Anne Boleyn

Human being are still animals, however much they have evolved. Animals are aware of differences. They have to be. If they are not alert to intruders, their territory, food supply or females could be taken over.

Humans have enough self-awareness (and enough knowledge of how all societies have much the same rules of conduct) to know that the stranger in town is NOT after their back garden, their Tesco order or their wife. At least, they should have that awareness, and be able to over-ride any residual animal instinct.

FannyCornforth. Think about it. Perception of difference is hard wired into us. Look at every culture and country throughout history. I didn't say it was a good thing just an unavoidable one.

Or cultural appropriation!

trisher

I'm just wondering if we have a drama about the French Revolution should we ensure a French actor always has the part of Robespierre? Should we import Spanish actors for Franco? Where does it end? I'm not sure Hollywood should be allowed to make any films about British history, unless they use British actors.
I'm laughing as well lemon the concept of British parts for British actors is hilarious

Of course not
It's all about the skin colour
Racism.

I'm just wondering if we have a drama about the French Revolution should we ensure a French actor always has the part of Robespierre? Should we import Spanish actors for Franco? Where does it end? I'm not sure Hollywood should be allowed to make any films about British history, unless they use British actors.
I'm laughing as well lemon the concept of British parts for British actors is hilarious

Has anyone said the actress isn’t English? I thought AB spent a long time in France and spoke with a French accent. I have always thought she was dark haired and with dark eyes. What’s being English got to do with it?

Aveline

Humans will always struggle with people who are different from them. An awareness of different races will always be around.

Good God.
I'm bloody glad that I don't feel like that.
What a miserable existence.

How long does it take a person to become 'English'?
The actress in question may have family going back several generations.
And likewise, I may have white skin but have been born in India to a great grandmother who was born in India.
Is Felicity Kendall Indian?
Cliff Richard?
Nah, it's all about skin colour.

lemongrove

....and is giving me something to laugh at?

Rude.

trisher It's called artistic licence

Actually it’s called arty fartery as lemongrove so beautifully put it.

Some of the posts on these forums could be euphemistically termed artistic licence!

Humans will always struggle with people who are different from them. An awareness of different races will always be around.

Doodledog However, what we do know is that she wasn’t black!!

The day this question is not asked is the day that we will have left racism behind us where it belongs.

There may be versions Doodledog, but not that she was black.
I repeat, it’s arty fartery and was probably done to grab headlines and viewers.

....and is giving me something to laugh at?

That's OK Doodledog Great to find agreement

Sorry, trisher. Cross posted to say much the same thing ?

tickingbird

^It's not fact you know it is a play^

Actually trisher it is fact. Anne Boleyn was a real person.

Yes, she was a real person, but any drama is fictionalised. We don't know, and never will, what her motives were, what Henry felt about Katherine, whether she loved Henry Percy, what Cromwell was thinking, what any of their private lives were like. We can't know any of that, so the scriptwriters make it up. That this seems to be news to so many people is a mystery to me.

As I said upthread, it is not meant to be a revision guide. It is entertainment. Those with a knowledge of history will be able to pick out the 'facts', and everyone else can just enjoy the story.

If she doesn't get beheaded at the end I'd be very surprised, as that, the fact that Henry divorced Katherine to marry her, that she was the mother of Elizabeth and miscarried other babies, and that the C of E split from Rome in order that her marriage could go ahead are amongst the few facts that we know.

What do people think Historians do? They research the facts, put them together to tell stories that match their world view and fit with their understanding of facts from other stories of the day. There are various versions of Anne. A scheming plotter, a witch, an adulteress, a misguided romantic, and most recently the victim of a narcissistic tyrant who may have suffered from an inherited blood disorder that caused many of his offspring to die.

Whichever version you (generic) were taught at school is not necessarily the right one. Until we can go back in a time machine we will never know which is right, and even then, two time travellers seeing the same thing are likely to report it differently from one another. That this version may not match your favourite version (and without seeing it you will never know) is surely not a good reason for rubbishing it.

So she was, and there have been numerous dramas about all the Tudors few of which were fact based. It is possible to have real people in fictional pieces of work, you know. I very much doubt if all the trappings, costumes, settings and language used are authentically 16th century, so why not complain about them? "Oh that dress has some machine made lace on it. In 15?? it would have been handmade." It's called artistic licence.

It's not fact you know it is a play

Actually trisher it is fact. Anne Boleyn was a real person.

Other historians have pointed out that the evidence that either Madragana or Margarita was Black is pretty thin. Madragana was recorded as a Moor by one Portuguese royal chronicler, but that claim was disputed by another; it has also been suggested that she was a “Mozarab”, a group with its own ethnic and cultural history in Europe

Trying to post a link to this article but difficult as I’m using my phone.

Sorry are we now going to do "Let's keep our British History British and White" ??? (Damned foreigners get in everywhere!!!!)
It's not fact you know it is a play

And calling it contrived arty-fartery is inverse snobbery.

Certain characters in history are so well documented (British history) that to present them as black or Chinese or any other race, is just contrived arty-fartery.
Can you sit back and seriously accept a black actor as Anne Boleyn ( I mean WHY?) or a black actor playing Hitler/ Queen Victoria/ Stalin/ etc etc.Most people would find it laughable.

I have seen some terrific plays where black actors have played white kings: Anjoa Andoh as Richard II, David Oyelowo as Henry IV and Adrian Lester as Henry V. Cracking performances all of them.

Shakespeare's plays have been translated into over 100 languages and performed in countries where the predominant skin colour is not white and facial features do not conform to whatever European "norm" people expect of this Channel 5 production. Does having a black African Anne Boleyn or a Japanese Anne Boleyn make a production any less valid? Of course not.

Black actors playing white historical figures is nothing new - Ira Aldridge, for example, who played Richard III.

It's time we looked beyond skin colour and other physical characterisics and simply enjoyed the acting.