Fowl Play

We may guzzle down omelettes by the bucket-load, dunk our soldiers enthusiastically in a boiled egg or two and even munch on a drumstick now and then, but it's nice to know that someone out there cares for the humble chicken. Ever keen to defend the defenceless and put right the inequalities of this unfair world, the British Board of Film Classification have got all hot and bothered over possible abuse of a small fowl in John Malkovich's directorial debut The Dancer Upstairs. So upset were the BBFC over a scene in which a chicken is seen exploding after dynamite is strapped to its leg – and so adamant was Malkovich that the footage remained – that next month's UK release of the film about The Shining Path guerilla movement in Peru was in jeopardy. The BBFC's 1937 act makes it illegal to screen a film if animals have been "harmed in the film-making process by the cruel infliction of pain or terror." And, as a BBFC spokeswoman helpfully pointed out to BBC News Online, "You can't train a chicken to act but it is possible, though illegal, to terrorise them for the sake of the film. It's just because people don't think chickens warrant protection. Sadly for them, the 1937 act does include chickens." Happily for the cinema-going public, however, the BBFC finally passed the film with a 15 certificate after reassurance from The Dancer Upstairs' production company that rather than being blown to conveniently shaped nugget pieces, the chicken star was, in fact, a pet who returned happy - and intact - to its owners.