In 2009 Ben Stephenson, the controller of BBC drama commissioning, said that the corporation should encourage "peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking." Yet, according to its own royal charter, the BBC must "be independent in all matters concerning the content of its output". To show how we got to this undemocratic, totalitarian state I give a survey of the war on our culture and history carried on against us in our theatres for over thirty years.