CHURCHILL did not win the war by kowtowing to pettifogging bureaucracy. He smoked that cigar wherever he pleased, and puffed its cloud with the insouciance of a man who knew he was in charge.

But then the Greatest Englishman only had to deal with the likes of Hitler and Stalin; he had the good fortune to live in the days before the Scottish Parliament and its enforcers, the environmental health inspectors of the City of Edinburgh Council.

Mel Smith, who is appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe playing Churchill in a drama about his relationship with Michael Collins, was forced into an un-Churchillian surrender yesterday when he succumbed to a demand that he not smoke on stage. The actor, who has something of Winston’s build but not his clout, slammed down his lighter in disgust, outraged at being given the ultimatum only half an hour before he was due on stage. “I was speechless,” he told The Times. “I thought that it was unscrupulous, charmless and stupid.”

William Burdett Coutts, who runs the Assembly Rooms where the play Allegiance is playing, told Smith that if he smoked, the venue would lose its entertainment licence. Edinburgh Council had threatened to shut him down if the actor sparked up, Mr Burdett Coutts claimed, and even sent an inspector to supervise the performance.

Mary Kenny’s script calls for Churchill to light his cigar after offering one to Collins. The cigar helps to ease the tension as the pair struggle to find common ground on Irish independence from British rule. “Care for a cigar, Mr Collins?” Churchill asks. “You have a long way to come if you have never enjoyed a Romeo y Julieta. [They] are rolled on the thigh of a Cuban maiden.”

Smith held his lighter to the cigar, but snapped it shut before slamming both items on to an adjacent table. The script refers to the cigar twice more. Smith said that he took particular relish in his line: “I have no liking for those puritans who seek to curb us from drinking and smoking.”

The actor, who had been prepared to pay a fine, said that he had to improvise on stage because rehearsals had been with lit cigars. “I just couldn’t think what I was going to do. If smoking an inch of a Romeo y Julieta endangers other people’s livelihoods then I am not going to do it.”

Smith said the law was pointless. “Do these people have any self-respect? Smoking forms the basis of understanding that he and Collins have. Adolf Hitler would have loved this, because he would not have smokers around him at dinner.” He protested after the show by smoking a cigar out of a window at the venue.

Scottish smoking regulations are some of the strictest in the world. New York productions are exempt from smoking controls and Dublin allows herbal cigarettes on stage. Smith is in negotiations to bring the play to London, where he will be free to smoke during the performance — probably even after a similar law is introduced in England next summer.

The Scottish ban was imposed in March when the Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Act 2005 came into force. Edinburgh Council can fine people £50 and venues £200 for flouting it, and refer them to the Procurator Fiscal’s office, which can itself impose fines of up to £2,500.

Unfortunately for Smith, the council — like certain of Churchill’s foes — appears to have the backing of the forces of Europe: the EU indicated yesterday that banning someone from smoking was not an infringement of their human rights.

Sheila Gilmore, a city councillor, said actors would have to live with the ban. “I think actors act all sorts of actions on stage. You don’t expect people to draw blood when they stab somebody in a fight scene just to prove it’s really realistic. We are simply asking actors to do what they are really good at.”

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