The Times reports that the Barbican in London has bowdlerised their production of Christopher Marlowe’s 1580s masterpiece, Tamburlaine the Great, to avoid upsetting Muslims.

Not that any Muslims have been upset, of course and no-one, has complained about the cut scenes in any earlier production of this play.

Tamburlaine the Great tells the story of a shepherd-robber who defeats the king of Persia, the emperor of Turkey and, seeing himself as the “scourge of God”, burns the Koran. And it’s the Koran burning scene that has been cut - to be replaced with a much milder destruction of “a load of books” with no religious or cultural connections.

According to Charles Nicholl, the author of The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, Marlowe asked “uncomfortable and confrontational questions — particularly aimed at those that held dogmatic, religious views”.

Not, it appears, when the Barbican gets their hands on him.

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