-88079. Tynan Archive. Papers, mainly press comment, relating to Tynan's appearance on BBC-3, a late-night satirical review broadcast live on 13 November 1965, in the course of which he became notorious for becoming the first person to use the word f*** on television. In the course of a debate on theatre censorship with Mary McCarthy, the moderator Robert Robinson told viewers that Tynan and McCarthy agreed that censorship should be abolished. Robinson asked Tynan if he would therefore allow a play in which sexual intercourse took place to be produced at the National Theatre. Tynan replied 'Oh I think so, certainly. I doubt if there are very many rational people in this world to whom the word 'fuck' is particularly diabolical or revolting or totally forbidden.' For further details of this incident and the astonishing media furore which it gave rise to, see the Kathleen Tynan biography, op. cit., pp. 236-242. 'That Word' was the phrase used by one of Tynan's secretaries and possibly Tynan himself to label the files in which materials related to the incident were stored, and is derived from the many press articles which used the expression as they felt unable at the time even to render the word in question with an initial letter and asterisks. Printed.