This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
If you can have actors as black Anglo Saxons you can have an actor as a white Mandela
A nicely thoughtful post there by @isam. I need to watch this as it is the 2nd one of yours I have liked today.
I disagree with you @HYUFD on Nelson Mandela and agree with @isam. Mandela being black is rather fundamental to the whole point of the story. Normans and Anglo Saxons being white is not. OK they clearly weren't black. They also have the wrong haircuts*, and speak the wrong language for the time, but we overlook that. We can overlook (with difficulty I grant you as it is obvious) black Anglo Saxons. It is a bit more difficult to overlook a white Mandela.
* A review I read said it was confusing flipping between the Norman and the Anglo Saxon locations and would have been a lot easy if they had the correct haircuts for the time.
All historical movies and TV shows are inaccurate to a greater or lesser degree. Mary Queen of Scots spoke with a French accent but she’s invariably given a Scottish one. Jesus of Nazareth was considerably darker than Robert Powell or indeed most of his other European and American visual representations. Picking on the skin colour of actors in history pieces set in Europe is a bit of a double standard. Suspension of disbelief is necessary in any dramatic production.
I agree. It is only relevant if key to the plot. I don't care if someone is black or white, thin or fat, tall or short, when playing a roles,but there are obvious exceptions when it is key to plot:
A white Mandela, a thin Billy Bunter, a short Giant in the beanstalk.
One only has to apply common sense.
I will try asking you as JJ didn’t answer at the time of writing - if the epic series “Shaka Zulu” is remade do you think it’s fine to cast white actors as Zulu Impi, or do you think it would be utterly ridiculous?
If you think it’s ok then please explain why, and why the Zulu nation shouldn’t be livid about it, if you think it would clearly be ridiculous then please explain why we also should accept colour blind casting in other situations.
The racial dimension in South African history in "Shaka Zulu" still very much feeds through to the country's situation today. In comparison, any racial dimension in "King & Conqueror" has long ceased to be relevant. Thus, the two are not directly comparable.
You do realise Shaka Zulu is about the rise of the Zulu against other black South African tribes of the time, pre Anglo-Zulu war and large scale white settlement and so the racial black/white dimension to the story isn’t relevant to the country’s situation today?
"Shaka Zulu" covers interactions with the European colonists as well. Key characters are white (Francis Farewell and Henry Fynn). Here is Wikipedia's summary of the first episode's plot: "Commencing in 1823, it introduces the main characters, including Shaka, Lieutenant Francis Farewell and Dr. Henry Fynn, against a background of increasing fear of a Zulu attack on the Cape Colony." The show covers the period 1823-8, which is before the Anglo-Zulu war but well after large scale white settlement.
Farewell and the colonists are bookends to the story, if you watch it, after using Farewell and co dealing with Shaka, the bulk of the ten episodes from part way through 2 until part way through 9 are exclusively about the rise of Shaka and the Zulu kingdom versus the other regional black tribes
And "5 flights a day" which would all have to be military because airlines / lease companies can't do ut.
We got civil operators to fly into Basra, Baghdad and Mosul on behalf of the UK government during the height of festivities there when there were SAMs and drones flying around. Shonky African operator + Russian crew + lots of money = nobody gives a fuck.
It's a lot simpler to do it with military aircraft and crews because they can be more easily coerced but the civil option isn't impossible even at the 5 flights/day scale.
Where does that sit on capacity?
Mr Farage doubled down on 500k-600k per annum deportations.
Is that doable on 5 flights a day, presumably on aircraft up to the size of a Globemaster or a Voyager, bearing in mind security personnel, load factor etc ?
500k a day is 1300 people a day so minimum 6 flights and probably more if you have any unwilling travellers...
And I don't see how the logistics works.
Also we don't exactly have 500k people arriving by boat so exactly who else is he planning to remove from the country...
Apparently they will be rounded up like in the USA with an ICE style unit .
I really do not see this happening
Stop the boats absolutely, but a US style purge is not acceptable
So how do you remove illegal immigrants who have melted into the ether if not with border force raids. They already happen fairly regularly at businesses suspected of using illegal labour, are you suggesting that we shouldn't be doing these either?
Weak willed liberals and their unending empathy for criminals and illegal immigrants are more dangerous for this country than the criminals and illegals.
I am not a weak willed liberal but what is going on in the US is unacceptable
By all means raid businesses suspected of employing illegal immigrants and I have no problem with everyone having a mandatory ID card
Can you tell us in detail exactly what's happening in the US that you wouldn't want to bring to the UK. As I see it they're using the same tactics as here, just more aggressively than we currently do and they're enforcing deportation rather than doing a catch and release as the UK does.
I think you've been watching too much nonsense on the news about the "horrors" of the US deportation programme when the reality is that even now Trump is still behind the deportation rate of Obama.
That's the point, is it not ? Obama didn't spend tens of billions militarising ICE as a private army, or disappear law abiding long term residents with families.
Obama didn't have to contend with sanctuary cities and those long term residents are still illegal, they don't have citizenship or legal right to remain in the US. Whether they've been there for 5 days or 5 years they should be removed. Obama also deported them too fwiw, he was known as the deporter in chief after all.
The polling suggests quite a large majority in the US disagrees with you on that.
Obama spent a good deal of his presidency trying to broker bipartisan agreement on regularising the law abiding, Legislation like the Dream Act has been around for well over two decades: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DREAM_Act
And the large majority of those he deported were recent arrivals across the southern border.
And yet people voted for Trump's deportation plan. People like to say things to pollsters that they don't believe and then vote for the things they do believe.
The voted to deport "the worst of the worst" - Trump's most used phrase on the issue - murderers, rapists and drug dealers. They did not vote to deport their hard working law abiding neighbours.
..Wall Street Journal (July 2025): 51% of respondents said “President Trump’s efforts to deport illegal immigrants have gone too far,” while 23% said “not far enough” and 24% said “about right.” CNN: (July 2025): 59% oppose and 23% support “Arresting and detaining undocumented immigrants who have resided in the United States for years with no criminal record.” As CNN polling editor Ariel Edwards-Levy wrote, “That echoes a theme seen in much immigration polling this year — support for immigration enforcement tends to erode when pollsters specify that people without criminal records or longtime residents will be among those affected.” Quinnipiac (July 2025): 59-38% disapproval of Trump’s handling of “deportations.” And by a 57-39% margin, voters disapprove of “the way U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, is enforcing immigration laws.” CBS/YouGov (July 2025): By a 51-49% margin, Americans disapprove of the “Trump administration’s program to deport immigrants illegally in the U.S.” In February, the same pollsters found 59-41% support when asking the same question. Washington Post/Schar School (June 2025): Americans disapprove of “the way President Trump is handling immigration enforcement, including deportations,“ by a 52-37% margin. Point 2: When gauged head-to-head, legal status for undocumented immigrants is decidedly more popular than mass deportation. Americans consistently prefer a path to legal status instead of mass deportation – and are measurably swinging in favor of legal status in recent months.
Fox News (July 2025): When asked about preferred policy for undocumented immigrants, Americans prefer a path to citizenship over mass deportation by a 59-29% margin. The question offered three options – “deport all illegal immigrants,” “deport only those illegal immigrants who have been charged with crimes but allow others to remain in the U.S. and eventually qualify for citizenship,” or “allow all illegal immigrants to remain,” with the final option receiving 11% support...
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
We had a black Anne Boleyn. I always got the impression that was stunt casting to generate publicity for a minor channels output which it did quite well.
I doubt we will ever see a white MLK or Mandela these days.
Harry Enfield played Mandela in prosthetics in his comedy show. Has been savaged by the usual suspects for it, suffice to say, several years after the event and has said he wouldn’t do it now and doubts it would happen.
Quite frankly this so called colour blind casting is pretty pathetic box ticking stuff but I cannot say I care a great deal as I don’t watch the stuff the BBC puts out these days anyway. Its drama output is dire, mind you ITV isn’t much better.
Donald Trump claims UK in for 'bad awakening' thanks to Starmer's energy policy Trump's comments come despite the UK's reliance on fossil fuels being one of the factors driving up energy costs, with wind power being significantly cheaper than nuclear, gas or coal https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/donald-trump-claims-uk-bad-35798659
Ye Gods, They just censored my comment.
I saw this story about illegal parking and wondered if you were the new Leon: PB by day; Fleet Street by night:-
Highway Code rule break mistake 'most drivers' are making
Drivers throughout Britain are being alerted to an obscure Highway Code regulation that could see them slapped with a substantial penalty, purely based on how they position their vehicle overnight. The Highway Code states that it's against the law to park facing against the direction of traffic flow once darkness falls, except when positioned within a designated parking space.
The rationale centres on visibility concerns: car headlights are engineered to bounce light off a vehicle's rear, rather than its front end. When parked incorrectly, cars become significantly more difficult to detect, heightening the chances of a collision. https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/uk-news/highway-code-rule-break-mistake-35794413
I knew that BUT only because I am preparing to take my advanced driving test. One I didn't know and got my knuckles rapped on is going around mini roundabouts. Rule 188 states you must pass around them unless you are physically unable to do so. I do, but have been known to cut off a small section and got told off for doing so. It is an offence, although I was told you are unlikely to get pulled up for it by the Police unless you are involved in an accident.
I tend to use mini roundabouts more as a suggestion as to who has right of way.
I don't believe the "facing the direction of traffic" thing is enforced.
Serious answer on that point. It's like pavement parking and other things - they will enforce on a particular instance if they think a particular serious problem is caused. Though there may be other offences that are more appropriate, such as "leaving a vehicle in a dangerous position".
In pavement parking for comparison, police can always enforce on "Wilfully Obstructing the Highway" (even any part of the highway, which includes a pavement or part of a pavement), but will slope shoulders and say "go and see the Council" in 99% of cases, unless eg Parents and toddlers, or blind / wheelchair users are being forced into the carriageway, or if for example a drop kerb is blocked.
Maybe Rachel should find a way to help government coffers and follow the US example !
How do Undocumented Workers File Tax Returns Without a Valid Social Security Number?
Though certain non-citizens are eligible for to receive Social Security numbers to pay taxes, unauthorized immigrants are ineligible to receive one. However, it is still law that individuals who reside in the United States, whether legally or not, and earn income here must pay taxes on that income, and file a tax return, regardless of whether the income was earned as an undocumented worker—a complicated legal conundrum.
Further, the IRS will not allow a tax return to be filed with a fake or stolen Social Security number. Therefore, unauthorized workers who wish to file their taxes–and potentially get future credit for it— must find another way. Thus, many use the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN, which allows immigrants without Social Security numbers to legally file tax returns and claim the income reported on their W-2’s to the IRS.
What is an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN)?
In 1996, the Internal Revenue Service created the ITIN to provide a way for noncitizens who earn income in the United States, including legally-present noncitizens who do not have Social Security numbers, to pay taxes on money earned in the United States while not being technically employed by a U.S employer. For example, ITINs allow foreign nationals to pay taxes on the interest earned in a U.S. bank or investment account. They also allow spouses of work-authorized visa-holders to pay taxes on self-employment income, among other uses.
Most experts believe that the vast majority of tax returns filed with ITINs today are filed by undocumented immigrants rather than the intended recipient groups—a few categories of noncitizens who do not have a Social Security number and are not authorized to work but who are still earning income and legally residing in the United States. In 2010, ITINs were used to file over 3 million federal tax returns.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
And "5 flights a day" which would all have to be military because airlines / lease companies can't do ut.
We got civil operators to fly into Basra, Baghdad and Mosul on behalf of the UK government during the height of festivities there when there were SAMs and drones flying around. Shonky African operator + Russian crew + lots of money = nobody gives a fuck.
It's a lot simpler to do it with military aircraft and crews because they can be more easily coerced but the civil option isn't impossible even at the 5 flights/day scale.
Where does that sit on capacity?
Mr Farage doubled down on 500k-600k per annum deportations.
Is that doable on 5 flights a day, presumably on aircraft up to the size of a Globemaster or a Voyager, bearing in mind security personnel, load factor etc ?
500k a day is 1300 people a day so minimum 6 flights and probably more if you have any unwilling travellers...
And I don't see how the logistics works.
Also we don't exactly have 500k people arriving by boat so exactly who else is he planning to remove from the country...
Apparently they will be rounded up like in the USA with an ICE style unit .
I really do not see this happening
Stop the boats absolutely, but a US style purge is not acceptable
So how do you remove illegal immigrants who have melted into the ether if not with border force raids. They already happen fairly regularly at businesses suspected of using illegal labour, are you suggesting that we shouldn't be doing these either?
Weak willed liberals and their unending empathy for criminals and illegal immigrants are more dangerous for this country than the criminals and illegals.
I am not a weak willed liberal but what is going on in the US is unacceptable
By all means raid businesses suspected of employing illegal immigrants and I have no problem with everyone having a mandatory ID card
Can you tell us in detail exactly what's happening in the US that you wouldn't want to bring to the UK. As I see it they're using the same tactics as here, just more aggressively than we currently do and they're enforcing deportation rather than doing a catch and release as the UK does.
I think you've been watching too much nonsense on the news about the "horrors" of the US deportation programme when the reality is that even now Trump is still behind the deportation rate of Obama.
That's the point, is it not ? Obama didn't spend tens of billions militarising ICE as a private army, or disappear law abiding long term residents with families.
Obama didn't have to contend with sanctuary cities and those long term residents are still illegal, they don't have citizenship or legal right to remain in the US. Whether they've been there for 5 days or 5 years they should be removed. Obama also deported them too fwiw, he was known as the deporter in chief after all.
The polling suggests quite a large majority in the US disagrees with you on that.
Obama spent a good deal of his presidency trying to broker bipartisan agreement on regularising the law abiding, Legislation like the Dream Act has been around for well over two decades: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DREAM_Act
And the large majority of those he deported were recent arrivals across the southern border.
And yet people voted for Trump's deportation plan. People like to say things to pollsters that they don't believe and then vote for the things they do believe.
The voted to deport "the worst of the worst" - Trump's most used phrase on the issue - murderers, rapists and drug dealers. They did not vote to deport their hard working law abiding neighbours.
..Wall Street Journal (July 2025): 51% of respondents said “President Trump’s efforts to deport illegal immigrants have gone too far,” while 23% said “not far enough” and 24% said “about right.” CNN: (July 2025): 59% oppose and 23% support “Arresting and detaining undocumented immigrants who have resided in the United States for years with no criminal record.” As CNN polling editor Ariel Edwards-Levy wrote, “That echoes a theme seen in much immigration polling this year — support for immigration enforcement tends to erode when pollsters specify that people without criminal records or longtime residents will be among those affected.” Quinnipiac (July 2025): 59-38% disapproval of Trump’s handling of “deportations.” And by a 57-39% margin, voters disapprove of “the way U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, is enforcing immigration laws.” CBS/YouGov (July 2025): By a 51-49% margin, Americans disapprove of the “Trump administration’s program to deport immigrants illegally in the U.S.” In February, the same pollsters found 59-41% support when asking the same question. Washington Post/Schar School (June 2025): Americans disapprove of “the way President Trump is handling immigration enforcement, including deportations,“ by a 52-37% margin. Point 2: When gauged head-to-head, legal status for undocumented immigrants is decidedly more popular than mass deportation. Americans consistently prefer a path to legal status instead of mass deportation – and are measurably swinging in favor of legal status in recent months.
Fox News (July 2025): When asked about preferred policy for undocumented immigrants, Americans prefer a path to citizenship over mass deportation by a 59-29% margin. The question offered three options – “deport all illegal immigrants,” “deport only those illegal immigrants who have been charged with crimes but allow others to remain in the U.S. and eventually qualify for citizenship,” or “allow all illegal immigrants to remain,” with the final option receiving 11% support...
The other day you accused me of being obsessed with the Lib Dem’s.
Your every other post is about Donald Trump 🤷♂️
And with that I’m off to tackle a large and unwieldy bush as my grass clippings bin is being collected tomorrow having to pay extra for the pleasure. Fuck you Durham Council.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
Star Trek’s ‘Let That Be Your Last Battlefield’ had a novel, and subtle, approach to the subject.
And "5 flights a day" which would all have to be military because airlines / lease companies can't do ut.
We got civil operators to fly into Basra, Baghdad and Mosul on behalf of the UK government during the height of festivities there when there were SAMs and drones flying around. Shonky African operator + Russian crew + lots of money = nobody gives a fuck.
It's a lot simpler to do it with military aircraft and crews because they can be more easily coerced but the civil option isn't impossible even at the 5 flights/day scale.
Where does that sit on capacity?
Mr Farage doubled down on 500k-600k per annum deportations.
Is that doable on 5 flights a day, presumably on aircraft up to the size of a Globemaster or a Voyager, bearing in mind security personnel, load factor etc ?
500k a day is 1300 people a day so minimum 6 flights and probably more if you have any unwilling travellers...
And I don't see how the logistics works.
Also we don't exactly have 500k people arriving by boat so exactly who else is he planning to remove from the country...
Apparently they will be rounded up like in the USA with an ICE style unit .
I really do not see this happening
Stop the boats absolutely, but a US style purge is not acceptable
So how do you remove illegal immigrants who have melted into the ether if not with border force raids. They already happen fairly regularly at businesses suspected of using illegal labour, are you suggesting that we shouldn't be doing these either?
Weak willed liberals and their unending empathy for criminals and illegal immigrants are more dangerous for this country than the criminals and illegals.
I am not a weak willed liberal but what is going on in the US is unacceptable
By all means raid businesses suspected of employing illegal immigrants and I have no problem with everyone having a mandatory ID card
Can you tell us in detail exactly what's happening in the US that you wouldn't want to bring to the UK. As I see it they're using the same tactics as here, just more aggressively than we currently do and they're enforcing deportation rather than doing a catch and release as the UK does.
I think you've been watching too much nonsense on the news about the "horrors" of the US deportation programme when the reality is that even now Trump is still behind the deportation rate of Obama.
That's the point, is it not ? Obama didn't spend tens of billions militarising ICE as a private army, or disappear law abiding long term residents with families.
Obama didn't have to contend with sanctuary cities and those long term residents are still illegal, they don't have citizenship or legal right to remain in the US. Whether they've been there for 5 days or 5 years they should be removed. Obama also deported them too fwiw, he was known as the deporter in chief after all.
The polling suggests quite a large majority in the US disagrees with you on that.
Obama spent a good deal of his presidency trying to broker bipartisan agreement on regularising the law abiding, Legislation like the Dream Act has been around for well over two decades: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DREAM_Act
And the large majority of those he deported were recent arrivals across the southern border.
And yet people voted for Trump's deportation plan. People like to say things to pollsters that they don't believe and then vote for the things they do believe.
The voted to deport "the worst of the worst" - Trump's most used phrase on the issue - murderers, rapists and drug dealers. They did not vote to deport their hard working law abiding neighbours.
..Wall Street Journal (July 2025): 51% of respondents said “President Trump’s efforts to deport illegal immigrants have gone too far,” while 23% said “not far enough” and 24% said “about right.” CNN: (July 2025): 59% oppose and 23% support “Arresting and detaining undocumented immigrants who have resided in the United States for years with no criminal record.” As CNN polling editor Ariel Edwards-Levy wrote, “That echoes a theme seen in much immigration polling this year — support for immigration enforcement tends to erode when pollsters specify that people without criminal records or longtime residents will be among those affected.” Quinnipiac (July 2025): 59-38% disapproval of Trump’s handling of “deportations.” And by a 57-39% margin, voters disapprove of “the way U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, is enforcing immigration laws.” CBS/YouGov (July 2025): By a 51-49% margin, Americans disapprove of the “Trump administration’s program to deport immigrants illegally in the U.S.” In February, the same pollsters found 59-41% support when asking the same question. Washington Post/Schar School (June 2025): Americans disapprove of “the way President Trump is handling immigration enforcement, including deportations,“ by a 52-37% margin. Point 2: When gauged head-to-head, legal status for undocumented immigrants is decidedly more popular than mass deportation. Americans consistently prefer a path to legal status instead of mass deportation – and are measurably swinging in favor of legal status in recent months.
Fox News (July 2025): When asked about preferred policy for undocumented immigrants, Americans prefer a path to citizenship over mass deportation by a 59-29% margin. The question offered three options – “deport all illegal immigrants,” “deport only those illegal immigrants who have been charged with crimes but allow others to remain in the U.S. and eventually qualify for citizenship,” or “allow all illegal immigrants to remain,” with the final option receiving 11% support...
The other day you accused me of being obsessed with the Lib Dem’s.
Your every other post is about Donald Trump 🤷♂️
And with that I’m off to tackle a large and unwieldy bush as my grass clippings bin is being collected tomorrow having to pay extra for the pleasure. Fuck you Durham Council.
Hey, I didn't start this current discussion.
And of course, the LibDems are unlikely to shake the foundations of the NATO alliance, US democracy, and the world economy in the next couple of years.
This is from a pro govt account, so using these quotes as implied criticism of Reform, but I am of the opinion that it is the bogus asylum seekers who are to blame for any genuine refugees being stranded in dangerous places, not a foreign government who is refusing to accept the premise that 50,000 young men dossing in France must be taken in as if we owe them a favour.
Cathy Newman, "How does this sound to someone from Afghanistan who is facing torture or even death?"
Gawain Towler, member of Reform UK board, "We are not responsible for the whole world's problems.. I don't care about the whole world"
There’s a X account that digs in to who funds/who is behind other accounts, Charlotte Gill, and she is on Farrukhs case. Apparently he is in cahoots with , Campbell, Vorderman, etc to push stuff on social media
I wouldn't exactly characterise Charlotte Gill as a reliable source ; she deliberately provokes and does not engage. (You may differ.)
Her writing credits are The Sunday Telegraph, the Critic, the Sun and the Mail on Sunday. And she learnt her trade as a producer at GB News.
She's modestly on my radar as one of a fairly small number of obsessive ranters-about-cycling, and features a couple of times a year on the Roadcc spot. My particular beef is that she creates "cyclists vs disabled / elderly people" narratives; I think that when she finds out that mobility scooters and electric wheelchairs use 'cycle tracks' aka mobility tracks, her head will explode.
eg Charlotte Gill @CharlotteCGill Feb 13, 2024 This is what’s happening all over London. @willnorman is turning it into CycleLand for himself and his cycle freak friends. Who cares about the elderly and people with mobility needs? I guess they can just hop on a unicycle. And forget the idea of emergency services getting past.
Leo Gibbons @Layo_FH Feb 13, 2024 Good cycle infrastructure is great for ppl who use hand-operated tricycles or mobility scooters.
And you’re much more likely to find older cyclists when there’s good infrastructure. Nearly a quarter of all trips made by Dutch over-65s, are cycled.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
If you can have actors as black Anglo Saxons you can have an actor as a white Mandela
A nicely thoughtful post there by @isam. I need to watch this as it is the 2nd one of yours I have liked today.
I disagree with you @HYUFD on Nelson Mandela and agree with @isam. Mandela being black is rather fundamental to the whole point of the story. Normans and Anglo Saxons being white is not. OK they clearly weren't black. They also have the wrong haircuts*, and speak the wrong language for the time, but we overlook that. We can overlook (with difficulty I grant you as it is obvious) black Anglo Saxons. It is a bit more difficult to overlook a white Mandela.
* A review I read said it was confusing flipping between the Norman and the Anglo Saxon locations and would have been a lot easy if they had the correct haircuts for the time.
All historical movies and TV shows are inaccurate to a greater or lesser degree. Mary Queen of Scots spoke with a French accent but she’s invariably given a Scottish one. Jesus of Nazareth was considerably darker than Robert Powell or indeed most of his other European and American visual representations. Picking on the skin colour of actors in history pieces set in Europe is a bit of a double standard. Suspension of disbelief is necessary in any dramatic production.
I agree. It is only relevant if key to the plot. I don't care if someone is black or white, thin or fat, tall or short, when playing a roles,but there are obvious exceptions when it is key to plot:
A white Mandela, a thin Billy Bunter, a short Giant in the beanstalk.
One only has to apply common sense.
I will try asking you as JJ didn’t answer at the time of writing - if the epic series “Shaka Zulu” is remade do you think it’s fine to cast white actors as Zulu Impi, or do you think it would be utterly ridiculous?
If you think it’s ok then please explain why, and why the Zulu nation shouldn’t be livid about it, if you think it would clearly be ridiculous then please explain why we also should accept colour blind casting in other situations.
The racial dimension in South African history in "Shaka Zulu" still very much feeds through to the country's situation today. In comparison, any racial dimension in "King & Conqueror" has long ceased to be relevant. Thus, the two are not directly comparable.
You do realise Shaka Zulu is about the rise of the Zulu against other black South African tribes of the time, pre Anglo-Zulu war and large scale white settlement and so the racial black/white dimension to the story isn’t relevant to the country’s situation today?
"Shaka Zulu" covers interactions with the European colonists as well. Key characters are white (Francis Farewell and Henry Fynn). Here is Wikipedia's summary of the first episode's plot: "Commencing in 1823, it introduces the main characters, including Shaka, Lieutenant Francis Farewell and Dr. Henry Fynn, against a background of increasing fear of a Zulu attack on the Cape Colony." The show covers the period 1823-8, which is before the Anglo-Zulu war but well after large scale white settlement.
Farewell and the colonists are bookends to the story, if you watch it, after using Farewell and co dealing with Shaka, the bulk of the ten episodes from part way through 2 until part way through 9 are exclusively about the rise of Shaka and the Zulu kingdom versus the other regional black tribes
The majority of the show is about the rise of Shaka and the Zulu kingdom versus the other regional black tribes, but not all of it is.
Donald Trump claims UK in for 'bad awakening' thanks to Starmer's energy policy Trump's comments come despite the UK's reliance on fossil fuels being one of the factors driving up energy costs, with wind power being significantly cheaper than nuclear, gas or coal https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/donald-trump-claims-uk-bad-35798659
Ye Gods, They just censored my comment.
I saw this story about illegal parking and wondered if you were the new Leon: PB by day; Fleet Street by night:-
Highway Code rule break mistake 'most drivers' are making
Drivers throughout Britain are being alerted to an obscure Highway Code regulation that could see them slapped with a substantial penalty, purely based on how they position their vehicle overnight. The Highway Code states that it's against the law to park facing against the direction of traffic flow once darkness falls, except when positioned within a designated parking space.
The rationale centres on visibility concerns: car headlights are engineered to bounce light off a vehicle's rear, rather than its front end. When parked incorrectly, cars become significantly more difficult to detect, heightening the chances of a collision. https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/uk-news/highway-code-rule-break-mistake-35794413
I knew that BUT only because I am preparing to take my advanced driving test. One I didn't know and got my knuckles rapped on is going around mini roundabouts. Rule 188 states you must pass around them unless you are physically unable to do so. I do, but have been known to cut off a small section and got told off for doing so. It is an offence, although I was told you are unlikely to get pulled up for it by the Police unless you are involved in an accident.
I tend to use mini roundabouts more as a suggestion as to who has right of way.
I don't believe the "facing the direction of traffic" thing is enforced.
Not enforced normally, but if you have an accident on a mini roundabout while doing it then a fine and penalty points will be coming your way and that was from the traffic cop sitting next to me in the car at the time.
If there are other cars you give way as normal, rather than try to cut across before the car on your right
Well I can only tell you what a traffic policeman sitting next to me told me when I did it and we all make mistakes, no matter how good a driver we are so you can get caught out.
Yes I'm aware that you are supposed to go round a mini roundabout as if it was a normal one, but if there is no-one else around you are not going to cause an accident. A bit like cutting the corner when you turn right - what is wrong is when cars cut the corner despite the fact there is a car in the way at the end of the road they are turning into
For me, it's the danger of getting into a habit and doing it without thinking. Ditto signalling - the IAM say "don't signal when there is no one there to see" (or they did), but I might have missed seeing something, and I'd rather be in the habit of signalling, rather than not-signalling.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
If you can have actors as black Anglo Saxons you can have an actor as a white Mandela
A nicely thoughtful post there by @isam. I need to watch this as it is the 2nd one of yours I have liked today.
I disagree with you @HYUFD on Nelson Mandela and agree with @isam. Mandela being black is rather fundamental to the whole point of the story. Normans and Anglo Saxons being white is not. OK they clearly weren't black. They also have the wrong haircuts*, and speak the language, but we overlook that. We can overlook (with difficulty I grant you as it is obvious) black Anglo Saxons. It is a bit more difficult to overlook a white Mandela.
* A review I read said it was confusing flipping between the Norman and the Anglo Saxon locations and would have been a lot easy if they had the correct haircuts for the time.
It would be interesting to have a white Mandela in a totally-reversed story, with a black government being the oppressors and whites being subject to a kind of Apartheid.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
To me, historical drama is partly about immersion. Having characters in there who have been race-swapped is jarring, and breaks the immersion. It’s not a slight on the actors themselves or their race (I’d say exactly the same thing if someone white was playing MLK for instance), it just pulls you out of the drama.
I also find the politics behind it exceptionally patronising.
And yes, there are other things that break the immersion in historical dramas, we’re not expecting everyone to be speaking Norman French for instance, but it’s a matter of degree, and there are some other relatively anachronistic things that get thrown in to modern historical drama nowadays, casting aside, that I also find to be unnecessary.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
We had a black Anne Boleyn. I always got the impression that was stunt casting to generate publicity for a minor channels output which it did quite well.
I doubt we will ever see a white MLK or Mandela these days.
Harry Enfield played Mandela in prosthetics in his comedy show. Has been savaged by the usual suspects for it, suffice to say, several years after the event and has said he wouldn’t do it now and doubts it would happen.
Quite frankly this so called colour blind casting is pretty pathetic box ticking stuff but I cannot say I care a great deal as I don’t watch the stuff the BBC puts out these days anyway. Its drama output is dire, mind you ITV isn’t much better.
I suspect if Farage wins the next GE he could pass a law saying if black actors can play historical white parts so white actors must also be able to play historical black parts, so you could have white actors playing Mandela and Obama
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
We had a black Anne Boleyn. I always got the impression that was stunt casting to generate publicity for a minor channels output which it did quite well.
I doubt we will ever see a white MLK or Mandela these days.
Harry Enfield played Mandela in prosthetics in his comedy show. Has been savaged by the usual suspects for it, suffice to say, several years after the event and has said he wouldn’t do it now and doubts it would happen.
Quite frankly this so called colour blind casting is pretty pathetic box ticking stuff but I cannot say I care a great deal as I don’t watch the stuff the BBC puts out these days anyway. Its drama output is dire, mind you ITV isn’t much better.
I suspect if Farage wins the next GE he could pass a law saying if black actors can play historical white parts so white actors must also be able to play historical black parts, so you could have white actors playing Mandela and Obama
This is from a pro govt account, so using these quotes as implied criticism of Reform, but I am of the opinion that it is the bogus asylum seekers who are to blame for any genuine refugees being stranded in dangerous places, not a foreign government who is refusing to accept the premise that 50,000 young men dossing in France must be taken in as if we owe them a favour.
Cathy Newman, "How does this sound to someone from Afghanistan who is facing torture or even death?"
Gawain Towler, member of Reform UK board, "We are not responsible for the whole world's problems.. I don't care about the whole world"
I think you are being a little disingenuous there saying but they have a YouTube that is lifestyle so they can't be pro government.
If you look at the actual twitter account, the timeline is even less varied in posting nature than Scott n Paste. Its 90% politics clips pretty much always supporting the government or attacking Tory / Reform. They are perfectly entitled to do that, and plenty of other accounts have followed a similar approach on Brexit or anti previous government or anti-current government, and gained large followings doing so. Social media algorithms seems to reward these highly "focused" accounts that are on message from whichever side of the political spectrum or issue.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
We had a black Anne Boleyn. I always got the impression that was stunt casting to generate publicity for a minor channels output which it did quite well.
I doubt we will ever see a white MLK or Mandela these days.
Harry Enfield played Mandela in prosthetics in his comedy show. Has been savaged by the usual suspects for it, suffice to say, several years after the event and has said he wouldn’t do it now and doubts it would happen.
Quite frankly this so called colour blind casting is pretty pathetic box ticking stuff but I cannot say I care a great deal as I don’t watch the stuff the BBC puts out these days anyway. Its drama output is dire, mind you ITV isn’t much better.
I suspect if Farage wins the next GE he could pass a law saying if black actors can play historical white parts so white actors must also be able to play historical black parts, so you could have white actors playing Mandela and Obama
Mandela and Obama would be erased from RefUK history so no actors required
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
If you can have actors as black Anglo Saxons you can have an actor as a white Mandela
A nicely thoughtful post there by @isam. I need to watch this as it is the 2nd one of yours I have liked today.
I disagree with you @HYUFD on Nelson Mandela and agree with @isam. Mandela being black is rather fundamental to the whole point of the story. Normans and Anglo Saxons being white is not. OK they clearly weren't black. They also have the wrong haircuts*, and speak the language, but we overlook that. We can overlook (with difficulty I grant you as it is obvious) black Anglo Saxons. It is a bit more difficult to overlook a white Mandela.
* A review I read said it was confusing flipping between the Norman and the Anglo Saxon locations and would have been a lot easy if they had the correct haircuts for the time.
It would be interesting to have a white Mandela in a totally-reversed story, with a black government being the oppressors and whites being subject to a kind of Apartheid.
Patrick Stewart directed a colour swapped production of Othello.
I thought the whole point of Star Trek, at least the 1960s version, was having a multi-ethnic cast.
For the later series, Levar Burton, Avery Brooks, Tim Russ and Anthony Montgmery (with side orders of Cirroc Lofton, Robert Beltran and Linda Park for the last three).
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
It's nonsense. It's ahistorical bullshit. History is not there to provide work for actors but to accurately tell the story of the past, not revise it to conform to CurrentThink.
It's also especially stupid because there's an easy work around, if you think it's vitally important that actors get work: make it animated. Have the actors of whatever colour voice the Anglo-Saxons without pretending the Jutes came from Jamaica. History gets portrayed accurately, and the actors get roles regardless of skin colour.
Actually TV is there to (theoretically in the case of King & Conqueror) entertain and provide work for actors among others, its duty to history is pretty far down the list.
Isn't the BBC's role 'to inform, educate, and entertain' ?
If so its duty to history, at least in not producing misleading inaccuracies, comes under the 'educate' part.
If the skin colour of a character (fact or fiction) is key to the story you need the actor playing the character to have the skin colour in question. Otherwise it doesn't matter.
I think this would be my general rule - although it's an area where there shouldn't be any rules other than what works creatively.
Donald Trump claims UK in for 'bad awakening' thanks to Starmer's energy policy Trump's comments come despite the UK's reliance on fossil fuels being one of the factors driving up energy costs, with wind power being significantly cheaper than nuclear, gas or coal https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/donald-trump-claims-uk-bad-35798659
Ye Gods, They just censored my comment.
I saw this story about illegal parking and wondered if you were the new Leon: PB by day; Fleet Street by night:-
Highway Code rule break mistake 'most drivers' are making
Drivers throughout Britain are being alerted to an obscure Highway Code regulation that could see them slapped with a substantial penalty, purely based on how they position their vehicle overnight. The Highway Code states that it's against the law to park facing against the direction of traffic flow once darkness falls, except when positioned within a designated parking space.
The rationale centres on visibility concerns: car headlights are engineered to bounce light off a vehicle's rear, rather than its front end. When parked incorrectly, cars become significantly more difficult to detect, heightening the chances of a collision. https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/uk-news/highway-code-rule-break-mistake-35794413
I knew that BUT only because I am preparing to take my advanced driving test. One I didn't know and got my knuckles rapped on is going around mini roundabouts. Rule 188 states you must pass around them unless you are physically unable to do so. I do, but have been known to cut off a small section and got told off for doing so. It is an offence, although I was told you are unlikely to get pulled up for it by the Police unless you are involved in an accident.
I tend to use mini roundabouts more as a suggestion as to who has right of way.
I don't believe the "facing the direction of traffic" thing is enforced.
Not enforced normally, but if you have an accident on a mini roundabout while doing it then a fine and penalty points will be coming your way and that was from the traffic cop sitting next to me in the car at the time.
If there are other cars you give way as normal, rather than try to cut across before the car on your right
Well I can only tell you what a traffic policeman sitting next to me told me when I did it and we all make mistakes, no matter how good a driver we are so you can get caught out.
Yes I'm aware that you are supposed to go round a mini roundabout as if it was a normal one, but if there is no-one else around you are not going to cause an accident. A bit like cutting the corner when you turn right - what is wrong is when cars cut the corner despite the fact there is a car in the way at the end of the road they are turning into
For me, it's the danger of getting into a habit and doing it without thinking. Ditto signalling - the IAM say "don't signal when there is no one there to see" (or they did), but I might have missed seeing something, and I'd rather be in the habit of signalling, rather than not-signalling.
Very good point @MattW . Interesting you brought up the signalling thing because I thought the same and asked the question of my instructor. He did not advocate not signalling if there is no one there to see you which was interesting. What he said was you need to be aware of whether your action could cause more confusion than impart accurate information. So yes you should indicate if there is no one there to see it, but not if it will confuse. I was criticised for indicating too early for instance which could give misleading information. I was told to look at drivers faces if you can and their car positioning to also determine what they are doing.
The training is excellent. It is all common sense, but reinforces what you know. The police handbook, Roadcraft is excellent and recommended reading.
If the government falls, then Macron has to try and stitch together yet another government from the wreckage (surely getting very difficult indeed) or calling fresh elections as I believe he is now able to do as enough time has passed since the last ones.
If that election produces yet further deadlock, or a RN government, I wonder what the chances are of Macron resigning this year. I only posit this as a question to the room - I am no significant expert on the French constitution. One thing that could be of tactical benefit is that MLP is still barred from running, I believe - and if he resigns I believe a new presidential election has to be held straight away. I am not sure if MLP could fast track her appeal in that time. That said, Bardella seems to be holding up ok in polling too.
There is very little chance of new parliamentary elections producing a clear majority for any block, if Bayrou cannot get his spending cuts through Macron may as well appoint a centre left PM given the left have most seats and tell them to raise taxes to fund the deficit instead
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I'd say Shogun is different. The main point of the story was that he was different. Even today, the white population in Japan is absolutely tiny.
The UK is a much more diverse country now, and a few black faces in a period drama that don't affect the actual story, isn't a big deal in my eyes. An entirely white cast, even if more historically accurate, would be as likely to stand out as a distraction to many people.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
Also how good the production is. If K&C hadn’t been absolute dogshit I think people (except for the usual suspects) wouldn’t be picking on skin colours. 1917 was largely well received. Despite pricks like Lozza Fox mumping about Indian troops (who were actually present in large numbers), no one else seemed that bothered.
So yes you should indicate if there is no one there to see it, but not if it will confuse. I was criticised for indicating too early for instance which could give misleading information.
20 odd years ago when the daughter of a friend was learning to drive, he was surprised that the Highway code at the time recommended not signalling left after overtaking someone because that was your expected action. You are supposed to move left.
I looked recently and I don't think it says that now (if it ever did)
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
If you can have actors as black Anglo Saxons you can have an actor as a white Mandela
A nicely thoughtful post there by @isam. I need to watch this as it is the 2nd one of yours I have liked today.
I disagree with you @HYUFD on Nelson Mandela and agree with @isam. Mandela being black is rather fundamental to the whole point of the story. Normans and Anglo Saxons being white is not. OK they clearly weren't black. They also have the wrong haircuts*, and speak the wrong language for the time, but we overlook that. We can overlook (with difficulty I grant you as it is obvious) black Anglo Saxons. It is a bit more difficult to overlook a white Mandela.
* A review I read said it was confusing flipping between the Norman and the Anglo Saxon locations and would have been a lot easy if they had the correct and different haircuts for the time.
It is called acting, if you can act well you should be able to convince in the part regardless of skin colour.
Otherwise if you demand historical figures are represented by actors of the same skin colour that has to apply across the board
Graham Simpson says leaving the Tories, a party he joined at 15, is a “real wrench”.
He wishes Russell Findlay well but says the Scottish Tories’ “electoral hopes are diminishing fast”. Simpson wants to work with the “new kid on the block”, calling Reform UK “centre right”.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
We had a black Anne Boleyn. I always got the impression that was stunt casting to generate publicity for a minor channels output which it did quite well.
I doubt we will ever see a white MLK or Mandela these days.
Harry Enfield played Mandela in prosthetics in his comedy show. Has been savaged by the usual suspects for it, suffice to say, several years after the event and has said he wouldn’t do it now and doubts it would happen.
Quite frankly this so called colour blind casting is pretty pathetic box ticking stuff but I cannot say I care a great deal as I don’t watch the stuff the BBC puts out these days anyway. Its drama output is dire, mind you ITV isn’t much better.
I suspect if Farage wins the next GE he could pass a law saying if black actors can play historical white parts so white actors must also be able to play historical black parts, so you could have white actors playing Mandela and Obama
Lol, yes. That type of brittle passive aggression - eg the pathetic "All Lives Matter" response to BLM - would be bang on brand for the New Pop Right.
Graz is, in fact, absolutely stunning. It must be one of the prettiest small cities in Europe. Spectacular UNESCO-listed centre.. gothic, Renaissance, Baroque… on and on it goes. Every corner is ravishing. Splendid parks and gorgeous churches, mighty palaces and bijou courtyards. And loads of little bars and restaurants everywhere
And….. there are almost no tourists. In August
My guide just told me “everyone goes to Vienna and Salzburg, that’s how we like it”
If anyone is a fan of The Count of Monte Cristo, the 2024 French film adaptation is sublime. It takes a few liberties with the start, and the final scene is a little overblown, but the second half is beautiful, recreating important chapters from the book that other screen versions didn’t bother with at all.
This is from a pro govt account, so using these quotes as implied criticism of Reform, but I am of the opinion that it is the bogus asylum seekers who are to blame for any genuine refugees being stranded in dangerous places, not a foreign government who is refusing to accept the premise that 50,000 young men dossing in France must be taken in as if we owe them a favour.
Cathy Newman, "How does this sound to someone from Afghanistan who is facing torture or even death?"
Gawain Towler, member of Reform UK board, "We are not responsible for the whole world's problems.. I don't care about the whole world"
We do have a responsibility to those Afghans who helped western forces though
Western forces were there to help them. They had 20 years to be ready to stand on their own two feet. It's not our fault they didn't.
It seems that the only reason British forces were in Afghanistan was to give ever more Afghans a 'right' to move to Britain.
The Afghans are a nation of parasites, to whom this country owes nothing.
Edit: The Taliban weren't parasites - horrible as their ideology is, they were at least willing to fight for it.
No, they were there to remove Bin Laden and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan after 9/11 which they at least in part achieved after Bin Laden was ultimately forced out of the Afghan mountains to Pakistan where he was killed.
We have an obligation to take in Afghans who fought with us and supported us against AQ and the Taliban
If anyone is a fan of The Count of Monte Cristo, the 2024 French film adaptation is sublime. It takes a few liberties with the start, and the final scene is a little overblown, but the second half is beautiful, recreating important chapters from the book that other screen versions didn’t bother with at all.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
If you can have actors as black Anglo Saxons you can have an actor as a white Mandela
A nicely thoughtful post there by @isam. I need to watch this as it is the 2nd one of yours I have liked today.
I disagree with you @HYUFD on Nelson Mandela and agree with @isam. Mandela being black is rather fundamental to the whole point of the story. Normans and Anglo Saxons being white is not. OK they clearly weren't black. They also have the wrong haircuts*, and speak the wrong language for the time, but we overlook that. We can overlook (with difficulty I grant you as it is obvious) black Anglo Saxons. It is a bit more difficult to overlook a white Mandela.
* A review I read said it was confusing flipping between the Norman and the Anglo Saxon locations and would have been a lot easy if they had the correct and different haircuts for the time.
It is called acting, if you can act well you should be able to convince in the part regardless of skin colour.
Otherwise if you demand historical figures are represented by actors of the same skin colour that has to apply across the board
Are you happy then with a thin Billy Bunter or a man playing Mata Hari? That is nonsense. However where what someone looks like is not key to the plot then that should be fine.
It is more nuanced than all or nothing.
You just can't have a white Mandela as you were suggesting, but I have no issues with actor of the wrong colour in roles where colour is not part of the plot.
Graham Simpson says leaving the Tories, a party he joined at 15, is a “real wrench”.
He wishes Russell Findlay well but says the Scottish Tories’ “electoral hopes are diminishing fast”. Simpson wants to work with the “new kid on the block”, calling Reform UK “centre right”.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate?
A clown with his pants falling down Or the dance that's a dream of romance Or the scene where the villain is mean That's entertainment!
A smash of glass and a rumble of boots An electric train and a ripped up phone booth Paint splattered walls and the cry of a tomcat Lights going out and a kick in the balls I say, that's entertainment
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I'd say Shogun is different. The main point of the story was that he was different. Even today, the white population in Japan is absolutely tiny.
The UK is a much more diverse country now, and a few black faces in a period drama that don't affect the actual story, isn't a big deal in my eyes. An entirely white cast, even if more historically accurate, would be as likely to stand out as a distraction to many people.
Why go to all the trouble with locations and costumes for something like Wolf Hall if you aren't going for full immersion? That's the problem for me.
1066 with lightsabers and spaceships would be great and you could have whatever cast you want. Merchant of Venice with black characters substituted for Jews worked really well in a modern setting because it helped to highlight the discrimination illustrated in the play, and made me think quite hard about anti-Semitism more generally.
King and Conqueror is dreadful, barely watchable primarily due to the writing. But the inconsistent immersion is annoying too.
In interesting climate change news (not the Met Office data showing this summer was the UK’s warmest on record, that’s fairly bog standard), the ITCZ over Africa has jumped way north of its average position as it reaches the annual max. That’s the second year in a row we’ve seen tropical seasonal rainfall extending into Northern Chad and Niger, and as far as Southern Algeria and Libya.
Unlike last year it’s not been north of average most of the season, but it’s the peak extent in late August and early September that really matters. This determines whether the Sahel and Southern Sahara are desertifying or greening.
And it’s set to head even further in the next fortnight: most of Mauritania, Algeria (though there were looking at enhancement from a subtropical trough) and all of Mali.
Lake Chad has been recovering. It should recover further this year.
Sahel greening is one of the modelled benefits of global warming. Yes it also means flooding, as we saw last year (and possible albedo impacts that accelerate warming globally), but there is already evidence of increased productivity across the belt in the last decade, helped by multilateral initiatives to plant trees too, and it should if all goes well bring greater stability to an area that’s one of the largest sources of geopolitical risk in our neighbourhood. Unlike the Med basin and Middle East where there trends all point to worsening chronic drought.
I think Dawn Butler is missing the point here, although I agree that putting betting shops full of FOBTs in poor areas is a problem that needs addressing.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I'd say Shogun is different. The main point of the story was that he was different. Even today, the white population in Japan is absolutely tiny.
The UK is a much more diverse country now, and a few black faces in a period drama that don't affect the actual story, isn't a big deal in my eyes. An entirely white cast, even if more historically accurate, would be as likely to stand out as a distraction to many people.
It's an age thing I think. I still find non white actors in costume dramas a bit jarring, even though I don't have any ideological objection to it, because I've grown up watching all white costume dramas. My kids don't find it jarring at all because they have grown up in a much more diverse environment than I have and this is reflected in the TV and film they have grown up with too. They are mixed race themselves so I would imagine they like seeing themselves represented on screen. I guess on some level it is anachronistic but all costume dramas are anachronistic on a whole load of levels, from costume to speech to the appearance of the actors, and the entire set up is artificial as all art is. If you listen to archive recordings people even just seventy or eighty years ago talked quite differently to how they talk now but we don't mind people speaking modern English in 21st century accents in dramas set hundreds of years ago. Let alone speaking English when they are Russian or whatever, eg Chernobyl.
This is from a pro govt account, so using these quotes as implied criticism of Reform, but I am of the opinion that it is the bogus asylum seekers who are to blame for any genuine refugees being stranded in dangerous places, not a foreign government who is refusing to accept the premise that 50,000 young men dossing in France must be taken in as if we owe them a favour.
Cathy Newman, "How does this sound to someone from Afghanistan who is facing torture or even death?"
Gawain Towler, member of Reform UK board, "We are not responsible for the whole world's problems.. I don't care about the whole world"
There’s a X account that digs in to who funds/who is behind other accounts, Charlotte Gill, and she is on Farrukhs case. Apparently he is in cahoots with , Campbell, Vorderman, etc to push stuff on social media
Speculating, I wonder if Farrukh was one of the 100 "influencers" who was engaged with by the Govt during the summer around finding other ways to deal with Farage & Friends? And Charlotte has got a hold of something.
To my eye he seems a bit not-prominent for that. "A Different Bias" (Phil Moorhouse) was not on the list, and he has 220k subs on Youtube - but he is in the politics niche, and they went for a broader spectrum.
If anyone is a fan of The Count of Monte Cristo, the 2024 French film adaptation is sublime. It takes a few liberties with the start, and the final scene is a little overblown, but the second half is beautiful, recreating important chapters from the book that other screen versions didn’t bother with at all.
I’m working my way through the book in French, for some reason it comes in two separate books, it’s my favourite story and read the best translation in English so thought I would read again in French to get the brain working.
There is a lot in the book left out of screen versions for reasons I don’t understand as, however long the book is, there is no fat in it to cut.
Have tried to watch the new series but something leaves me cold so far - must be because they haven’t cast a real Marseillais as Edmond Dantes.
If anyone is a fan of The Count of Monte Cristo, the 2024 French film adaptation is sublime. It takes a few liberties with the start, and the final scene is a little overblown, but the second half is beautiful, recreating important chapters from the book that other screen versions didn’t bother with at all.
New version on UDrama with Jeremy Irons and Sam Caflin as well
I found that really poor to be honest. The acting was awful. I consider myself a COMC connoisseur, and this French adaptation is the best I’ve seen. The 1974 Richard Chamberlain/Tony Curtis/Donald Pleasance version is good fun too, but the chapters ’The House at Auteil’, ‘Bread & Salt’ and ‘Night’ are pivotal to the plot and reproduced magnificently here
If anyone is a fan of The Count of Monte Cristo, the 2024 French film adaptation is sublime. It takes a few liberties with the start, and the final scene is a little overblown, but the second half is beautiful, recreating important chapters from the book that other screen versions didn’t bother with at all.
I’m working my way through the book in French, for some reason it comes in two separate books, it’s my favourite story and read the best translation in English so thought I would read again in French to get the brain working.
There is a lot in the book left out of screen versions for reasons I don’t understand as, however long the book is, there is no fat in it to cut.
Have tried to watch the new series but something leaves me cold so far - must be because they haven’t cast a real Marseillais as Edmond Dantes.
It's longer than the Lord of the Rings, which came out at around 12 hours of film time on a fairly faithful adaptation (which took some stuff out but put rather a lot of - I have to say - not very good new stuff in in its place).
Graham Simpson says leaving the Tories, a party he joined at 15, is a “real wrench”.
He wishes Russell Findlay well but says the Scottish Tories’ “electoral hopes are diminishing fast”. Simpson wants to work with the “new kid on the block”, calling Reform UK “centre right”.
In the great Labour tradition of giving an issue a good talking to, Thangam Debonnaire (who is now a ‘cultural strategist’ whatever that is) is going to advise how to beat the Greens. Perhaps they need to ask the nonentity that ran and lost in Jezza’s constituency how to beat the thingummy party.
Tory source: “Graham Simpson is a pathetic nasty little man who won’t be missed. Just last year, he had to apologise to a young female member of staff for acting in a totally inappropriate, bullying and intimidating way towards her…”
If anyone is a fan of The Count of Monte Cristo, the 2024 French film adaptation is sublime. It takes a few liberties with the start, and the final scene is a little overblown, but the second half is beautiful, recreating important chapters from the book that other screen versions didn’t bother with at all.
New version on UDrama with Jeremy Irons and Sam Caflin as well
I found that really poor to be honest. The acting was awful. I consider myself a COMC connoisseur, and this French adaptation is the best I’ve seen. The 1974 Richard Chamberlain/Tony Curtis/Donald Pleasance version is good fun too, but the chapters ’The House at Auteil’, ‘Bread & Salt’ and ‘Night’ are pivotal to the plot and reproduced magnificently here
It's a book I need to re-read. Dumas was quite a racy writer, for someone in the mid 19th century. The tale includes an openly lesbian character, in Eugenie Danglars.
The real eye-opener, for me, was reading the unabridged version of the Three Musketeers, a few years ago. My school's version turned out to have been heavily redacted, to exclude the musketeers' more dubious actions.
Dumas, whose grandmother was a Haitian slave, had a lovely put-down to a racist rival who called the woman "a monkey".
"It would appear that my family tree begins where yours ends."
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
If you can have actors as black Anglo Saxons you can have an actor as a white Mandela
A nicely thoughtful post there by @isam. I need to watch this as it is the 2nd one of yours I have liked today.
I disagree with you @HYUFD on Nelson Mandela and agree with @isam. Mandela being black is rather fundamental to the whole point of the story. Normans and Anglo Saxons being white is not. OK they clearly weren't black. They also have the wrong haircuts*, and speak the wrong language for the time, but we overlook that. We can overlook (with difficulty I grant you as it is obvious) black Anglo Saxons. It is a bit more difficult to overlook a white Mandela.
* A review I read said it was confusing flipping between the Norman and the Anglo Saxon locations and would have been a lot easy if they had the correct and different haircuts for the time.
It is called acting, if you can act well you should be able to convince in the part regardless of skin colour.
Otherwise if you demand historical figures are represented by actors of the same skin colour that has to apply across the board
Are you happy then with a thin Billy Bunter or a man playing Mata Hari? That is nonsense. However where what someone looks like is not key to the plot then that should be fine.
It is more nuanced than all or nothing.
You just can't have a white Mandela as you were suggesting, but I have no issues with actor of the wrong colour in roles where colour is not part of the plot.
Yes if they act the part well, a Laurence Olivier or Meryl Streep or Whoopi Goldberg or Morgan Freeman should be believable in any part they play
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I'd say Shogun is different. The main point of the story was that he was different. Even today, the white population in Japan is absolutely tiny.
The UK is a much more diverse country now, and a few black faces in a period drama that don't affect the actual story, isn't a big deal in my eyes. An entirely white cast, even if more historically accurate, would be as likely to stand out as a distraction to many people.
It's an age thing I think. I still find non white actors in costume dramas a bit jarring, even though I don't have any ideological objection to it, because I've grown up watching all white costume dramas. My kids don't find it jarring at all because they have grown up in a much more diverse environment than I have and this is reflected in the TV and film they have grown up with too. They are mixed race themselves so I would imagine they like seeing themselves represented on screen. I guess on some level it is anachronistic but all costume dramas are anachronistic on a whole load of levels, from costume to speech to the appearance of the actors, and the entire set up is artificial as all art is. If you listen to archive recordings people even just seventy or eighty years ago talked quite differently to how they talk now but we don't mind people speaking modern English in 21st century accents in dramas set hundreds of years ago. Let alone speaking English when they are Russian or whatever, eg Chernobyl.
I generally have no problem with casting different races in any role. Tho sometimes it can get ridiculous - if half the actors in a drama about Vikings are black or Middle Eastern it’s so odd it distracts from the drama (even more so if the writers bend history to explain it - “oh they’re freed slaves from Mali”)
However the woke flip the argument on its head sometimes, and say “only a trans person can play a trans role” or “only a black writer can write about black experiences”
Sod off with that. The whole point of acting and fiction writing is the ability to get inside someone else’s head. If you can do it you can do it
Imagine saying to Shakespeare “sorry you can’t write othello” or “you were never a young virgin girl in Verona”
Tory source: “Graham Simpson is a pathetic nasty little man who won’t be missed. Just last year, he had to apologise to a young female member of staff for acting in a totally inappropriate, bullying and intimidating way towards her…”
Sounds like he was the very model of a SCon. However he also sounds a perfect fit for Reform, which is probably part of the SCon problem.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
Star Trek’s ‘Let That Be Your Last Battlefield’ had a novel, and subtle, approach to the subject.
Very subtle. Very very subtle. As subtle as one of TSE's puns. Yes, that subtle
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I'd say Shogun is different. The main point of the story was that he was different. Even today, the white population in Japan is absolutely tiny.
The UK is a much more diverse country now, and a few black faces in a period drama that don't affect the actual story, isn't a big deal in my eyes. An entirely white cast, even if more historically accurate, would be as likely to stand out as a distraction to many people.
It's an age thing I think. I still find non white actors in costume dramas a bit jarring, even though I don't have any ideological objection to it, because I've grown up watching all white costume dramas. My kids don't find it jarring at all because they have grown up in a much more diverse environment than I have and this is reflected in the TV and film they have grown up with too. They are mixed race themselves so I would imagine they like seeing themselves represented on screen. I guess on some level it is anachronistic but all costume dramas are anachronistic on a whole load of levels, from costume to speech to the appearance of the actors, and the entire set up is artificial as all art is. If you listen to archive recordings people even just seventy or eighty years ago talked quite differently to how they talk now but we don't mind people speaking modern English in 21st century accents in dramas set hundreds of years ago. Let alone speaking English when they are Russian or whatever, eg Chernobyl.
I generally have no problem with casting different races in any role. Tho sometimes it can get ridiculous - if half the actors in a drama about Vikings are black or Middle Eastern it’s so odd it distracts from the drama (even more so if the writers bend history to explain it - “oh they’re freed slaves from Mali”)
However the woke flip the argument on its head sometimes, and say “only a trans person can play a trans role” or “only a black writer can write about black experiences”
Sod off with that. The whole point of acting and fiction writing is the ability to get inside someone else’s head. If you can do it you can do it
Imagine saying to Shakespeare “sorry you can’t write othello” or “you were never a young virgin girl in Verona”
About the silliest was a drama that cast a black woman as a Norse Jarl.
If one wants to create a fantasy world, in which early medieval Scandinavia is a multi-racial society, where women wield similar power to men, all well and good, but don't attempt to root it in real history.
Graham Simpson says leaving the Tories, a party he joined at 15, is a “real wrench”.
He wishes Russell Findlay well but says the Scottish Tories’ “electoral hopes are diminishing fast”. Simpson wants to work with the “new kid on the block”, calling Reform UK “centre right”.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
If you can have actors as black Anglo Saxons you can have an actor as a white Mandela
A nicely thoughtful post there by @isam. I need to watch this as it is the 2nd one of yours I have liked today.
I disagree with you @HYUFD on Nelson Mandela and agree with @isam. Mandela being black is rather fundamental to the whole point of the story. Normans and Anglo Saxons being white is not. OK they clearly weren't black. They also have the wrong haircuts*, and speak the wrong language for the time, but we overlook that. We can overlook (with difficulty I grant you as it is obvious) black Anglo Saxons. It is a bit more difficult to overlook a white Mandela.
* A review I read said it was confusing flipping between the Norman and the Anglo Saxon locations and would have been a lot easy if they had the correct and different haircuts for the time.
It is called acting, if you can act well you should be able to convince in the part regardless of skin colour.
Otherwise if you demand historical figures are represented by actors of the same skin colour that has to apply across the board
Are you happy then with a thin Billy Bunter or a man playing Mata Hari? That is nonsense. However where what someone looks like is not key to the plot then that should be fine.
It is more nuanced than all or nothing.
You just can't have a white Mandela as you were suggesting, but I have no issues with actor of the wrong colour in roles where colour is not part of the plot.
Just to demonstrate the nonsense of the idea that if actors of a different colour can play roles (eg Black Normans) then they should be able to play all roles of a different colour (eg a White Mandela) then here is ridiculous example to show that is not true:
If you want to do a role reversal play eg Othello or the Nelson Manella story where the roles are reversed (which has been done for Othello) then you will have white actors playing the black role playing the white role and black actors playing the white role playing the black role.
And if the audience doesn't come out completely confused then I would be amazed.
So clearly in this case (which has been done), you have to be the correct colour for the role. In most other cases however it doesn't matter at all.
Life is complicated. There are no hard and fast rules. Use common sense as to whether it matters or not.
Graham Simpson says leaving the Tories, a party he joined at 15, is a “real wrench”.
He wishes Russell Findlay well but says the Scottish Tories’ “electoral hopes are diminishing fast”. Simpson wants to work with the “new kid on the block”, calling Reform UK “centre right”.
Graham Simpson’s defection to Reform is another nightmare for Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay.
He is losing MSPs to the left and now to the right. Pals say is he scunnered.
May’s election is shaping up to be a historic drubbing for his party.
Never head of Simpson and of course Findlay has the advantage that Holyrood elections have PR so even 13% would give the Scottish Tories 13% of MSPs
Russell Findlay can't buy luck right now, the trickle of departures could become a meltdown. I have some sympathy as he has been left holding the baby, who knows what's coming next.
Simpson was second on central Scotland list for Con last time, which probably won't have been enough to secure a seat next year. Wonder if he will be appointed in a leadership position for Reform, Michelle Ballantyne doesn't seem to be involved with them right now
Damage limitation now, Scottish Tories in danger of coming 4th or worse in Holyrood seat numbers in 2026
Tory source: “Graham Simpson is a pathetic nasty little man who won’t be missed. Just last year, he had to apologise to a young female member of staff for acting in a totally inappropriate, bullying and intimidating way towards her…”
Sounds like he was the very model of a SCon. However he also sounds a perfect fit for Reform, which is probably part of the SCon problem.
Graham Simpson says leaving the Tories, a party he joined at 15, is a “real wrench”.
He wishes Russell Findlay well but says the Scottish Tories’ “electoral hopes are diminishing fast”. Simpson wants to work with the “new kid on the block”, calling Reform UK “centre right”.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I'd say Shogun is different. The main point of the story was that he was different. Even today, the white population in Japan is absolutely tiny.
The UK is a much more diverse country now, and a few black faces in a period drama that don't affect the actual story, isn't a big deal in my eyes. An entirely white cast, even if more historically accurate, would be as likely to stand out as a distraction to many people.
It's an age thing I think. I still find non white actors in costume dramas a bit jarring, even though I don't have any ideological objection to it, because I've grown up watching all white costume dramas. My kids don't find it jarring at all because they have grown up in a much more diverse environment than I have and this is reflected in the TV and film they have grown up with too. They are mixed race themselves so I would imagine they like seeing themselves represented on screen. I guess on some level it is anachronistic but all costume dramas are anachronistic on a whole load of levels, from costume to speech to the appearance of the actors, and the entire set up is artificial as all art is. If you listen to archive recordings people even just seventy or eighty years ago talked quite differently to how they talk now but we don't mind people speaking modern English in 21st century accents in dramas set hundreds of years ago. Let alone speaking English when they are Russian or whatever, eg Chernobyl.
I generally have no problem with casting different races in any role. Tho sometimes it can get ridiculous - if half the actors in a drama about Vikings are black or Middle Eastern it’s so odd it distracts from the drama (even more so if the writers bend history to explain it - “oh they’re freed slaves from Mali”)
However the woke flip the argument on its head sometimes, and say “only a trans person can play a trans role” or “only a black writer can write about black experiences”
Sod off with that. The whole point of acting and fiction writing is the ability to get inside someone else’s head. If you can do it you can do it
Imagine saying to Shakespeare “sorry you can’t write othello” or “you were never a young virgin girl in Verona”
About the silliest was a drama that cast a black woman as a Norse Jarl.
If one wants to create a fantasy world, in which early medieval Scandinavia is a multi-racial society, where women wield similar power to men, all well and good, but don't attempt to root it in real history.
Yes, often it’s the disconnect which is jarring. Particularly when writers and researchers fall over themselves trying to make sets and costumes etc as accurate and realistic as possible.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I'd say Shogun is different. The main point of the story was that he was different. Even today, the white population in Japan is absolutely tiny.
The UK is a much more diverse country now, and a few black faces in a period drama that don't affect the actual story, isn't a big deal in my eyes. An entirely white cast, even if more historically accurate, would be as likely to stand out as a distraction to many people.
It's an age thing I think. I still find non white actors in costume dramas a bit jarring, even though I don't have any ideological objection to it, because I've grown up watching all white costume dramas. My kids don't find it jarring at all because they have grown up in a much more diverse environment than I have and this is reflected in the TV and film they have grown up with too. They are mixed race themselves so I would imagine they like seeing themselves represented on screen. I guess on some level it is anachronistic but all costume dramas are anachronistic on a whole load of levels, from costume to speech to the appearance of the actors, and the entire set up is artificial as all art is. If you listen to archive recordings people even just seventy or eighty years ago talked quite differently to how they talk now but we don't mind people speaking modern English in 21st century accents in dramas set hundreds of years ago. Let alone speaking English when they are Russian or whatever, eg Chernobyl.
I generally have no problem with casting different races in any role. Tho sometimes it can get ridiculous - if half the actors in a drama about Vikings are black or Middle Eastern it’s so odd it distracts from the drama (even more so if the writers bend history to explain it - “oh they’re freed slaves from Mali”)
However the woke flip the argument on its head sometimes, and say “only a trans person can play a trans role” or “only a black writer can write about black experiences”
Sod off with that. The whole point of acting and fiction writing is the ability to get inside someone else’s head. If you can do it you can do it
Imagine saying to Shakespeare “sorry you can’t write othello” or “you were never a young virgin girl in Verona”
Something (among quite a few things actually) we agree on. Let's apply common sense. Sometimes stuff is ok, sometimes it just isn't because it jars. It is normally obvious to most of us except the most woke (I can't believe I have said that word) or the most racist/homophobic/sexist/whatever on the other extreme.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I'd say Shogun is different. The main point of the story was that he was different. Even today, the white population in Japan is absolutely tiny.
The UK is a much more diverse country now, and a few black faces in a period drama that don't affect the actual story, isn't a big deal in my eyes. An entirely white cast, even if more historically accurate, would be as likely to stand out as a distraction to many people.
It's an age thing I think. I still find non white actors in costume dramas a bit jarring, even though I don't have any ideological objection to it, because I've grown up watching all white costume dramas. My kids don't find it jarring at all because they have grown up in a much more diverse environment than I have and this is reflected in the TV and film they have grown up with too. They are mixed race themselves so I would imagine they like seeing themselves represented on screen. I guess on some level it is anachronistic but all costume dramas are anachronistic on a whole load of levels, from costume to speech to the appearance of the actors, and the entire set up is artificial as all art is. If you listen to archive recordings people even just seventy or eighty years ago talked quite differently to how they talk now but we don't mind people speaking modern English in 21st century accents in dramas set hundreds of years ago. Let alone speaking English when they are Russian or whatever, eg Chernobyl.
I generally have no problem with casting different races in any role. Tho sometimes it can get ridiculous - if half the actors in a drama about Vikings are black or Middle Eastern it’s so odd it distracts from the drama (even more so if the writers bend history to explain it - “oh they’re freed slaves from Mali”)
However the woke flip the argument on its head sometimes, and say “only a trans person can play a trans role” or “only a black writer can write about black experiences”
Sod off with that. The whole point of acting and fiction writing is the ability to get inside someone else’s head. If you can do it you can do it
Imagine saying to Shakespeare “sorry you can’t write othello” or “you were never a young virgin girl in Verona”
Yep, would agree with both Leon and OLB there.
I'd add that it's not just period dramas. Pretty much every programme on the telly - period drama, sitcom, panel show, documentary, advert - has a quota of non-white faces in a way which in much of the country just doesn't happen in the real world and is the result of deliberate choice rather than random chance. It's at its most noticeable in period drama because, well, obviously in that respect it usually looks as obviously unreal as characters using mobile phones would - but good acting can overcome this reasonably quickly. Celebrity game shows trouble the statistician in me - statistically, you would expect all-white line ups to occur reasonably frequently: always having at least one non-white participant in Richard Osman's House of Games must be a challenge: scheduling famous people is tricky and an element of last-minute juggling is often involved, and if the non-white participant pulls out presumably needs to be replaced by another non-white participant. The production meetings where these conversations take place must be very peculiar.
Classic example of something that works - Bridgerton. It’s deliberately written as being light-hearted, anachronistic but with Regency era settings. It’s not my cup of tea at all, but that doesn’t fall foul of being jarring because it’s deliberately not trying to set out to be something it isn’t.
This discussion reminds me of the one legged Dudley Moore auditioning for the role of Tarzan. I laugh every time, even before the punchlines in anticipation.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I'd say Shogun is different. The main point of the story was that he was different. Even today, the white population in Japan is absolutely tiny.
The UK is a much more diverse country now, and a few black faces in a period drama that don't affect the actual story, isn't a big deal in my eyes. An entirely white cast, even if more historically accurate, would be as likely to stand out as a distraction to many people.
It's an age thing I think. I still find non white actors in costume dramas a bit jarring, even though I don't have any ideological objection to it, because I've grown up watching all white costume dramas. My kids don't find it jarring at all because they have grown up in a much more diverse environment than I have and this is reflected in the TV and film they have grown up with too. They are mixed race themselves so I would imagine they like seeing themselves represented on screen. I guess on some level it is anachronistic but all costume dramas are anachronistic on a whole load of levels, from costume to speech to the appearance of the actors, and the entire set up is artificial as all art is. If you listen to archive recordings people even just seventy or eighty years ago talked quite differently to how they talk now but we don't mind people speaking modern English in 21st century accents in dramas set hundreds of years ago. Let alone speaking English when they are Russian or whatever, eg Chernobyl.
I generally have no problem with casting different races in any role. Tho sometimes it can get ridiculous - if half the actors in a drama about Vikings are black or Middle Eastern it’s so odd it distracts from the drama (even more so if the writers bend history to explain it - “oh they’re freed slaves from Mali”)
However the woke flip the argument on its head sometimes, and say “only a trans person can play a trans role” or “only a black writer can write about black experiences”
Sod off with that. The whole point of acting and fiction writing is the ability to get inside someone else’s head. If you can do it you can do it
Imagine saying to Shakespeare “sorry you can’t write othello” or “you were never a young virgin girl in Verona”
That's true (about acting) but it can help to have a head start which is what being of the same essence as the character gives you. Even assuming I had thespian skills (which I don't) I'd struggle to play a person with an illogical and reductive reactionary mindset. I could give it a go, probably would if I were paid, but I don't think I could nail it. There'd certainly be no Oscar nomination. But if you cast me as an empathetic progressive thinker with a deep sense of mission about spreading that credo I'd be very believable in the role. It's that old chestnut about playing yourself, I suppose. Eg Roger Moore. That's all he ever did.
"Taliban: We’re ready to work with Farage on migrants Senior official says they will not take money but instead accept aid to support any Afghans deported under Reform plans"
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I'd say Shogun is different. The main point of the story was that he was different. Even today, the white population in Japan is absolutely tiny.
The UK is a much more diverse country now, and a few black faces in a period drama that don't affect the actual story, isn't a big deal in my eyes. An entirely white cast, even if more historically accurate, would be as likely to stand out as a distraction to many people.
It's an age thing I think. I still find non white actors in costume dramas a bit jarring, even though I don't have any ideological objection to it, because I've grown up watching all white costume dramas. My kids don't find it jarring at all because they have grown up in a much more diverse environment than I have and this is reflected in the TV and film they have grown up with too. They are mixed race themselves so I would imagine they like seeing themselves represented on screen. I guess on some level it is anachronistic but all costume dramas are anachronistic on a whole load of levels, from costume to speech to the appearance of the actors, and the entire set up is artificial as all art is. If you listen to archive recordings people even just seventy or eighty years ago talked quite differently to how they talk now but we don't mind people speaking modern English in 21st century accents in dramas set hundreds of years ago. Let alone speaking English when they are Russian or whatever, eg Chernobyl.
I generally have no problem with casting different races in any role. Tho sometimes it can get ridiculous - if half the actors in a drama about Vikings are black or Middle Eastern it’s so odd it distracts from the drama (even more so if the writers bend history to explain it - “oh they’re freed slaves from Mali”)
However the woke flip the argument on its head sometimes, and say “only a trans person can play a trans role” or “only a black writer can write about black experiences”
Sod off with that. The whole point of acting and fiction writing is the ability to get inside someone else’s head. If you can do it you can do it
Imagine saying to Shakespeare “sorry you can’t write othello” or “you were never a young virgin girl in Verona”
About the silliest was a drama that cast a black woman as a Norse Jarl.
If one wants to create a fantasy world, in which early medieval Scandinavia is a multi-racial society, where women wield similar power to men, all well and good, but don't attempt to root it in real history.
Bridgerton is a particularly weird example. At some points it just wants to be a regency drama with colour blind casting (which is generally fine) however occasionally they make some attempt to “explain it” - “we are lucky the queen is African and she has ennobled all the black people in England” - which is comically preposterous - unless you go the whole hog and say This is a parallel universe
It’s a bit of a shame because it distracts from an entertaining if lightweight tv drama
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
Star Trek’s ‘Let That Be Your Last Battlefield’ had a novel, and subtle, approach to the subject.
Very subtle. Very very subtle. As subtle as one of TSE's puns. Yes, that subtle
Acyn @Acyn Trump: Foreign nations are paying hundreds of billions of dollars straight into our treasury. Numbers nobody has seen before. Many of those countries, just to sit at the table, are paying us hundreds of billions of dollars. Trillions of dollars is coming into our country. Trillions.
You have to understand, though: 43% of people in the US will believe this. They also believe that the US deficit is being eliminated. And that they will get a special multithousand dollar cheque later this year as a result of all the massive savings Elon and co found.
The fact it's not true at all is of absolutely no relevence.
Will there come a point when they no longer believe it? And if so, what will happen?
Why would they cease to believe it?
Well, if they don't get this cheque...
People who get scammed by Nigerian conmen still believe.
There is this kind of amusing myth that the scales will fall from peoples' eyes and they will say "oh, I was conned".
No one ever says "I was conned". It's emotionally much easier to double down.
When Vance takes over he's going to have to tell them Trump lied to them...
I agree that the wheels likely come off the project when Vance takes over. Because Vance has about as much common touch as TSE.
But he won't tell people Trump lied. Where's the mileage in that?
Graham Simpson says leaving the Tories, a party he joined at 15, is a “real wrench”.
He wishes Russell Findlay well but says the Scottish Tories’ “electoral hopes are diminishing fast”. Simpson wants to work with the “new kid on the block”, calling Reform UK “centre right”.
Graham Simpson’s defection to Reform is another nightmare for Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay.
He is losing MSPs to the left and now to the right. Pals say is he scunnered.
May’s election is shaping up to be a historic drubbing for his party.
Never head of Simpson and of course Findlay has the advantage that Holyrood elections have PR so even 13% would give the Scottish Tories 13% of MSPs
Simpson wants to work with the “new kid on the block”, calling Reform UK “centre right”.
Reform 'centre right' is utter and complete nonsense and delusional
Someone recently listed all the parties which Wikipedia listed as 'far right' - there were a good 10 or so to the right of Reform. And very few to the left of Reform before you have to drop the 'right' bit of the label. In those terms, Reform are rather closer to the centre than the right. I appreciate this is not the way things are normally looked at!
Graham Simpson says leaving the Tories, a party he joined at 15, is a “real wrench”.
He wishes Russell Findlay well but says the Scottish Tories’ “electoral hopes are diminishing fast”. Simpson wants to work with the “new kid on the block”, calling Reform UK “centre right”.
Graham Simpson’s defection to Reform is another nightmare for Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay.
He is losing MSPs to the left and now to the right. Pals say is he scunnered.
May’s election is shaping up to be a historic drubbing for his party.
Never head of Simpson and of course Findlay has the advantage that Holyrood elections have PR so even 13% would give the Scottish Tories 13% of MSPs
Don’t think AMS works quite that precisely.
When you get down in the weeds, how clumped that vote is on a constituency and a regional basis begins to matter a great deal. Could work either way.
Yes, Annabel Goldie got 13.9% and 12.4% in 2011 and 15 seats. Scots Tories would bite your hand off for that now. They need their constituency MSPs to dig in and fight, and target their stronger areas, South and NE. They can forget about 2 list seats in Central/Glasgow
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I'd say Shogun is different. The main point of the story was that he was different. Even today, the white population in Japan is absolutely tiny.
The UK is a much more diverse country now, and a few black faces in a period drama that don't affect the actual story, isn't a big deal in my eyes. An entirely white cast, even if more historically accurate, would be as likely to stand out as a distraction to many people.
It's an age thing I think. I still find non white actors in costume dramas a bit jarring, even though I don't have any ideological objection to it, because I've grown up watching all white costume dramas. My kids don't find it jarring at all because they have grown up in a much more diverse environment than I have and this is reflected in the TV and film they have grown up with too. They are mixed race themselves so I would imagine they like seeing themselves represented on screen. I guess on some level it is anachronistic but all costume dramas are anachronistic on a whole load of levels, from costume to speech to the appearance of the actors, and the entire set up is artificial as all art is. If you listen to archive recordings people even just seventy or eighty years ago talked quite differently to how they talk now but we don't mind people speaking modern English in 21st century accents in dramas set hundreds of years ago. Let alone speaking English when they are Russian or whatever, eg Chernobyl.
I generally have no problem with casting different races in any role. Tho sometimes it can get ridiculous - if half the actors in a drama about Vikings are black or Middle Eastern it’s so odd it distracts from the drama (even more so if the writers bend history to explain it - “oh they’re freed slaves from Mali”)
However the woke flip the argument on its head sometimes, and say “only a trans person can play a trans role” or “only a black writer can write about black experiences”
Sod off with that. The whole point of acting and fiction writing is the ability to get inside someone else’s head. If you can do it you can do it
Imagine saying to Shakespeare “sorry you can’t write othello” or “you were never a young virgin girl in Verona”
That's true (about acting) but it can help to have a head start which is what being of the same essence as your character gives you. Even assuming I had thespian skills (which I don't) I'd struggle to play a person with an illogical and reductive reactionary mindset. I could give it a go, probably would if I were paid, but I don't think I could nail it. There'd certainly be no Oscar nomination. But if you cast me as an empathetic progressive thinker with a deep sense of mission about spreading that credo I'd be very believable in the role. It's that old chestnut about playing yourself, I suppose. Eg Roger Moore. That's all he ever did.
That is because you are not an actor. I had this very discussion with my sister in law who is an actor. I can stand up in front of a large audience and give a presentation. I have done it loads of times. I can't do the same if I am expected to be out of my own character. I really struggled even to role play on managerial courses. My sister in law on the other hand is exactly the opposite. She has to get into a role and not be herself.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I think those are artistic choices that a show can make that may work better or worse for you as an individual viewer. I find arguments that a different show made a different choice, therefore this show should have done something differently to be unpersuasive. "King and Conqueror" and "Shogun" are different shows that have made different choices. If one works for you and the other doesn't, fine. But I think it's erroneous to presume that a show has made a mistake because it made a choice that didn't work for you.
You ask, "Why not strive for accuracy?" Some shows/films choose to focus on that; others don't. Shakespeare's play "Macbeth" is not remotely an accurate portrayal of the real Macbeth, but some people think it's quite a good play. If you go and see "Macbeth" and come out of it thinking, "Why not strive for accuracy?", that's fair enough. That was your reaction to the play. But is that the last word to be said on "Macbeth"? Probably not.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I'd say Shogun is different. The main point of the story was that he was different. Even today, the white population in Japan is absolutely tiny.
The UK is a much more diverse country now, and a few black faces in a period drama that don't affect the actual story, isn't a big deal in my eyes. An entirely white cast, even if more historically accurate, would be as likely to stand out as a distraction to many people.
It's an age thing I think. I still find non white actors in costume dramas a bit jarring, even though I don't have any ideological objection to it, because I've grown up watching all white costume dramas. My kids don't find it jarring at all because they have grown up in a much more diverse environment than I have and this is reflected in the TV and film they have grown up with too. They are mixed race themselves so I would imagine they like seeing themselves represented on screen. I guess on some level it is anachronistic but all costume dramas are anachronistic on a whole load of levels, from costume to speech to the appearance of the actors, and the entire set up is artificial as all art is. If you listen to archive recordings people even just seventy or eighty years ago talked quite differently to how they talk now but we don't mind people speaking modern English in 21st century accents in dramas set hundreds of years ago. Let alone speaking English when they are Russian or whatever, eg Chernobyl.
I generally have no problem with casting different races in any role. Tho sometimes it can get ridiculous - if half the actors in a drama about Vikings are black or Middle Eastern it’s so odd it distracts from the drama (even more so if the writers bend history to explain it - “oh they’re freed slaves from Mali”)
However the woke flip the argument on its head sometimes, and say “only a trans person can play a trans role” or “only a black writer can write about black experiences”
Sod off with that. The whole point of acting and fiction writing is the ability to get inside someone else’s head. If you can do it you can do it
Imagine saying to Shakespeare “sorry you can’t write othello” or “you were never a young virgin girl in Verona”
Yep, would agree with both Leon and OLB there.
I'd add that it's not just period dramas. Pretty much every programme on the telly - period drama, sitcom, panel show, documentary, advert - has a quota of non-white faces in a way which in much of the country just doesn't happen in the real world and is the result of deliberate choice rather than random chance. It's at its most noticeable in period drama because, well, obviously in that respect it usually looks as obviously unreal as characters using mobile phones would - but good acting can overcome this reasonably quickly. Celebrity game shows trouble the statistician in me - statistically, you would expect all-white line ups to occur reasonably frequently: always having at least one non-white participant in Richard Osman's House of Games must be a challenge: scheduling famous people is tricky and an element of last-minute juggling is often involved, and if the non-white participant pulls out presumably needs to be replaced by another non-white participant. The production meetings where these conversations take place must be very peculiar.
It must be tricky for production teams. With the 1066 drama and the black extra issue I wonder if it was a case where the part of casting department tasked with finding extras to play Anglo Saxon soldiers didn’t even give it any thought that it wouldn’t make sense to have black Anglo Saxon soldiers so they just got their target of 500 extras, stuck them in costume and got them out onto the set.
Then the director or someone senior on set notices and points it out whereupon everyone has a meltdown worrying that if they tell the extra he can’t be used because he is black they will be in a load of trouble for discrimination. The production team don’t know the rules/laws and the costs and time involved in checking out whether they can replace the extra makes it prohibitive so they decide that the safest option is to just go with it.
Are there exemptions to discrimination laws for casting where the director/producer can specify race of actors/extras if not a specifically identifiable character?
In interesting climate change news (not the Met Office data showing this summer was the UK’s warmest on record, that’s fairly bog standard), the ITCZ over Africa has jumped way north of its average position as it reaches the annual max. That’s the second year in a row we’ve seen tropical seasonal rainfall extending into Northern Chad and Niger, and as far as Southern Algeria and Libya.
Unlike last year it’s not been north of average most of the season, but it’s the peak extent in late August and early September that really matters. This determines whether the Sahel and Southern Sahara are desertifying or greening.
And it’s set to head even further in the next fortnight: most of Mauritania, Algeria (though there were looking at enhancement from a subtropical trough) and all of Mali.
Lake Chad has been recovering. It should recover further this year.
Sahel greening is one of the modelled benefits of global warming. Yes it also means flooding, as we saw last year (and possible albedo impacts that accelerate warming globally), but there is already evidence of increased productivity across the belt in the last decade, helped by multilateral initiatives to plant trees too, and it should if all goes well bring greater stability to an area that’s one of the largest sources of geopolitical risk in our neighbourhood. Unlike the Med basin and Middle East where there trends all point to worsening chronic drought.
I had heard - though this may be bollocks - that Sahel greening is also benefitting from increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Plants love that stuff.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
If you can have actors as black Anglo Saxons you can have an actor as a white Mandela
A nicely thoughtful post there by @isam. I need to watch this as it is the 2nd one of yours I have liked today.
I disagree with you @HYUFD on Nelson Mandela and agree with @isam. Mandela being black is rather fundamental to the whole point of the story. Normans and Anglo Saxons being white is not. OK they clearly weren't black. They also have the wrong haircuts*, and speak the wrong language for the time, but we overlook that. We can overlook (with difficulty I grant you as it is obvious) black Anglo Saxons. It is a bit more difficult to overlook a white Mandela.
* A review I read said it was confusing flipping between the Norman and the Anglo Saxon locations and would have been a lot easy if they had the correct haircuts for the time.
All historical movies and TV shows are inaccurate to a greater or lesser degree. Mary Queen of Scots spoke with a French accent but she’s invariably given a Scottish one. Jesus of Nazareth was considerably darker than Robert Powell or indeed most of his other European and American visual representations. Picking on the skin colour of actors in history pieces set in Europe is a bit of a double standard. Suspension of disbelief is necessary in any dramatic production.
I agree. It is only relevant if key to the plot. I don't care if someone is black or white, thin or fat, tall or short, when playing a roles,but there are obvious exceptions when it is key to plot:
A white Mandela, a thin Billy Bunter, a short Giant in the beanstalk.
One only has to apply common sense.
I will try asking you as JJ didn’t answer at the time of writing - if the epic series “Shaka Zulu” is remade do you think it’s fine to cast white actors as Zulu Impi, or do you think it would be utterly ridiculous?
If you think it’s ok then please explain why, and why the Zulu nation shouldn’t be livid about it, if you think it would clearly be ridiculous then please explain why we also should accept colour blind casting in other situations.
The racial dimension in South African history in "Shaka Zulu" still very much feeds through to the country's situation today. In comparison, any racial dimension in "King & Conqueror" has long ceased to be relevant. Thus, the two are not directly comparable.
You do realise Shaka Zulu is about the rise of the Zulu against other black South African tribes of the time, pre Anglo-Zulu war and large scale white settlement and so the racial black/white dimension to the story isn’t relevant to the country’s situation today?
Also, we continue to hear a great deal about the superiority of the Normans, thinly disguised as the aristocracy and royalty.
I’ve not watched it, but surely a missed trick not having the Normans played by surly Gallic actors with in-built shrugs constantly saying “bof” and “du coup”.
And "ces salauds anglo-saxons sur cette colline de merde". Presumably they'd moved on from saying "de angelsaksiske røvhuller på denne lortebakke" but I'm not too sure when.,
Sounds as if speaking French all the time would have been better. The subtitles would be needed - but would have made the point of the alien language being imposed on the A/S. Unless the aim or the film was to glorify William and the Norman Conks?
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I think those are artistic choices that a show can make that may work better or worse for you as an individual viewer. I find arguments that a different show made a different choice, therefore this show should have done something differently to be unpersuasive. "King and Conqueror" and "Shogun" are different shows that have made different choices. If one works for you and the other doesn't, fine. But I think it's erroneous to presume that a show has made a mistake because it made a choice that didn't work for you.
You ask, "Why not strive for accuracy?" Some shows/films choose to focus on that; others don't. Shakespeare's play "Macbeth" is not remotely an accurate portrayal of the real Macbeth, but some people think it's quite a good play. If you go and see "Macbeth" and come out of it thinking, "Why not strive for accuracy?", that's fair enough. That was your reaction to the play. But is that the last word to be said on "Macbeth"? Probably not.
The racial mix in the cast of 'The Great' worked fine for me - partly I suspect because the acting was good, and partly because I am a little bit hazy in what history in that period of the Russian empire actually looked like.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
If you can have actors as black Anglo Saxons you can have an actor as a white Mandela
A nicely thoughtful post there by @isam. I need to watch this as it is the 2nd one of yours I have liked today.
I disagree with you @HYUFD on Nelson Mandela and agree with @isam. Mandela being black is rather fundamental to the whole point of the story. Normans and Anglo Saxons being white is not. OK they clearly weren't black. They also have the wrong haircuts*, and speak the wrong language for the time, but we overlook that. We can overlook (with difficulty I grant you as it is obvious) black Anglo Saxons. It is a bit more difficult to overlook a white Mandela.
* A review I read said it was confusing flipping between the Norman and the Anglo Saxon locations and would have been a lot easy if they had the correct haircuts for the time.
All historical movies and TV shows are inaccurate to a greater or lesser degree. Mary Queen of Scots spoke with a French accent but she’s invariably given a Scottish one. Jesus of Nazareth was considerably darker than Robert Powell or indeed most of his other European and American visual representations. Picking on the skin colour of actors in history pieces set in Europe is a bit of a double standard. Suspension of disbelief is necessary in any dramatic production.
I agree. It is only relevant if key to the plot. I don't care if someone is black or white, thin or fat, tall or short, when playing a roles,but there are obvious exceptions when it is key to plot:
A white Mandela, a thin Billy Bunter, a short Giant in the beanstalk.
One only has to apply common sense.
I will try asking you as JJ didn’t answer at the time of writing - if the epic series “Shaka Zulu” is remade do you think it’s fine to cast white actors as Zulu Impi, or do you think it would be utterly ridiculous?
If you think it’s ok then please explain why, and why the Zulu nation shouldn’t be livid about it, if you think it would clearly be ridiculous then please explain why we also should accept colour blind casting in other situations.
The racial dimension in South African history in "Shaka Zulu" still very much feeds through to the country's situation today. In comparison, any racial dimension in "King & Conqueror" has long ceased to be relevant. Thus, the two are not directly comparable.
You do realise Shaka Zulu is about the rise of the Zulu against other black South African tribes of the time, pre Anglo-Zulu war and large scale white settlement and so the racial black/white dimension to the story isn’t relevant to the country’s situation today?
Also, we continue to hear a great deal about the superiority of the Normans, thinly disguised as the aristocracy and royalty.
I’ve not watched it, but surely a missed trick not having the Normans played by surly Gallic actors with in-built shrugs constantly saying “bof” and “du coup”.
And "ces salauds anglo-saxons sur cette colline de merde". Presumably they'd moved on from saying "de angelsaksiske røvhuller på denne lortebakke" but I'm not too sure when.,
Sounds as if speaking French all the time would have been better. The subtitles would be needed - but would have made the point of the alien language being imposed on the A/S. Unless the aim or the film was to glorify William and the Norman Conks?
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
If you can have actors as black Anglo Saxons you can have an actor as a white Mandela
A nicely thoughtful post there by @isam. I need to watch this as it is the 2nd one of yours I have liked today.
I disagree with you @HYUFD on Nelson Mandela and agree with @isam. Mandela being black is rather fundamental to the whole point of the story. Normans and Anglo Saxons being white is not. OK they clearly weren't black. They also have the wrong haircuts*, and speak the wrong language for the time, but we overlook that. We can overlook (with difficulty I grant you as it is obvious) black Anglo Saxons. It is a bit more difficult to overlook a white Mandela.
* A review I read said it was confusing flipping between the Norman and the Anglo Saxon locations and would have been a lot easy if they had the correct haircuts for the time.
All historical movies and TV shows are inaccurate to a greater or lesser degree. Mary Queen of Scots spoke with a French accent but she’s invariably given a Scottish one. Jesus of Nazareth was considerably darker than Robert Powell or indeed most of his other European and American visual representations. Picking on the skin colour of actors in history pieces set in Europe is a bit of a double standard. Suspension of disbelief is necessary in any dramatic production.
I agree. It is only relevant if key to the plot. I don't care if someone is black or white, thin or fat, tall or short, when playing a roles,but there are obvious exceptions when it is key to plot:
A white Mandela, a thin Billy Bunter, a short Giant in the beanstalk.
One only has to apply common sense.
I will try asking you as JJ didn’t answer at the time of writing - if the epic series “Shaka Zulu” is remade do you think it’s fine to cast white actors as Zulu Impi, or do you think it would be utterly ridiculous?
If you think it’s ok then please explain why, and why the Zulu nation shouldn’t be livid about it, if you think it would clearly be ridiculous then please explain why we also should accept colour blind casting in other situations.
The racial dimension in South African history in "Shaka Zulu" still very much feeds through to the country's situation today. In comparison, any racial dimension in "King & Conqueror" has long ceased to be relevant. Thus, the two are not directly comparable.
You do realise Shaka Zulu is about the rise of the Zulu against other black South African tribes of the time, pre Anglo-Zulu war and large scale white settlement and so the racial black/white dimension to the story isn’t relevant to the country’s situation today?
Also, we continue to hear a great deal about the superiority of the Normans, thinly disguised as the aristocracy and royalty.
I’ve not watched it, but surely a missed trick not having the Normans played by surly Gallic actors with in-built shrugs constantly saying “bof” and “du coup”.
And "ces salauds anglo-saxons sur cette colline de merde". Presumably they'd moved on from saying "de angelsaksiske røvhuller på denne lortebakke" but I'm not too sure when.,
Sounds as if speaking French all the time would have been better. The subtitles would be needed - but would have made the point of the alien language being imposed on the A/S. Unless the aim or the film was to glorify William and the Norman Conks?
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I think those are artistic choices that a show can make that may work better or worse for you as an individual viewer. I find arguments that a different show made a different choice, therefore this show should have done something differently to be unpersuasive. "King and Conqueror" and "Shogun" are different shows that have made different choices. If one works for you and the other doesn't, fine. But I think it's erroneous to presume that a show has made a mistake because it made a choice that didn't work for you.
You ask, "Why not strive for accuracy?" Some shows/films choose to focus on that; others don't. Shakespeare's play "Macbeth" is not remotely an accurate portrayal of the real Macbeth, but some people think it's quite a good play. If you go and see "Macbeth" and come out of it thinking, "Why not strive for accuracy?", that's fair enough. That was your reaction to the play. But is that the last word to be said on "Macbeth"? Probably not.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
I'd tend agree with you, though I'm not entirely persuaded about title characters necessarily being "provocative".
I saw an all black production of The Importance of Being Ernest a couple of years ago. I anticipated it being a bit of a gimmick, but the cast was excellent, which is what mattered. One of the best productions I've seen.
Certainly the casting was making something of a point, but in the event, the point was that it was just very good.
I think an all black cast of any play would be no problem at all, the provocation, if there is any, is when a black person plays Queen Victoria for instance. That seems like a bit of a statement. But does it really matter? I’m not as sure as I was
Wouldn’t get one cast as Adolf Hitler though!
I suspect that in the end, the only thing that matters is how good any given actor is.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
True to extent but what’s the point in making a historical drama that isn’t bothered about being accurate? Why didn’t the makers of the new 1066 effort think to have the Normans with their bowl haircuts and the Anglo Saxons with their longer hair and moustaches? Easy for the viewer to work out what’s going on as an added benefit. Why not strive for accuracy?
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
I'd say Shogun is different. The main point of the story was that he was different. Even today, the white population in Japan is absolutely tiny.
The UK is a much more diverse country now, and a few black faces in a period drama that don't affect the actual story, isn't a big deal in my eyes. An entirely white cast, even if more historically accurate, would be as likely to stand out as a distraction to many people.
It's an age thing I think. I still find non white actors in costume dramas a bit jarring, even though I don't have any ideological objection to it, because I've grown up watching all white costume dramas. My kids don't find it jarring at all because they have grown up in a much more diverse environment than I have and this is reflected in the TV and film they have grown up with too. They are mixed race themselves so I would imagine they like seeing themselves represented on screen. I guess on some level it is anachronistic but all costume dramas are anachronistic on a whole load of levels, from costume to speech to the appearance of the actors, and the entire set up is artificial as all art is. If you listen to archive recordings people even just seventy or eighty years ago talked quite differently to how they talk now but we don't mind people speaking modern English in 21st century accents in dramas set hundreds of years ago. Let alone speaking English when they are Russian or whatever, eg Chernobyl.
I generally have no problem with casting different races in any role. Tho sometimes it can get ridiculous - if half the actors in a drama about Vikings are black or Middle Eastern it’s so odd it distracts from the drama (even more so if the writers bend history to explain it - “oh they’re freed slaves from Mali”)
However the woke flip the argument on its head sometimes, and say “only a trans person can play a trans role” or “only a black writer can write about black experiences”
Sod off with that. The whole point of acting and fiction writing is the ability to get inside someone else’s head. If you can do it you can do it
Imagine saying to Shakespeare “sorry you can’t write othello” or “you were never a young virgin girl in Verona”
Something (among quite a few things actually) we agree on. Let's apply common sense. Sometimes stuff is ok, sometimes it just isn't because it jars. It is normally obvious to most of us except the most woke (I can't believe I have said that word) or the most racist/homophobic/sexist/whatever on the other extreme.
The evolution of Midsomer Murders was interesting to track. It changed from all white to a situation whereby every local professional in the village (vet, lawyer, doctor etc) seemingly had to be black. Fine, but for quite a long time no black character could be the murderer, which was suboptimal for a whodunit. Finally an episode came along which smashed through that taboo. A massive cultural moment that went completely unreported.
In interesting climate change news (not the Met Office data showing this summer was the UK’s warmest on record, that’s fairly bog standard), the ITCZ over Africa has jumped way north of its average position as it reaches the annual max. That’s the second year in a row we’ve seen tropical seasonal rainfall extending into Northern Chad and Niger, and as far as Southern Algeria and Libya.
Unlike last year it’s not been north of average most of the season, but it’s the peak extent in late August and early September that really matters. This determines whether the Sahel and Southern Sahara are desertifying or greening.
And it’s set to head even further in the next fortnight: most of Mauritania, Algeria (though there were looking at enhancement from a subtropical trough) and all of Mali.
Lake Chad has been recovering. It should recover further this year.
Sahel greening is one of the modelled benefits of global warming. Yes it also means flooding, as we saw last year (and possible albedo impacts that accelerate warming globally), but there is already evidence of increased productivity across the belt in the last decade, helped by multilateral initiatives to plant trees too, and it should if all goes well bring greater stability to an area that’s one of the largest sources of geopolitical risk in our neighbourhood. Unlike the Med basin and Middle East where there trends all point to worsening chronic drought.
I had heard - though this may be bollocks - that Sahel greening is also benefitting from increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Plants love that stuff.
Seems unlikely in the Sahel. In every ecosystem there’s a limiting variable and for CO2 to be the one you’d need there already to be plentiful rainfall and soil fertility.
More widely across sub-Saharan Africa soil nutrients are a huge limiting factor. The majority of the continent hasn’t yet had the green revolution, and the cost of fertiliser at the moment isn’t helpful.
Graham Simpson says leaving the Tories, a party he joined at 15, is a “real wrench”.
He wishes Russell Findlay well but says the Scottish Tories’ “electoral hopes are diminishing fast”. Simpson wants to work with the “new kid on the block”, calling Reform UK “centre right”.
Graham Simpson’s defection to Reform is another nightmare for Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay.
He is losing MSPs to the left and now to the right. Pals say is he scunnered.
May’s election is shaping up to be a historic drubbing for his party.
Never head of Simpson and of course Findlay has the advantage that Holyrood elections have PR so even 13% would give the Scottish Tories 13% of MSPs
Simpson wants to work with the “new kid on the block”, calling Reform UK “centre right”.
Reform 'centre right' is utter and complete nonsense and delusional
Isnt it that where the 'centre' now lies is shifting fast, with for instance Jack Straw today joining Blunkett is saying we should 'de-couple' from the ECHR.
That would NOT have been a 'centre right' position even a year ago but now it is being advocated from the 'centre Left' establishment.
The Conservatives will announce we should leave the ECHR at their conference in October by which point Reform and rhe world and his wife will already have done likewise at this rate.
Figures like Dominic Grieve from the old 'centre right' now appear increasingly extreme imho, for instance advocating the Courts ignore Parliamentary egislation if they think it contradicts Humman Rights.
If anyone is a fan of The Count of Monte Cristo, the 2024 French film adaptation is sublime. It takes a few liberties with the start, and the final scene is a little overblown, but the second half is beautiful, recreating important chapters from the book that other screen versions didn’t bother with at all.
I’m working my way through the book in French, for some reason it comes in two separate books, it’s my favourite story and read the best translation in English so thought I would read again in French to get the brain working.
There is a lot in the book left out of screen versions for reasons I don’t understand as, however long the book is, there is no fat in it to cut.
Have tried to watch the new series but something leaves me cold so far - must be because they haven’t cast a real Marseillais as Edmond Dantes.
I was left cold by the new series, and stopped at E3. The film changes the events leading to Edmond’s imprisonment and I was not happy about that at the time, but the second half is absolutely wonderful, and the changes to the plot are justified in my opinion. It keeps in many of the subplots that other adaptations leave behind, I thoroughly recommend watching
I have read the Robin Buss translation half a dozen times, which is the one you consider the best? I bought the book in French with the idea of reading it one day, but never have
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
If you can have actors as black Anglo Saxons you can have an actor as a white Mandela
A nicely thoughtful post there by @isam. I need to watch this as it is the 2nd one of yours I have liked today.
I disagree with you @HYUFD on Nelson Mandela and agree with @isam. Mandela being black is rather fundamental to the whole point of the story. Normans and Anglo Saxons being white is not. OK they clearly weren't black. They also have the wrong haircuts*, and speak the wrong language for the time, but we overlook that. We can overlook (with difficulty I grant you as it is obvious) black Anglo Saxons. It is a bit more difficult to overlook a white Mandela.
* A review I read said it was confusing flipping between the Norman and the Anglo Saxon locations and would have been a lot easy if they had the correct haircuts for the time.
All historical movies and TV shows are inaccurate to a greater or lesser degree. Mary Queen of Scots spoke with a French accent but she’s invariably given a Scottish one. Jesus of Nazareth was considerably darker than Robert Powell or indeed most of his other European and American visual representations. Picking on the skin colour of actors in history pieces set in Europe is a bit of a double standard. Suspension of disbelief is necessary in any dramatic production.
I agree. It is only relevant if key to the plot. I don't care if someone is black or white, thin or fat, tall or short, when playing a roles,but there are obvious exceptions when it is key to plot:
A white Mandela, a thin Billy Bunter, a short Giant in the beanstalk.
One only has to apply common sense.
I will try asking you as JJ didn’t answer at the time of writing - if the epic series “Shaka Zulu” is remade do you think it’s fine to cast white actors as Zulu Impi, or do you think it would be utterly ridiculous?
If you think it’s ok then please explain why, and why the Zulu nation shouldn’t be livid about it, if you think it would clearly be ridiculous then please explain why we also should accept colour blind casting in other situations.
The racial dimension in South African history in "Shaka Zulu" still very much feeds through to the country's situation today. In comparison, any racial dimension in "King & Conqueror" has long ceased to be relevant. Thus, the two are not directly comparable.
You do realise Shaka Zulu is about the rise of the Zulu against other black South African tribes of the time, pre Anglo-Zulu war and large scale white settlement and so the racial black/white dimension to the story isn’t relevant to the country’s situation today?
Also, we continue to hear a great deal about the superiority of the Normans, thinly disguised as the aristocracy and royalty.
I’ve not watched it, but surely a missed trick not having the Normans played by surly Gallic actors with in-built shrugs constantly saying “bof” and “du coup”.
And "ces salauds anglo-saxons sur cette colline de merde". Presumably they'd moved on from saying "de angelsaksiske røvhuller på denne lortebakke" but I'm not too sure when.,
Sounds as if speaking French all the time would have been better. The subtitles would be needed - but would have made the point of the alien language being imposed on the A/S. Unless the aim or the film was to glorify William and the Norman Conks?
Subtitles worked well for ‘Apocalypto’.
I was actually thinking of the Japanese in Tora! Tora! Tora! but had never heard of Apocalypto - and a Mel Gibson movie no less. From this sample it seems very, erm, striking - complete with, I notice, an atlatl in use.
Donald Trump claims UK in for 'bad awakening' thanks to Starmer's energy policy Trump's comments come despite the UK's reliance on fossil fuels being one of the factors driving up energy costs, with wind power being significantly cheaper than nuclear, gas or coal https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/donald-trump-claims-uk-bad-35798659
Ye Gods, They just censored my comment.
I saw this story about illegal parking and wondered if you were the new Leon: PB by day; Fleet Street by night:-
Highway Code rule break mistake 'most drivers' are making
Drivers throughout Britain are being alerted to an obscure Highway Code regulation that could see them slapped with a substantial penalty, purely based on how they position their vehicle overnight. The Highway Code states that it's against the law to park facing against the direction of traffic flow once darkness falls, except when positioned within a designated parking space.
The rationale centres on visibility concerns: car headlights are engineered to bounce light off a vehicle's rear, rather than its front end. When parked incorrectly, cars become significantly more difficult to detect, heightening the chances of a collision. https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/uk-news/highway-code-rule-break-mistake-35794413
I knew that BUT only because I am preparing to take my advanced driving test. One I didn't know and got my knuckles rapped on is going around mini roundabouts. Rule 188 states you must pass around them unless you are physically unable to do so. I do, but have been known to cut off a small section and got told off for doing so. It is an offence, although I was told you are unlikely to get pulled up for it by the Police unless you are involved in an accident.
I tend to use mini roundabouts more as a suggestion as to who has right of way.
I don't believe the "facing the direction of traffic" thing is enforced.
Not enforced normally, but if you have an accident on a mini roundabout while doing it then a fine and penalty points will be coming your way and that was from the traffic cop sitting next to me in the car at the time.
If there are other cars you give way as normal, rather than try to cut across before the car on your right
Well I can only tell you what a traffic policeman sitting next to me told me when I did it and we all make mistakes, no matter how good a driver we are so you can get caught out.
Yes I'm aware that you are supposed to go round a mini roundabout as if it was a normal one, but if there is no-one else around you are not going to cause an accident. A bit like cutting the corner when you turn right - what is wrong is when cars cut the corner despite the fact there is a car in the way at the end of the road they are turning into
For me, it's the danger of getting into a habit and doing it without thinking. Ditto signalling - the IAM say "don't signal when there is no one there to see" (or they did), but I might have missed seeing something, and I'd rather be in the habit of signalling, rather than not-signalling.
Very good point @MattW . Interesting you brought up the signalling thing because I thought the same and asked the question of my instructor. He did not advocate not signalling if there is no one there to see you which was interesting. What he said was you need to be aware of whether your action could cause more confusion than impart accurate information. So yes you should indicate if there is no one there to see it, but not if it will confuse. I was criticised for indicating too early for instance which could give misleading information. I was told to look at drivers faces if you can and their car positioning to also determine what they are doing.
The training is excellent. It is all common sense, but reinforces what you know. The police handbook, Roadcraft is excellent and recommended reading.
I don't know the current IAM position; I did a few sessions with the local branch some time ago (meaning decades), and read Roadcraft in my early 20s after I passed my test at 17. I had several collisions in my first year of driving, of which the first was my fault, and involved spinning the family car off a motorway junction roundabout whilst exploring where the limit of grip was.
Aha - THERE ... FUCKETY-FUCK ... CRUNCH. Austin Maxis are not very good for catching front wheel skids.
Darling sister demonstrated that for VW Polos soon after in my first car in the snow.
I'm not wholly at ease with what I understand to be the IAM "drive to the speed limit where you can" ethos; I think we under-emphasize possible consequences of "minor" hazards, such as not being able to see behind things or in low sunlight.
Comments
They did not vote to deport their hard working law abiding neighbours.
Hence the recent polling.
https://americasvoice.org/polls/203304/
..Wall Street Journal (July 2025): 51% of respondents said “President Trump’s efforts to deport illegal immigrants have gone too far,” while 23% said “not far enough” and 24% said “about right.”
CNN: (July 2025): 59% oppose and 23% support “Arresting and detaining undocumented immigrants who have resided in the United States for years with no criminal record.” As CNN polling editor Ariel Edwards-Levy wrote, “That echoes a theme seen in much immigration polling this year — support for immigration enforcement tends to erode when pollsters specify that people without criminal records or longtime residents will be among those affected.”
Quinnipiac (July 2025): 59-38% disapproval of Trump’s handling of “deportations.” And by a 57-39% margin, voters disapprove of “the way U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, is enforcing immigration laws.”
CBS/YouGov (July 2025): By a 51-49% margin, Americans disapprove of the “Trump administration’s program to deport immigrants illegally in the U.S.” In February, the same pollsters found 59-41% support when asking the same question.
Washington Post/Schar School (June 2025): Americans disapprove of “the way President Trump is handling immigration enforcement, including deportations,“ by a 52-37% margin.
Point 2: When gauged head-to-head, legal status for undocumented immigrants is decidedly more popular than mass deportation. Americans consistently prefer a path to legal status instead of mass deportation – and are measurably swinging in favor of legal status in recent months.
Fox News (July 2025): When asked about preferred policy for undocumented immigrants, Americans prefer a path to citizenship over mass deportation by a 59-29% margin. The question offered three options – “deport all illegal immigrants,” “deport only those illegal immigrants who have been charged with crimes but allow others to remain in the U.S. and eventually qualify for citizenship,” or “allow all illegal immigrants to remain,” with the final option receiving 11% support...
I doubt we will ever see a white MLK or Mandela these days.
Harry Enfield played Mandela in prosthetics in his comedy show. Has been savaged by the usual suspects for it, suffice to say, several years after the event and has said he wouldn’t do it now and doubts it would happen.
Quite frankly this so called colour blind casting is pretty pathetic box ticking stuff but I cannot say I care a great deal as I don’t watch the stuff the BBC puts out these days anyway. Its drama output is dire, mind you ITV isn’t much better.
In pavement parking for comparison, police can always enforce on "Wilfully Obstructing the Highway" (even any part of the highway, which includes a pavement or part of a pavement), but will slope shoulders and say "go and see the Council" in 99% of cases, unless eg Parents and toddlers, or blind / wheelchair users are being forced into the carriageway, or if for example a drop kerb is blocked.
How do Undocumented Workers File Tax Returns Without a Valid Social Security Number?
Though certain non-citizens are eligible for to receive Social Security numbers to pay taxes, unauthorized immigrants are ineligible to receive one. However, it is still law that individuals who reside in the United States, whether legally or not, and earn income here must pay taxes on that income, and file a tax return, regardless of whether the income was earned as an undocumented worker—a complicated legal conundrum.
Further, the IRS will not allow a tax return to be filed with a fake or stolen Social Security number. Therefore, unauthorized workers who wish to file their taxes–and potentially get future credit for it— must find another way. Thus, many use the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN, which allows immigrants without Social Security numbers to legally file tax returns and claim the income reported on their W-2’s to the IRS.
What is an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN)?
In 1996, the Internal Revenue Service created the ITIN to provide a way for noncitizens who earn income in the United States, including legally-present noncitizens who do not have Social Security numbers, to pay taxes on money earned in the United States while not being technically employed by a U.S employer. For example, ITINs allow foreign nationals to pay taxes on the interest earned in a U.S. bank or investment account. They also allow spouses of work-authorized visa-holders to pay taxes on self-employment income, among other uses.
Most experts believe that the vast majority of tax returns filed with ITINs today are filed by undocumented immigrants rather than the intended recipient groups—a few categories of noncitizens who do not have a Social Security number and are not authorized to work but who are still earning income and legally residing in the United States. In 2010, ITINs were used to file over 3 million federal tax returns.
Cross cultural casting works only when the actor can inhabit the role. Depending on the circumstances, that can be another hurdle for the actor to have to overcome.
Your every other post is about Donald Trump 🤷♂️
And with that I’m off to tackle a large and unwieldy bush as my grass clippings bin is being collected tomorrow having to pay extra for the pleasure. Fuck you Durham Council.
And of course, the LibDems are unlikely to shake the foundations of the NATO alliance, US democracy, and the world economy in the next couple of years.
Context is all.
It's time for Rhonda Pickering, again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muNQm4vqkC8
If the makers had wanted to make a point about modern society then write something where two CEOs, one from France and one from England battle over some giant company and then you can weave in arguments about broken promises, expected inheritances and have the cast reflect the world it exists in. Christ even have the Harold character being rescued by William whilst they have some macho boat race and promising to support a takeover whilst they are drinking whisky later - it’s easy so no need to mess with the past.
Just don’t screw up a very compelling and important story through laziness or trying to be clever by adding a veneer of today’s sensibilities.
Can you imagine the reaction if the recent remake of Shogun had cast Japanese characters in it with white or black actors - people would have laughed at it and it would have pissed off a lot of people and probably mortally offended the Japanese because, even though it’s a fiction, it’s set in a very real period of their history and it’s fair to respect the reality of how it was. Yet it seems very much that we are supposed to laugh it off or wave it away when our history or past is breezily misrepresented.
But he's wrong
I also find the politics behind it exceptionally patronising.
And yes, there are other things that break the immersion in historical dramas, we’re not expecting everyone to be speaking Norman French for instance, but it’s a matter of degree, and there are some other relatively anachronistic things that get thrown in to modern historical drama nowadays, casting aside, that I also find to be unnecessary.
If you look at the actual twitter account, the timeline is even less varied in posting nature than Scott n Paste. Its 90% politics clips pretty much always supporting the government or attacking Tory / Reform. They are perfectly entitled to do that, and plenty of other accounts have followed a similar approach on Brexit or anti previous government or anti-current government, and gained large followings doing so. Social media algorithms seems to reward these highly "focused" accounts that are on message from whichever side of the political spectrum or issue.
I think this would be my general rule - although it's an area where there shouldn't be any rules other than what works creatively.
The training is excellent. It is all common sense, but reinforces what you know. The police handbook, Roadcraft is excellent and recommended reading.
Re the events in France, interesting times ahead.
If the government falls, then Macron has to try and stitch together yet another government from the wreckage (surely getting very difficult indeed) or calling fresh elections as I believe he is now able to do as enough time has passed since the last ones.
If that election produces yet further deadlock, or a RN government, I wonder what the chances are of Macron resigning this year. I only posit this as a question to the room - I am no significant expert on the French constitution. One thing that could be of tactical benefit is that MLP is still barred from running, I believe - and if he resigns I believe a new presidential election has to be held straight away. I am not sure if MLP could fast track her appeal in that time. That said, Bardella seems to be holding up ok in polling too.
There is zero chance of Macron resigning and yes Bardella currently ties Philippe 50% 50% and leads Attal 52% to 48%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2027_French_presidential_election#Second_round_2
There is very little chance of new parliamentary elections producing a clear majority for any block, if Bayrou cannot get his spending cuts through Macron may as well appoint a centre left PM given the left have most seats and tell them to raise taxes to fund the deficit instead
The UK is a much more diverse country now, and a few black faces in a period drama that don't affect the actual story, isn't a big deal in my eyes. An entirely white cast, even if more historically accurate, would be as likely to stand out as a distraction to many people.
1917 was largely well received. Despite pricks like Lozza Fox mumping about Indian troops (who were actually present in large numbers), no one else seemed that bothered.
I looked recently and I don't think it says that now (if it ever did)
Otherwise if you demand historical figures are represented by actors of the same skin colour that has to apply across the board
REFORM: Tory MSP Graham Simpson defects to Reform UK.
@CatrionaStewart
Graham Simpson says leaving the Tories, a party he joined at 15, is a “real wrench”.
He wishes Russell Findlay well but says the Scottish Tories’ “electoral hopes are diminishing fast”. Simpson wants to work with the “new kid on the block”, calling Reform UK “centre right”.
@paulhutcheon
Graham Simpson’s defection to Reform
is another nightmare for Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay.
He is losing MSPs to the left and now to the right. Pals say is he scunnered.
May’s election is shaping up to be a historic drubbing for his party.
And….. there are almost no tourists. In August
My guide just told me “everyone goes to Vienna and Salzburg, that’s how we like it”
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_count_of_monte_cristo_2024
We have an obligation to take in Afghans who fought with us and supported us against AQ and the Taliban
It is more nuanced than all or nothing.
You just can't have a white Mandela as you were suggesting, but I have no issues with actor of the wrong colour in roles where colour is not part of the plot.
Or the dance that's a dream of romance
Or the scene where the villain is mean
That's entertainment!
A smash of glass and a rumble of boots
An electric train and a ripped up phone booth
Paint splattered walls and the cry of a tomcat
Lights going out and a kick in the balls
I say, that's entertainment
1066 with lightsabers and spaceships would be great and you could have whatever cast you want. Merchant of Venice with black characters substituted for Jews worked really well in a modern setting because it helped to highlight the discrimination illustrated in the play, and made me think quite hard about anti-Semitism more generally.
King and Conqueror is dreadful, barely watchable primarily due to the writing. But the inconsistent immersion is annoying too.
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/international/itf/itcz.shtml#:~:text=Climate Prediction Center - Africa ITCZ Monitoring&text=From August 11 to 20,(10-day period).
Unlike last year it’s not been north of average most of the season, but it’s the peak extent in late August and early September that really matters. This determines whether the Sahel and Southern Sahara are desertifying or greening.
And it’s set to head even further in the next fortnight: most of Mauritania, Algeria (though there were looking at enhancement from a subtropical trough) and all of Mali.
Lake Chad has been recovering. It should recover further this year.
Sahel greening is one of the modelled benefits of global warming. Yes it also means flooding, as we saw last year (and possible albedo impacts that accelerate warming globally), but there is already evidence of increased productivity across the belt in the last decade, helped by multilateral initiatives to plant trees too, and it should if all goes well bring greater stability to an area that’s one of the largest sources of geopolitical risk in our neighbourhood. Unlike the Med basin and Middle East where there trends all point to worsening chronic drought.
I guess on some level it is anachronistic but all costume dramas are anachronistic on a whole load of levels, from costume to speech to the appearance of the actors, and the entire set up is artificial as all art is. If you listen to archive recordings people even just seventy or eighty years ago talked quite differently to how they talk now but we don't mind people speaking modern English in 21st century accents in dramas set hundreds of years ago. Let alone speaking English when they are Russian or whatever, eg Chernobyl.
To my eye he seems a bit not-prominent for that. "A Different Bias" (Phil Moorhouse) was not on the list, and he has 220k subs on Youtube - but he is in the politics niche, and they went for a broader spectrum.
There is a lot in the book left out of screen versions for reasons I don’t understand as, however long the book is, there is no fat in it to cut.
Have tried to watch the new series but something leaves me cold so far - must be because they haven’t cast a real Marseillais as Edmond Dantes.
That might just possibly be the reason...
Things heat up quickly…
Tory source: “Graham Simpson is a pathetic nasty little man who won’t be missed. Just last year, he had to apologise to a young female member of staff for acting in a totally inappropriate, bullying and intimidating way towards her…”
The real eye-opener, for me, was reading the unabridged version of the Three Musketeers, a few years ago. My school's version turned out to have been heavily redacted, to exclude the musketeers' more dubious actions.
Dumas, whose grandmother was a Haitian slave, had a lovely put-down to a racist rival who called the woman "a monkey".
"It would appear that my family tree begins where yours ends."
However the woke flip the argument on its head sometimes, and say “only a trans person can play a trans role” or “only a black writer can write about black experiences”
Sod off with that. The whole point of acting and fiction writing is the ability to get inside someone else’s head. If you can do it you can do it
Imagine saying to Shakespeare “sorry you can’t write othello” or “you were never a young virgin girl in Verona”
However he also sounds a perfect fit for Reform, which is probably part of the SCon problem.
If one wants to create a fantasy world, in which early medieval Scandinavia is a multi-racial society, where women wield similar power to men, all well and good, but don't attempt to root it in real history.
Reform 'centre right' is utter and complete nonsense and delusional
If you want to do a role reversal play eg Othello or the Nelson Manella story where the roles are reversed (which has been done for Othello) then you will have white actors playing the black role playing the white role and black actors playing the white role playing the black role.
And if the audience doesn't come out completely confused then I would be amazed.
So clearly in this case (which has been done), you have to be the correct colour for the role. In most other cases however it doesn't matter at all.
Life is complicated. There are no hard and fast rules. Use common sense as to whether it matters or not.
Simpson was second on central Scotland list for Con last time, which probably won't have been enough to secure a seat next year. Wonder if he will be appointed in a leadership position for Reform, Michelle Ballantyne doesn't seem to be involved with them right now
Damage limitation now, Scottish Tories in danger of coming 4th or worse in Holyrood seat numbers in 2026
I'd add that it's not just period dramas. Pretty much every programme on the telly - period drama, sitcom, panel show, documentary, advert - has a quota of non-white faces in a way which in much of the country just doesn't happen in the real world and is the result of deliberate choice rather than random chance. It's at its most noticeable in period drama because, well, obviously in that respect it usually looks as obviously unreal as characters using mobile phones would - but good acting can overcome this reasonably quickly. Celebrity game shows trouble the statistician in me - statistically, you would expect all-white line ups to occur reasonably frequently: always having at least one non-white participant in Richard Osman's House of Games must be a challenge: scheduling famous people is tricky and an element of last-minute juggling is often involved, and if the non-white participant pulls out presumably needs to be replaced by another non-white participant. The production meetings where these conversations take place must be very peculiar.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvge48j5lplo
Senior official says they will not take money but instead accept aid to support any Afghans deported under Reform plans"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/08/26/taliban-ready-and-willing-work-with-nigel-farage-migrants
It’s a bit of a shame because it distracts from an entertaining if lightweight tv drama
I had this from Robert last night.
I appreciate this is not the way things are normally looked at!
You ask, "Why not strive for accuracy?" Some shows/films choose to focus on that; others don't. Shakespeare's play "Macbeth" is not remotely an accurate portrayal of the real Macbeth, but some people think it's quite a good play. If you go and see "Macbeth" and come out of it thinking, "Why not strive for accuracy?", that's fair enough. That was your reaction to the play. But is that the last word to be said on "Macbeth"? Probably not.
Then the director or someone senior on set notices and points it out whereupon everyone has a meltdown worrying that if they tell the extra he can’t be used because he is black they will be in a load of trouble for discrimination. The production team don’t know the rules/laws and the costs and time involved in checking out whether they can replace the extra makes it prohibitive so they decide that the safest option is to just go with it.
Are there exemptions to discrimination laws for casting where the director/producer can specify race of actors/extras if not a specifically identifiable character?
Sounds as if speaking French all the time would have been better. The subtitles would be needed - but would have made the point of the alien language being imposed on the A/S. Unless the aim or the film was to glorify William and the Norman Conks?
@PolliticoUK
🚨 Westminster Voting Intention:
➡️ REF: 28% (=)
🌹 LAB: 20% (-1)
🌳 CON: 17% (-1)
🔶 LDEM: 16% (+1)
🟢 GRN: 11% (+1)
From @YouGov
From 25th - 26th August
Changes with 18th August
"Reform also led across every region apart from London, where Labour topped the poll."
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/labour-popular-polls-reform-uk-w3xq39z68
Do they include Scotland in this?
A victory for verisimilitude!
More widely across sub-Saharan Africa soil nutrients are a huge limiting factor. The majority of the continent hasn’t yet had the green revolution, and the cost of fertiliser at the moment isn’t helpful.
I suspect we’re just biased by exposure to local and US media.
That would NOT have been a 'centre right' position even a year ago but now it is being advocated from the 'centre Left' establishment.
The Conservatives will announce we should leave the ECHR at their conference in October by which point Reform and rhe world and his wife will already have done likewise at this rate.
Figures like Dominic Grieve from the old 'centre right' now appear increasingly extreme imho, for instance advocating the Courts ignore Parliamentary egislation if they think it contradicts Humman Rights.
I have read the Robin Buss translation half a dozen times, which is the one you consider the best? I bought the book in French with the idea of reading it one day, but never have
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqIFsB8I_EQ
Aha - THERE ... FUCKETY-FUCK ... CRUNCH. Austin Maxis are not very good for catching front wheel skids.
Darling sister demonstrated that for VW Polos soon after in my first car in the snow.
I'm not wholly at ease with what I understand to be the IAM "drive to the speed limit where you can" ethos; I think we under-emphasize possible consequences of "minor" hazards, such as not being able to see behind things or in low sunlight.