Woke madness: Trigger warning for The Sound of Music due to depictions of 'Nazi Germany'

Originally based on the 1949 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp, the Sound of Music story was adapted into a Broadway musical in 1959 by Jewish playwrights Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.

The production found its way onto the silver screen in 1965, in a film directed by Robert Wise and starring Dame Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.

Writer and broadcaster Rabbi Jonathan Romain, of Maidenhead Synagogue in Berkshire, described the trigger warnings as "incredibly patronising" and a "disservice" to viewers.

He said: “They are almost warning them off from learning about things that may be unpleasant but are certainly real and make up the world.

“They also seem to be incredibly patronising and sort of dismissing the resilience that people have.

“There are many terrible tragedies, but human endurance and resilience is actually quite remarkable.”

The Sound of Music follows the story of Maria, a novice Austrian nun, who is sent in 1938 to be a governess for the seven children of retired naval officer George von Trapp.

Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, von Trapp is given notice of conscription into the German navy, but instead takes his family across the border into Switzerland, fleeing the Nazis in Austria.

Running from July 10 to September 3, the new stage production at Chichester Festival Theatre features actress Gina Beck in the role of Maria.

A spokesperson for the theatre said: “We include general guidance on content and themes (not trigger warnings) on our website for all our productions, for audiences and, in the case of The Sound of Music, particularly for parents to make informed decisions about age suitability.

“It's for audiences to choose whether to open and read these or not, but we know from feedback that many people do find them helpful.

“Of course theatre can and should be challenging; but, for a family musical, we're giving honest and factual guidance, for those who require it, that the show contains serious themes as well as Rodgers and Hammerstein's glorious songs and uplifting story.”

Chichester Festival Theatre’s decision adds to a long and growing list of cultural institutions retroactively issuing trigger warnings on classic works.

Last month, Queen’s University Belfast was found to have applied a trigger warning to the works of Shakespeare.

Excusing the bard’s penchant for violence, the trigger warning read: “You are advised that this play could cause offence as it references and / or deals with issues and depictions relating to bloodshed.”

Virginia Woolf’s ‘To The Lighthouse’ is set to be published with a trigger warning that reminds readers that the publication was not an “endorsement” of the “cultural representations or language” of the period Woolf was writing in.

Similarly, each new edition of PG Wodehouse’s books will now come complete with the following trigger warning: “Please be aware that this book was published in the 1920s and may contain language, themes, or characterisations which you may find outdated.”

Woolf and Wodehouse’s hamstringing is the latest in a long and growing line of censorship that includes Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie.

Novels from Christie’s Poirot and Miss Marple series are to be rewritten and in some cases have sections removed by publisher HarperCollins to avoid causing offence.

Meanwhile, all of the James Bond novels have been rewritten by sensitivity experts to remove racist language.

Each of the books will now include a prominent paragraph which reads: “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace.

“A number of updates have been made in this edition, while keeping as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set.”