A Scottish Playhouse Accidentally Sent a Bunch of Porn to Children

This post originally appeared on VICE UK

Listen, none of us are without sin. So can we really go in on the Edinburgh Playhouse for sending a load of porno DVDs to some kids, ​as it emerged it did this week? In a way: no, absolutely not. In another way: Yes, we should. In another way: We should really be asking what the Edinburgh Playhouse was doing with a big ol' stack of porno. In another way: Edinburgh Playhouse should not have sent the aforementioned porno stack to a bunch of local kids.

Here's what happened: Over the summer, several children aged ten and under attended an acting summer school, likely because their parents have unrealistic dreams for them and their future. The final show was recorded, edited, and sent to a DVD plant to be pressed onto DVDs. So far, so jazz hands.

Here's where things went a bit wrong. Instead of transferring a wholesome school-age children's performance onto DVD, the plant instead copied a load of hardcore—and, like, this is hardcore, man; you see it going in—porn onto the DVDs instead. And then the Edinburgh Playhouse innocently took these DVDs and sent them out to their network of tiny children, all of whom probably held world premieres in their living rooms, the family all crammed onto sofas, aunties and uncles commuting in from distant Scottish towns, microwave popcorn, grandma as a special treat let out from her home. And then: full-on, jizz-gushing porno. Appalling.

Obviously—as you'd hope—the Playhouse has been quick to issue an apology, saying today the mistake took place at the home of the production company, Edithouse, and that the Edinburgh Playhouse did not deliberately send a load of porno to some kids.

"Edithouse takes full responsibility for the mistakes made in the duplication process of DVDs for the Edinburgh Playhouse, which resulted in highly inappropriate and inaccurate material being sent out to a small number of Edinburgh Playhouse customers," a statement said.

"We would like to apologize sincerely to the Edinburgh Playhouse for the inconvenience and most importantly to the children and parents affected by this terrible error," the statement continued. "We are sorry for any distress caused." It was not a premeditated porno attack, basically. It was a whoopsie. Still, they've launched an investigation, for what it's worth.

But some parents aren't happy with the apology: The father of one ten-year-old girl told BBC News the film was "absolutely disgusting filth"—which, side note, is a really funny sentence to imagine being shouted by a spit-flecked Scottish dad—and that he definitely had not taken the DVD to the special plastic bag of porn with a load of shoes in it to disguise the porn that he had upstairs in his wardrobe. Absolutely not. He had absolutely not done that.

"We took immediate measures to recall all of the DVDs," the Playhouse said yesterday, "and sought the advice of the police and notified those affected customers as a matter of urgency."

The police, for their part, say no crime has been committed, because if you send a load of porn to kids by accident then there's really no need to arrest anybody. Like leaving a load of porno mags under a hedge, like in the good old days. A victimless crime.

Anyway, let's learn a lesson here: next time you are mailing a DVD to a bunch of kids, please make sure the absolute worst possible outcome can't happen by watching the DVD first and making sure it doesn't have any balls, dicks, or tits in it.

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