A black actress is portraying Ann Boleyn in the current Channel 5 series. I am perfectly happy with this. After all, I have watched Macbeth with the cast clad in military fatigues and seen Hamlet and the rest of the Shakespearian cast clad in little more that jockstraps. I love this kind of thing, experiments essentially, and if they help to make Elizabethan wisdom more accessible and current, who am I to stand in the way of progress? I know there is more to the issue of a black actress playing a white historical figure than mere experimentation. Nevertheless, it is bold and risky and that is to be commended.
Therefore, I am fully on board with Jodie Turner-Smith playing the lead in Ann Boleyn both because she is astonishingly attractive and because she is good at her job. The former I can see with my own eyes and the latter I will have to take from the reviews I have read. This being a period piece costume drama and, thereby, along with the remainder of that genre and in common with all musical theatre, a crime against humanity, I leave the viewing to my wife, undisturbed.
So, there has been a frisson of raised eyebrows (do such people not read the guidance on microaggression?) about this amongst mainly white folks, but mostly muted and rightly so. Richard Nixon has been played by a black actor. Ironically, this is in an opera (Nixon in China) that is embroiled in a ‘yellowface’ row over its portrayal of Chinese people by western actors. I believe actors of all colours should have the opportunity to play sleazy, corrupt and discredited politicians. But can you imagine the outcry if, say, Orlando Bloom was tipped to portray Martin Luther King Jr or Jason Statham was to play Mohammed Ali? I doubt that this would be considered under the rubric of experimentation or even diversity. In fact, I think that this would be a massively inappropriate thing to do, given that the colour of both these characters was key to their stories. So, I am not advocating, I am just saying.
With no skin being removed from my nose, I witness the inexorable rise of black actors across the piece and on all UK TV channels. I will not patronise them by saying they do jolly well in their roles. On the contrary I have sat enthralled by some performances and refused to continue with a series based on terrible acting in equal measure, and that evenly distributed across actors black and white. But I also must note that if we are to believe there are as many black barristers and judges in the British legal system as these dramas seem to portray then I am less than convinced. But it is only art and acting and the fuss is not worth the opprobrium. I am fully convinced, unless the part specifically precludes it, that colour-blind casting is a laudable aim.
However, there is such sensitivity about the skin colour of actors in UK TV drama that even when a black actor, and one of the best in the business, Idris Elba in the long-running series Luther resumes the role, it transpires that he is not black enough. We are not so much ‘colour blind’ as colour hypersensitive and it is only acceptable to comment if the suggestion is that an actor should be blacker and that there should be more of them.
Speaking of the talented Mr Elba, I was all in favour of him being the next James Bond. Sorry, feminists, but I draw the line at Commander Bond being portrayed by a woman. A black James Bond would be a brilliant creation in the hands of Idris Elba, but I fear that his run of films may be most notable, in retrospect, because he was black. The performances of Macbeth and Hamlet that I refer to above—among several of each I have seen—were notable for the attire of the cast. The remainder have faded from memory. The ongoing series Ann Boleyn will be notable for the colour of the actress in the lead role. Let us hope, for the sake of Ms Turner Smith, that this is not the only reason it is notable.
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