The Guardian exerpt for which Wolfgang gave a link is fairly short and doesn't really show why the setting of a gurdwara was central to the drama. The much longer extract in The Independent was much more useful in that respect and I doubt if McGrath would have blandly fallen in with moving the action to a community centre if he had read it. But the setting does not mean the play is about religion. It is about honour and dishonour, abuse of authority, the complexity of family bonds and the status of women.

All of which is irrelevant to arguments about free speech. But it does show that the playwright, in exercising her right to uncensored artistic expression, was not doing so out of sheer wilfulness. (According to her friends, by the way, she is still in hiding, on police advice. Some democracy.)

The whole furore has been an unmitigated disaster for the Sikh community in the UK and will set back by many years the progress towards wider understanding of their heritage and traditions. But we should keep in mind that very many Sikhs are ashamed and disgusted by what the Birmingham mob has done in their name.