We go to the theatre to feel something – and people do. Trigger warnings don’t stop that | Arifa Akbar

Good plays have the power to shake us out of our complacency. This recurring debate is a pointless skirmish in a culture war

CONTENT WARNING: This column may include opinions with which you forcefully disagree along with big name actors wading into the breach and, quite possibly, unrestrained below-the-line rage or rebuttal.

So we're back here again: the debate on trigger warnings has become so persistent and volatile that the discussion might require its own trigger warning these days (as per above). Is the act of alerting an audience to sensitive, potentially triggering, content such as sex, violence and suicide (and that's just in Romeo and Juliet) a helpful access aid or it is infantilising us and neutering the power of theatre?