The English ban on smoking could after plays onstage. “For example, do almost all Ibsen’s male characters smoke because it is central to the argument of the drama or because Ibsen was a social realist and, at the time, being in a room after dinner was like walking alongside a steam train? Under the Finch rules, smoking might become for future generations of actors equivalent to nudity in the past, with respectful reference to performers who were ‘prepared to light up’ but only ‘if the part absolutely demanded it’.”