‘Don’t come if you are worried’: former RSC boss says he hates trigger warnings for plays

Gregory Doran asks how content warnings could be done for Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus

It is a play renowned for its extreme physical violence, with scenes featuring execution, rape and mutilation. Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus even culminates with its eponymous character, the Roman general Titus, feeding Tamora, the queen of the Goths, her own sons “baked in a pie” before slaughtering her.

But the play – and others like it – should not carry trigger warnings, according to the former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, who has declared that he “hates them”.