Defiance: Mel Smith

We shall fight them – in the Assembly Rooms

August 8, 2006

To Mel Smith, it’s Nazism. To Tomek Borkowy, who runs Edinburgh’s Hill Street Theatre, it smacks of the totalitarianism against which he fought in his native Poland. In fact, it’s making me so anxious, all this talk of a Stalin-and-Hitler-combined threat to our freedoms that I badly need a drag on a Marlboro Light. But that’s the problem. Smoking is infra dig north of the border, and lighting up on stage is, as Adolf himself might have put it, verboten.

What’s raised heckles at this year’s festival is that, unlike other anti-smoking legislation from New York to Ireland, the Scottish ban does not exempt actors on stage or even on screen. After all, says William Burdett-Coutts, who runs the Assembly Rooms, “there is such a thing as air-conditioning. I never heard of anyone feeling uncomfortable or getting sick after seeing someone smoke on stage.” But the Scottish Executive (or the Tartan Taliban, as theatre people are saying) has taken an absolutist approach to clean air: “The smoking legislation aims to protect the public from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke,” runs its official line. “This applies equally to actors, performers and theatrical audiences as it does to other workers and members of the public.” In a country where 13,000 people die every year from smoking-related illnesses, this might seem sensible. And local support for the ban has risen from 56% to 78% since the Smoking, Health and Social Care Act came into force in March. But Scotland had reckoned without the Edinburgh festival, where the appetite for controversy is insatiable, and where artistic freedom is as sacred as the right to a pint at 5am.
Leading the protests is the unlikely figure of Mel Smith. Smith is appearing as Winston Churchill in Mary Kenny’s play Allegiance, and as we all know Churchill was partial to cigars. So is Smith, and he wants to smoke on stage while playing the wartime leader. Invited to comment on the illegality of the activity, Smith told an Edinburgh paper: “It would have delighted Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler, as you know, was anti-smoking. You couldn’t smoke at Adolf Hitler’s dining table, so he’d be pleased, wouldn’t he? Congratulations Scotland.”

Smith has been threatening to defy the ban during the play’s run. The authorities promise “to take the appropriate action [against him], if it is necessary to do so,” councillor Sheila Gilmore tells me. Council officers were present yesterday morning when Smith managed to get through the play’s opening performance without lighting up. At Sunday’s official launch of the Fringe, the day before, he smoked a cigar inside the Assembly Rooms for the benefit of photographers. Onlookers held their breath, partly to avoid the smoke, partly in expectation that Smith would be clapped in irons. But, as Fringe director Paul Gudgin says, “if you’re an enforcement officer, you wouldn’t do it at a press conference, would you? You’d be sneaking round with a letter a bit later on.” According to Gudgin, there are as many supporters as opponents of the ban among Fringe participants. “There are a lot of people who feel very strongly that it’s a freedom of expression issue. But there are other performers who welcome the ban. After all, so much of what you do on stage has to be a representation. Why should smoking be any different?”

This is one of the pro-ban camp’s arguments: if you can simulate sex or drug-taking on stage, why not smoking? Councillor Gilmore says: “Actors can evoke all kinds of things without actually doing them. That’s what acting’s about. We don’t demand that they draw blood on stage when they fight.” The official line from the Scottish Executive is that “if smoking requires to be represented in film, TV and theatre performances, realistic alternatives can be used (artificial cigarettes) or developed, if the industry feels they are not suitable.” But, unlike similar prohibitions elsewhere, Scotland’s ban forbids even herbal cigarettes, or indeed any “lit substance” in an enclosed public space. The only remaining alternative, say protestors, are unconvincing fake fags, with their billowing plumes of talcum powder.

So why didn’t Scottish legislators, like their counterparts in the US and Ireland, either exempt the performing arts entirely or allow the use of herbal cigarettes on stage and on film sets? According to Tomek Borkowy, director of Hill Street Theatre and a high-profile campaigner against the ban, “the city council told me that herbal cigarettes couldn’t be allowed because it would make the ban too difficult to police. But that’s not my problem, that’s an administrative problem.” Borkowy insists that the legislation was poorly planned, and that the Executive “didn’t research the impact it would have on the arts industry. And now they know that they fucked up.” Gudgin, who as director of the Fringe has been working with the city council on administering the ban, believes that “the Executive knew it was going to be controversial and that they had a battle on their hands, and so they were determined to make the ban as complete as possible. The more exceptions and loopholes you create, the harder it becomes to enforce.” He is hopeful that when the law comes up for review within the next year, “we can make a good strong case for some kind of exemption”. But, at least publicly, the Scottish Executive shows no signs of budging. “It’s not something we’re going to reconsider,” said a spokesperson. “We’re sticking to our guns on this.”

So how drastic is the effect on the festival? How essential is the freedom to smoke on stage? Several productions now in Edinburgh had to be redirected to accommodate the ban. The Unprotected, an unflinching piece of verbatim theatre about the lives of Liverpool prostitutes, has transferred from the Liverpool Everyman to the Fringe. Its characters smoke; talcum powder wouldn’t do. The show’s director, Nina Raine, has called the Scottish ban “outrageous”, but has had to bow to the inevitable, ditching the fags and having the characters drink endless cups of tea.

In Red Shift’s acclaimed original production of Get Carter, “everybody smoked their heads off all the way through it,” says director Jonathan Holloway. But not in Edinburgh. Likewise the Fringe hit Bill Hicks: Slight Return, the poster for which depicts actor Chas Early as the late stand-up with a cigarette drooping raffishly from his mouth. The show was returning to Edinburgh, its pre-publicity claimed, “in defiance of the smoking ban”. But reality bit, and faced with the threat of a ?200 fine, the posthumous Hicks has had to stub out the ciggies.

Where once there was innocuous on-stage smoking, what has now emerged is a cat-and-mouse ritual whereby performers tease audiences with the prospect of an illicit puff. In high-profile plays such as Talk Radio at the Underbelly, actors are toying with cigarettes and spliffs, threatening to light them, turning their backs to the audience and – are they having a sneaky toke? Fags have become as charged and conspicuous on stage as loaded guns. It’s an unexpected consequence of the smoking ban, but this will-they-won’t-they? ceremony has become the most bizarrely compelling sideshow on this year’s Fringe.

All a little silly, you might think – but there are artistic issues at stake. According to Burdett-Coutts, whose venue hosts Mel Smith’s play, “the fact that someone playing Winston Churchill, who smoked cigars and who is known for smoking cigars, cannot smoke a cigar on stage, is absurd”. It’s symptomatic, says Borkowy at Hill Street Theatre, of British philistinism towards the arts. “You may be able to simulate sex. But if you start to simulate smoking, and instead of inhaling you have to exhale, it’s completely idiotic. I come from a country where theatre is taken seriously. I have been trained in the Stanislavsky method. You cannot cheat in this way. Imagine trying to show smoking on film, with powder! Who is going to watch this kind of film?”

Certainly, the ban poses greater problems to film. Gudgin cites Trainspotting, with its scenes shot in smoke-filled pubs, as an example of a movie that would now have to be shot elsewhere. “We do run the risk of becoming a second-choice destination.”

But the national film body Scottish Screen is playing things cool. The talcum powder issue doesn’t faze their unflappable spokesperson, who tells me, “there’s always special effects”. Another artform with a lot to lose is stand-up comedy, the iconic image of which – pace Bill Hicks – is a performer with a mic in one hand and a fag in the other. I spoke to the comic Reginald D Hunter, who is rarely seen on stage without a cigarette. But he welcomes the ban, which he thinks will help him give up smoking. Doug Stanhope is characteristically less sanguine. Smoking on stage, he claims, directly affects the quality of his comedy. “It fires me up. It keeps my attention deficit to a minimum. Without a cigarette, my train of thought isn’t as tight. I’m not as comfortable. All those long awkward pauses in my act, that’s me mentally reaching for a cigarette. And without a cigarette, I’m less able to depict the life of excess that is the subject of my comedy.” As far as he’s concerned, saving Scottish lives is no compensation. “If you want to save people’s lives, give them something to live for. Make the place less depressing.”

So will anyone make themselves a martyr for the performer’s right to smoke? “The trouble is,” says Stanhope, “you don’t make yourself a martyr, you make the venue a martyr.” Responsibility for enforcing the ban falls in the first instance on the licensee, which is why Assembly Rooms chief Burdett-Coutts is so anxious about Mel Smith’s refusenik threats. “The worst case scenario is a fine of ?5,000. But what can I do? And at the end of the day, he’s Mel Smith. He’ll do what he likes.”

In England, public health minister Caroline Flint is consulting the performing arts industry before drawing up anti-smoking legislation, and has suggested that an exemption is likely. In Scotland, Gudgin remains quietly confident that, once the Fringe is over and the brinksmanship past, a similar compromise will be reached. “The theatre lobby in Scotland will continue to try to get one or two accommodations,” he says. “The Fringe hammering away on its own this summer is not going to effect major change. But the whole film and theatre industry together may achieve something”.

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August 08 2006
ROB ROBERTSON
ACTOR Mel Smith yesterday backed down at the last minute over his plan to defy Scotland’s smoking ban and light up a cigar during his stage portrayal of Winston Churchill.

Churchill may have proclaimed “no surrender” during the war years but Smith didn’t adopt a similar stance at the Assembly Rooms during the opening performance of the play Allegiance.

The actor and comedian threatened to defy the ban by puffing on a Romeo y Julieta Havana during the play, which showcases a meeting between Churchill and Irish Republican leader Michael Collins.

He had lit up at a press photocall on Sunday and made it clear he was going to do the same at all seven performances of the show which runs until next Sunday. He felt the smoking ban impinged on his characterisation of Churchill, who was nearly always pictured with a cigar in his hand.

His threat to break the law became known to Edinburgh Council’s environmental health department who dispatched their chief enforcement officer to an urgent meeting with Bill Burdett-Coutts, the artistic director of the Assembly Rooms.

Mr Burdett-Coutts claimed he was told the theatre would be shut down if Smith lit up on stage, something Edinburgh Council chiefs strongly denied. Their spokeswoman said Mr Burdett-Coutts was told that he risked an on-the-spot fine of ?200 for allowing Smith, who would get a ?50 fine, for smoking on stage.

The knock-on affects could be a ?1000 fine if the matter went to court and the possibility of Mr Burdett-Coutts being summoned before the Licensing Board and having his licence to run the Assembly Rooms next year revoked. The council spokeswoman said any Fringe show flaunting the smoking ban faced the same punishment.

Under growing pressure from council chiefs, Mr Burdett-Coutts advised the actor not to light up. Twenty-two minutes into the show, when he should have defied the smoking ban, Smith picked up a cigar, picked up his lighter, thought about lighting up but changed his mind. He put the cigar on a table next to him where it sat unlit for the whole performance.

Smith refused afterwards to comment directly on the matter but Mr Burdett-Coutts said the actor had told him he was “rather angry” over the whole episode.

The actor, who shot to fame with Not The Nine O’Clock News, did stick his head out of his dressing window as he smoked a cigar after the show and had his picture taken by photographers, but refused to answer questions shouted up to him. Smith, a keen cigar smoker, had gone on record in the past to criticise the smoking ban claiming it would have delighted Churchill’s arch-enemy Adolf Hitler.

Afterwards Mr Burdett-Coutts remained adamant that the Assembly Rooms had been threatened with closure by council chiefs if Smith had lit up his cigar on stage. “We had a visit from the chief environmental officer this morning who said he would shut the venue,” he said. “I spoke to Mel about it and he was rather annoyed and because he did not want that to happen [the venue to be closed] he decided not to smoke during the performance.”

On the question of banning smoking on stage, Mr Burdett-Coutts said : “I think it’s absurd. In the context of an international festival like this, it’s crazy. It’s integral to the part of Churchill and it doesn’t affect other people. It’s just absurd.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Executive, which introduced the smoking ban, said: “The smoking legislation aims to protect the public from the harmful effects of second hand smoke. This applies equally to actors, performers and theatrical audiences as it does to other workers and members of the public. If smoking requires to be represented in film, TV and theatre performances, realistic alternatives can be used like artificial cigarettes. The reduced use of cigarettes in theatre performances and films will also help to end the status of smoking as an acceptable, sociable activity.”

An Edinburgh Council spokeswoman said it had been informed that Smith may have posed for photographers in his dressing-room where he was allegedly smoking. “Should we receive a complaint, we may investigate further,” she said.

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August 08, 2006
Jack Malvern

CHURCHILL did not win the war by kowtowing to pettifogging bureaucracy. He smoked that cigar wherever he pleased, and puffed its cloud with the insouciance of a man who knew he was in charge.

But then the Greatest Englishman only had to deal with the likes of Hitler and Stalin; he had the good fortune to live in the days before the Scottish Parliament and its enforcers, the environmental health inspectors of the City of Edinburgh Council.

Mel Smith, who is appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe playing Churchill in a drama about his relationship with Michael Collins, was forced into an un-Churchillian surrender yesterday when he succumbed to a demand that he not smoke on stage. The actor, who has something of Winston’s build but not his clout, slammed down his lighter in disgust, outraged at being given the ultimatum only half an hour before he was due on stage. “I was speechless,” he told The Times. “I thought that it was unscrupulous, charmless and stupid.”
William Burdett Coutts, who runs the Assembly Rooms where the play Allegiance is playing, told Smith that if he smoked, the venue would lose its entertainment licence. Edinburgh Council had threatened to shut him down if the actor sparked up, Mr Burdett Coutts claimed, and even sent an inspector to supervise the performance.

Mary Kenny’s script calls for Churchill to light his cigar after offering one to Collins. The cigar helps to ease the tension as the pair struggle to find common ground on Irish independence from British rule. “Care for a cigar, Mr Collins?” Churchill asks. “You have a long way to come if you have never enjoyed a Romeo y Julieta. [They] are rolled on the thigh of a Cuban maiden.”

Smith held his lighter to the cigar, but snapped it shut before slamming both items on to an adjacent table. The script refers to the cigar twice more. Smith said that he took particular relish in his line: “I have no liking for those puritans who seek to curb us from drinking and smoking.”

The actor, who had been prepared to pay a fine, said that he had to improvise on stage because rehearsals had been with lit cigars. “I just couldn’t think what I was going to do. If smoking an inch of a Romeo y Julieta endangers other people’s livelihoods then I am not going to do it.”

Smith said the law was pointless. “Do these people have any self-respect? Smoking forms the basis of understanding that he and Collins have. Adolf Hitler would have loved this, because he would not have smokers around him at dinner.” He protested after the show by smoking a cigar out of a window at the venue.

Scottish smoking regulations are some of the strictest in the world. New York productions are exempt from smoking controls and Dublin allows herbal cigarettes on stage. Smith is in negotiations to bring the play to London, where he will be free to smoke during the performance — probably even after a similar law is introduced in England next summer.

The Scottish ban was imposed in March when the Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Act 2005 came into force. Edinburgh Council can fine people ?50 and venues ?200 for flouting it, and refer them to the Procurator Fiscal’s office, which can itself impose fines of up to ?2,500.

Unfortunately for Smith, the council — like certain of Churchill’s foes — appears to have the backing of the forces of Europe: the EU indicated yesterday that banning someone from smoking was not an infringement of their human rights.

Sheila Gilmore, a city councillor, said actors would have to live with the ban. “I think actors act all sorts of actions on stage. You don’t expect people to draw blood when they stab somebody in a fight scene just to prove it’s really realistic. We are simply asking actors to do what they are really good at.”

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Mel Smith stubs out plan to defy Scottish smoking ban

08 August 2006
Paul Kelbie

The actor Mel Smith avoided a confrontation with Scotland’s legal system yesterday when he backed down from smoking on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The veteran comedian, who is playing Winston Churchill in a show at the Fringe, had vowed to flout Scotland’s smoking ban in public places, introduced in March.

Under the legislation, anyone smoking in an enclosed space, including theatres, sports venues and bus shelters, faces a ?50 fine. The owners of premises can be fined up to ?2,000 and lose their licences if they continue to permit the flouting of the ban.

Smith, who with his former comic partner Griff Rhys Jones was a member of the satirical Not The Nine O’Clock News team in the 1980s, had said he would flout the law in the interest of historical accuracy.

Smith, an enthusiastic cigar smoker off-stage, went so far as to suggest that the Scottish Parliament’s ban on smoking would have delighted Churchill’s arch-enemy, Adolf Hitler.

Appearing in the play, Allegiance, directed by Brian Gilbert, which is inspired by the visit of the Irish independence leader Michael Collins to London in 1921, the actor said he had no intention of rewriting history or using a fake cigar to portray Britain’s wartime prime minister.

Less than 24 hours before the show opened at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh yesterday, Smith was photographed puffing on a Havana cigar at the theatre in defiance of the legislation.

However, a threat from Edinburgh’s environmental officers responsible for enforcing the ban that the venue could lose its entertainment licence appears to have changed his mind at the last moment. He went to light the cigar but stopped short of actually setting it alight yesterday morning in the first performance of the play.

“We had a visit from the chief environmental officer this morning who said he would shut the venue,” said William Burdett-Coutts, artistic director at the Assembly Rooms. “During the scene, Mel got the cigar and a lighter out, but then he put them down to the side,” said the director, who said it had been made clear that he would be held liable if a performer smoked and would face a large fine and the loss of his licence.

Mr Burdett-Coutts, who admits to being very angry over the interference of legislation over artistic expression, said the ban in theatres was ridiculous. “I think it’s absurd. In the context of an international festival like this, it’s crazy,” he said. “It’s integral to the part of Churchill and it doesn’t affect other people – it’s just absurd.”

Smith had given him no assurances before the show, he said. “I am very glad Mel didn’t smoke although one cheeky part of me would have loved to have seen him do it.”

Several other Fringe producers have hinted they also intend to flout the ban, even though the Scottish Executive has said that while “realistic alternatives” could be used for the purposes of theatre shows, there was no need to relax the ban.

“The smoking legislation aims to protect the public from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke,” said a Scottish Executive spokesman. “This applies equally to actors, performers and theatrical audiences, as it does to other workers and members of the public.”

Sheila Rait, a member of the audience, said: “It really didn’t matter that he didn’t light up. It didn’t spoil the play for me.”

Smith took a puff out of a theatre window after the show instead.

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Mel Smith, playing Churchill, defies Scotland’s law banning smoking in public places, ignoring his producer’s calls not to do so ASHLEY COOMBES / EPICSCOTLAND

Actor fights them on the stage over smoking ban

8-7-06
By Jack Malvern, Arts Reporter

MEL SMITH became the first performer at the Edinburgh Fringe to defy Scotland’s smoking ban yesterday.

The comedian, who is playing Winston Churchill in Allegiance, puffed on a cigar while on stage during a photo call at the Assembly Rooms. He ignored calls from his producer not to light up.

Smith, who is a cigar smoker off-stage, criticised the law banning smoking in public places. He said: “It would have delighted Adolf Hitler. Congratulations, Scotland.” He suggested that the audience could be warned before the show: “A third of a Romeo y Julieta will be smoked during this performance. If you find that offensive, f*** off.”

Brian Gilbert, the show’s director, said that he would not intervene if Smith wanted to smoke. “He hates the ban,” he said. A little bit of smoke is not going to jeopardise people’s health. If you’re out on the street you get much worse from the pollution.”

The ban, part of the Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Act 2005, came into force in March.

Daniel Jules, Smith’s producer, said that he had tried using stage cigars, but they were unconvincing. “It is so much a part of the character,” he said.

Edinburgh City Council has warned the Assembly Rooms that it faces fines of up to ?5,000, and could lose its entertainment licence. William Burdett Coutts, the theatre owner, said that the venue, producers and Smith could all be fined.

One theatre owner told performers that he would support their right to smoke. Tomek Borkowy, of the Hill Street Theatre, said the ban reminded him of the censorship he experienced while living in Poland during the Cold War. No one from Edinburgh City Council was available for comment.

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SMITH SLAMS ‘NAZI’ SCOTTISH SMOKING BAN

2006-07-17

British funnyman MEL SMITH has threatened to defy Scotland’s smoking in public ban this summer (06) and has compared the strict rules to Nazi Germany under ADOLF HITLER.

The comedian, who played British World War II leader WINSTON CHURCHILL in the film ALLEGIANCE, will be at the Edinburgh Festival in August (06) to star in a stage production of the movie.

He tells Scottish paper Scotland on Sunday when he plays legendary smoker Churchill, he’ll refuse to smoke a fake cigar, adding “Maybe I’ll light it.

Maybe I won’t. What are they going to do to me? Are they going to extradite me?” He adds, “It would have delighted Adolf Hitler. Hitler, as you know, was anti-smoking. You couldn’t smoke at Hitler’s dining table, so he’d be pleased, wouldn’t he? Congratulations Scotland.” The Scottish government’s ban on smoking in public places came into force in March this year (06) with smokers facing a possible penalty of ?50 ($27).

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Close call, but no cigar

July 16, 2006

‘Never give in – never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” Sir Winston Churchill had the Nazis in mind when he said this in October 1941, but his words have been taken to heart by the unlikely figure of Mel Smith.

Smith, best known for his comic turns on Not The Nine O’Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones, has been receiving praise for his straight role as Britain’s wartime leader in Allegiance, which portrays an unlikely friendship with Irish rebel Michael Collins. The play is heading to Edinburgh’s Fringe and, as we report today, Smith is furious that the Scottish Executive smoking ban means he won’t be able to light up a trademark cigar to complete his impersonation of Churchill. Other Fringe performers are also threatening to flaunt the ban and smoke on stage.

We hope that none of the artists will actually break the law; the usual arguments for civil disobedience in the face of grave injustice are hardly compelling in the case of legislation which, despite its faults, at least intends to protect public health. Besides, little more than 100 days after the smoking ban began, the evidence suggests that most Scots have accepted the law and are enjoying their newly smoke-free pubs and other public places.

However, Smith’s threat is a reminder that the ban did go too far. Exemptions should have protected personal liberty and artistic integrity – the former by permitting smoking in private clubs, the latter, as may yet be the case in England, by allowing smoking on stage when the material justifies its inclusion.

Mel Smith flicks V at smoking ban

July 16, 2006
ANNA MILLAR, ARTS CORRESPONDENT (annamillar@scotlandonsunday.com)

HE SHALL light up on the beaches, in the fields and… the Assembly Rooms. He shall never surrender.

Mel Smith, the comedian, actor and director, has flashed a giant Churchillian V-sign at the Scottish Parliament by threatening to smoke on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Smith, who plays the cigar-chomping wartime leader in the play Allegiance, claims the smoking ban “would have delighted Adolf Hitler”.

Saying he only smokes a third of a cigar during the show, Smith states he would be “amazed” if anyone tried to stop him and challenges the authorities to “extradite” him if he does.

Smoking in any enclosed public space was made an offence in March this year and dozens of people have already been fined or cautioned.

This year’s Fringe is the first since the ban was introduced and several other venues are threatening to break the law in what they insist are the interests of artistic integrity.

Smith’s play, which is considered one of the must-see shows of the Fringe, is inspired by Irish rebel Michael Collins’ real-life visit to London in 1921. The play is based on the fiction that, over the course of one night, Churchill and Collins meet and become friends.

Smith told Scotland on Sunday: “Who knows, maybe I’ll light it [the cigar]. Maybe I won’t. But maybe I will. I mean, what are they going to do to me? Are they going to extradite me?

“I would imagine that literally a third of a Romeo & Julietta [cigar] is all that gets smoked. On that basis, I would be amazed if anybody had the gall to try and stop me doing it.

“Maybe we should just say to people, ‘Please be warned: Mel Smith does smoke a third of a Romeo & Julietta cigar in this show. If you fear for your health, don’t come.’

“It’s very funny, because I don’t know why theatrically you’re not allowed to.”

The comedian went on to slam the Scottish Parliament, and made scathing comparisons between the originators of the bill and anti-smoking obsessive Adolf Hitler.

Smith, who has ruled out using a fake cigar, added: “I will not have people protecting me from myself. That’s the whole problem with this country.

“I’ve often wondered what the Scottish Parliament does. Maybe this is an opportunity for me to find out. The thing I would like to say about it is that it would have delighted Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler, as you know, was anti-smoking. You couldn’t smoke at Adolf Hitler’s dining table, so he’d be pleased, wouldn’t he? Congratulations Scotland.”

Edwina Lunn, general manager of the Assembly Rooms, was relaxed in her response, even though they could be fined for allowing Smith to smoke.

She said: “We will be taking any breaking of the smoking ban very seriously and so will be providing Mel Smith with a month’s supply of fake cigars and a Groucho Marx mask.”

Smith is not the only act to have been affected by the ban. In the past few months, demands have mounted for the legislation to be revisited.

Hill Street Theatre manager Tomek Borkowy has vowed to defy the ban during the Fringe, branding it “communist censorship”. He said that he would actively encourage actors to smoke on stage as part of their The Visitor production in August.

“The play in question is about a meeting between Sigmund Freud and God. Freud was a big smoker. It would be ridiculous not to show that because of a brainless piece of legislation.”

The law as it stands imposes a ?50 fine for those flouting the ban and a ?200 penalty for the manager or owner of any premises which allows smoking.

Borkowy has written an open letter to the Scottish Parliament asking for the law to be changed.

He told Scotland on Sunday: “As a non-smoker I am not opposed to the ban totally, but it simply should not affect the theatre in this way. I hope they will see that their stupidity on this has been enormous. I will not pay any fine imposed on me and I will go to jail if I have to have my point heard.”

The producers of Bill Hicks: Slight Return, about the comedian and chain smoker who died of cancer, have said they will bring back their show “in defiance of the smoking ban”.

The show will return to Edinburgh after two sell-out years. In the past, the show’s star, Chas Early, was seen smoking throughout. However, the company has already had a warning from city council chiefs. As a result, Early’s Hicks character will step outside the Pleasance to smoke while the audience watches a TV projection.

Unprotected, which will run at the Traverse in August, is a drama about prostitutes being murdered and features smoking. The show’s director, Nina Raine, said that while the ban is “outrageous” she will replace smoking with cups of tea during the performances to adhere with legislation.

Maureen Moore, chief executive of anti-smoking group Ash Scotland, had no sympathy for any actors wanting to smoke on stage. She said: “The theatre is a workplace. This law was brought in to protect people in the workplace. It is the law in Scotland and an actor is not above the law. While he or she is here they just have to adhere to it.

“When actors take drugs on stage they don’t really inject. And when they have sex on stage they don’t really have sex. So why use real smoke when there’s a real health risk to actors and the audience?”

A Scottish Executive spokesman said: “The smoking legislation aims to protect the public from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke. This applies equally to actors, performers and theatrical audiences, as it does to other workers and members of the public. If smoking requires to be represented in film, TV and theatre performances, realistic alternatives can be used or developed.”

Edinburgh City Council said any premises flouting the ban would be open to investigation.
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