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Friday 21 August 2015

"Diversity" in 15th Century England?


"Diversity" in 15th Century England?


It seems that even the 15th Century English nobility must be presented as being “Diverse”!

The article below is from the “Right on” Leftist newspaper “The Independent”. It illustrates perfectly the extent of historical untruthfulness and disinformation that the "Arts Council for England" and "Equity" and the "Actors Union", insist upon going to propagandise their political ideologies of “multi-culturalism” and “diversity”.

The reported row shows that to the publically funded Arts Council for England considers it more important to cast plays in a “diverse” and “inclusive” fashion than to present either a vision of the truth to audiences or even to present a play focussed on doing its best for the audiences’ benefit. On the contrary every play this unaccountable quango thinks should be an opportunity for multiculturalist propaganda!

I would suspect that any local theatres which receive public funds will refuse to allow the play to be presented there. So if you want to see it you may need to go to Kingston!


Here is the article. What do you think?

“Trevor Nunn defends all-white Shakespeare histories


One of Britain's most celebrated theatre directors, Sir Trevor Nunn, is embroiled in a furious row over the all-white cast chosen for his latest Shakespearean production, The Wars of the Roses. The distillation of four history plays, which opens at the Rose Theatre in Kingston next month, will be performed by a 22-strong cast led by Joely Richardson and Rufus Hound.

The casting has been condemned by the actors’ union Equity and drawn criticism from Arts Council England and diversity campaigners who are angry at what they describe as a “whitewashing” of history. Malcolm Sinclair, the president of Equity, said: “Whilst wishing every individual actor in the production well, can it be acceptable best practice in 2015 to cast a project such as this with 22 actors but not one actor of colour or who apparently identifies themselves as having a disability?”

And in a statement, Equity’s minority ethnic members committee said: “To present this benchmark of British heritage in a way that effectively locks minorities out of the cultural picture [literally] flies in the face of the huge conversation taking place in British media at present, of the very real progress made in recent years to increase diversity in our industry.”

Responding to the criticisms, Sir Trevor told The Independent on Sunday said he was a longstanding member of the movement to “cast, whenever possible, according to the principle of diversity”, but in this case of The War of The Roses he had made an “artistic decision” to cast according to “historical verisimilitude”.

He added: “The connections between the characters, and hence the narrative of the plays, are extremely complex, and so everything possible must be done to clarify for an audience who is related by birth to whom. Hence, I decided that, in this instance, these considerations should take precedence over my usual diversity inclination.”

That explanation was confirmed by a spokesperson for the Rose Theatre, who said: “A creative decision was taken by the director that a naturalistic historical approach in casting was required.”

Critics have questioned the “verisimilitude” of the production, which amalgamates Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy and Richard III and is sponsored by Norway’s largest financial services group, DNB. Norwegian actor Kare Conradi was chosen to plays Edward IV. And two British actresses, Joely Richardson and Imogen Daines, play the French characters Margaret of Anjou and Joan of Arc.

Simon Mellor, executive director of arts and culture, Arts Council England said: “This production seems out of step with most of British theatre where casting that ignores an actor’s race is increasingly the norm."

He added: "Whilst we do not fund the Rose Theatre, we expect organisations we fund to actively ensure their programme, and the artists that create it, reflect the people of contemporary England.”

And actor Danny Lee Wynter, founder of Act For Change, which campaigns for greater diversity in the arts, said: “The Wars of the Roses caused us concerns, particularly the justification of historical accuracy which displayed a lack of awareness of the debate ... It’s very hard in this day and age to have a company that size which is all white.” Mr Wynter added: He added: “They have not been ‘historically accurate’ in having a Norwegian actor in the company.

Trevor Nunn, the Rose Theatre Kingston, and Ginny Schiller who cast this production have placed themselves in a tremendously unfavourable corner ... worryingly, some will take the Rose Theatre’s whitewashing of history as gospel.”

Ms Schiller, who cast the play, told The Independent on Sunday: “On this occasion Trevor Nunn – a director with a proven commitment to diverse casting – decided that because of the complex family tree and conflicting claims to the throne through direct lineage to Edward III, a naturalistic ‘colour aware’ approach was required.” She added: “All the supporting actors will play many parts, and at some point in the trilogy take on roles who are related to the Houses of York and Lancaster by blood. This is why even those roles with no genealogical link to the families were also cast white.”

In a statement last night, Sir Trevor said: “Having been involved since the early 1970s in the movement to cast, wherever possible, according to the principle of diversity, I am, of course, saddened to discover that Equity has criticised the casting for my current project.” He added: “I took the artistic decision that a trilogy of Shakespeare’s early history plays, telling in documentary detail the story of the English monarchy and English nobility in the second half of the 15th century, should be presented with, as far as possible, historical verisimilitude.”

The row highlights the continuing debate over the lack of diversity in British theatre and comes just months after actor Adrian Lester, speaking during an event at London’s National Theatre, said: “It’s up to us to gather in groups and embarrass the sides of the industry that we can...and to consistently, always, constantly ask for change.”

Diversity is one of the biggest challenges facing the arts today, says Equity, and the union recently issued its first ever policy on ‘inclusive casting’ to tackle what is calls “discrimination across the industry.” This calls for targets for casting actors from diverse backgrounds, regardless of sex, disability, race or sexuality, along with equality monitoring of performers, stage management and creative teams.

Julia Horan, a member of the Casting Directors Guild of Great Britain, commented: “I think that everybody in the industry supports the idea of inclusive casting and it is part of a constant conversation about who we should cast which is taking place in theatres across Britain.” But she added: “There’s a wider issue of a lack of diversity which extends beyond casting to the entire industry itself. Diversity only moves forward when the people doing the picking are diverse and if there’s no diversity in that then there will never be any true diversity in terms of who’s on stage.””


(Here is a link to the original story>>>Trevor Nunn defends all-white Shakespeare histories - News - Theatre & Dance - The Independent )


18 comments:

  1. This is totally bonkers. I remember, I think it was the BBC's production of Dickens' Bleak House, where two of the actors were Asian and we all remember the half-African Little Nell. And I recently mentioned "Diversity" in the current production of Les Miserables. I also said we are not allowed to indulge in the willing suspension of disbelief by having a blacked-up Othello any more but we are expected to do so by having non-Europeans playing Europeans. The sad thing is that rather than set up their own non-European versions of European society with their own parallel institutions in their own countries non-Europeans seem to want to flood into white countries and pretend they are Europeans. It is all most odd and I cannot imagine the reverse being allowed to take place even if Europeans wanted to. Can you imagine the Chinese allowing blacks or whites to play Chinese characters? We are now reaching crunch time, rather than telling and allowing non-Europeans to come to white countries and complain about the way they get treated, we need now through the United Nations to help them in their own countries so they can live there in comfort and dignity. As Powell said, they should take the knowledge and skills they have acquired here and return to help their own; but they never ever want to do that, leaving Europeans to do it for them.

    In this regard, I was distressed by scenes of Syrian refugees at the Macedonian border trying to get to northern Europe ( still a lot of single young men though ). However, Europe's problems of immigration and terrorism have been caused by the foreign policies of Washington and the neo-cons to aid the Zionist state. The policy of Greater Israel, I have been told, is not taking over neighbouring Muslim lands but just destabilising and weakening them, especially leaders like Sadam Hussein, Khaddafi and Assad. And the upshot is the destruction of Europe as well. Russia is trying to use diplomacy to solve the Syrian crisis but is thwarted by Washington's policy of wars for oil and Israel.
    This madness and the madness of multiculturalism in Europe must end.

    The latest example of Washington and its European client states' policy is the attempted gun attack on the Amsterdam to Paris train. You knew it was coming soon and we are lucky that it did not happen in the Tunnel on the Eurostar, although that might still be attempted.

    Finally, the BBC is now bombarding us with programmes about India as they acknowledge that England is turning into an offshoot of the Indian sub-continent. Once upon a time our kith and kin were in the Old Commonwealth, even the United States. But are they trying to tell us that the majority of the kith and kin of those in this island will one day be in Afro-Asian countries. I would be interested in programmes about India if I did not feel that it was another example of brainwashing the English.

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    1. No. The BBC is presenting a series of programmes about India. Hardly "bombarding".
      Clive,
      W-s-M.

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    2. My recollection is that there have been quite a few programmes about India in recent months.

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  2. Apart from a slight accent, I doubt if the Norwegian actor looked any different from his Viking brothers in England; unlike those from Afro-asia.
    Mad as hatters the lot of them.

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  3. "Discrimination" is a word the Politically Correct use whwn they can't hit you with "racist" or "xenophobic". I remember, in my teens, reading articles in newspapers comdemning the crying of "discrimination" by groups, as a means of getting what they wanted. Now, they all seem to be aboard the Diversity Bandwaggon.
    Here's one for "diversity". How about a production of Porgy and Bess, with Europeans in the principal roles?
    Clive,
    W-s-M.

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    1. Clive,
      This is all rather silly and racialist. Are you saying that Africans or Asians should never stage Shakespeare in their own countries? Acting is about portraying characters. There is no reason why Europeans should not black up to play Porgy and Bess, and I'm sure they have. In the interest of authenticity, black actors could "white up" in historical plays.

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    2. This is neither "silly" nor "rac(ial)ist". I wrote nothing that expressed or implied that Africans or Asians should not stage Shakespeare in their own countries. Actors in any country should stage Shakespeare.
      But this post is not about that, or about blacking-up, or about whiting up.
      It's about the Policically Correct peddling the notion that to have an all-"white" cast is bad. It is not.
      I have no doubt that if Trevor Nunn were to stage Porgy and Bess, he would (quite rightly) select an all-"black" cast. My point, (which you either missed or evaded,) was that the Politically Correct would not be crying "discrimination" were he to do so.
      Clive.

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    3. Clive,
      "he would (quite rightly) select a "all-black" cast". Why "quite rightly"? That is an inherently racialist statement, because you are saying that race rather than ability is the criterion. (You could be saying that Agatha Christie's Poirot could only be played by a Belgian). If there were white actors more suited to the role, why shouldn't they do it blacked up?

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    4. Clive regarding this, the ultimate plan is that white countries all end up coffee-coloured and that the white race be put to the sword on the assumption that it is the source of all the world's wrongs ( forget the good we have done the world).
      Terry Deary in his Dangerous Days in Elizabethan England comments that all schollboys once knew about Drake and his game of bowls but that now all they know about is Nazi Germany ( and black slavery and the evils of the Raj). The school curriculum has now been hijacked by the Marxist anti-racist agenda, as is the EU seeing their comments about Slovakia. This mindset now controls Europe, the US and all hitherto white countries but no non-white ones. Smell a rat, I do. Slovakia has now said that they never bombed Libya so why do they have to take all these refugees. Well said, they should all end up in the US, Israel or on Blair and Cameron's doorsteps. It was never in our name but neither was all of which the British Establishment has done to us since the War.

      As regards Slovakia

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    5. I'm not sure what your agenda is, but you are sounding like a member of the Politically Correct. I don't have a racist (or racialist, as you seem to prefer,) bone in my body and resent its being suggested that I do, particularly by someone who will not put his name to the accusation. Here, for a final time, are my points.
      1. There is nothing wrong with an all-"white" cast, especially if the setting of the production makes it appropriate.
      2. There is nothing wrong with an all-"black" cast, especially if the setting of the production makes it appropriate.
      3. There is nothing wrong with the cast consisting of "white", "black", "asian" or any other actors in any combination, if the setting of the production makes it appropriate.
      Perhaps you could become a theatre producer and see how you get on persuading "black" actors to "white-up".
      Clive.

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  4. Robin.

    There are opts under Sections 39 and 40 of the Equality Act 2010 known as "Genuine Occupational Requirements" that will legally allow only white people to be selected as actors in this instance.

    The problem is that marxist controlled organisations wont use those provisions and if they do it will only be as parts of anti English or anti white propaganda.

    The msm and Equality and Human Rights Commission keep very quiet on this important issue. Its now time to bombard them with the UN Declaration of Rights For Indigenous Peoples if they wont take note.

    Francis

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  5. This debate is a distraction from the real issue of the continuation of the English as a nation and the destruction of England as a nation state. What is going on might be seen as a repeat of the fate of native Americans and aboriginal Australians. It could be seen as the European nations getting their just returns, but two wrongs however do not make a right.

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    1. Whilst I agree that our fundamental goal must be the emancipation of England, the Politically Correct notion that "diversity" (as engineered by the British Westminster elite,) is "what it's all about" is a major contributor to "the destruction of England as a nation state".
      This debate is very relevant.
      Clive,
      W-s-M.

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    2. The latest symptom of the Government's determination to destroy England is the way in which the BBC has been forced to transfer provision of its weather forecasting service from the Meteorological Office to a foreign provider, despite the implications for national defence. (The Tories' wrap themselves in the flag, but are quite happy to hand over our defence to foreigners when they can see a financial gain. They put the interest of their class globally before that of the nation.)
      Pushing weather forecasting overseas is another element in the deliberate erosion of the social cohesion which creates a nation.

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    3. I have said this before. Two wrongs certainly do not make a right. Also, the past is the past. Today's Germans are not those who were in the Nazi Party; even to be in the Nazi Youth they would have to be in their eighties; and are well aware of what their fathers and grandfathers did and are not proud of it. My ancestors were working on the land and starving or working in mills and exploited as cheap, almost slave, labour. So I see no reason why I should apologise for black slavery. Indeed, if that were to be the case then all the descendants of those African tribes who sold the members of other tribes into slavery should apologise as well. Whites are now being targeted because other races and the Jews feel they have a grievance against them. Those countries which did not have empires overseas, principally those of Eastern Europe are expected to apologise for anti-Semitism or even attacking the Ottoman Empire and for the Crusades. Will we have an apology from the Turks ? We certainly never will from the Japanese. Of course we must not forget but multiculturalising Europe as a way of apologising does not make any sense and is a recipe for just further friction and bloodshed. Europeans are being dragged down because the weapon of guilt is being used against them. Being Christian in culture if no longer belief does not help of course. Because of the past, those from the former European empires feel they have a right to swarm into Europe rather than stay at home to try and put right - with help if offered - what needs doing in their own countries so they could have a decent standard of living. But I am not ignoring the role that European and North American big business have in the exploitation of Africa but that is not the doing of the average European or American either. There is a saying that those who do not learn from history are forced to repeat it. Perhaps the message to be learned from history is that there never will be a stable and cohesive pluralist society. Things rumble on in Ferguson Missouri as American whites get closer and closer to minority status. And in Germany Left and Right are fighting in Berlin over the thousands up thousands of asylum seekers that Germany feels constrained to let in, hamstrung by her past from taking a more robust stance. White countries are drowning under the tidal wave of peoples from the southern hemisphere. As things stand, they have no hope of retaining their homelands and their identity. It is now time to step back and do the best to create successful homelands for all races and cultures where they can live with their own in peace and prosperity. The time for shifting the problem elsewhere in the globe to the detriment of those nations whose ancestors worked hard and long to make them successful and exploit their own enterprise and initiative must come to an end. And yes, if there was European imperial exploitation then there is now aid and help and charity without taking account of the fact that Europeans took many societies from the stone age into the modern world and left behind the infrastructure to enable them to remain a part of it.

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  6. My wife commented on the sell-off of weather forecasting services. I joked that, like the call centres, our weather would now come from India. Perhaps I wasn't so far out!! As for social cohesion, Greece is now being dissected like a piece of meat. Its companies are to be privatised and sold off to foreigners and the Greeks will find that they are working for a pittance to make foreigners rich. First bankrupt and then privatise is the game. Privatisation here and the purchase of our railways, utility companies etc by foreigners has certainly reduced the sense of togetherness that common ownership i.e. nationalisation provided. But the writing is now on the wall. Max Keiser on Russia Today has been predicting total world financial collapse for many months now and the collapse in China seems to herald this. One commentator from the City University said that this would finally burst George Osborne's south-east England housing bubble which has led to two bedroom flats in London as being advertised for two to three million pounds. Globalisation is over, globalism is hopefully over as well. It was all ever designed to make the rich richer through the pushing down of wages through the import of cheap labour (going back to the days of Pakistanis and Arabs being imported to work in the mills of England and France) or going where cheap labour is so that companies never needed to pay Europeans or Americans a decent wage and creamed off the extra. Time to get back to the 1950s I hope when goods were not cheap but when everybody had a job and we had more in England than the City of London and tourism; we had the manufacturing whose removal under Thatcher has led to the obliteration of the English working classes for the benefit of the likes of Mrs T and her chums. But we are not alone, steel making and shipbuilding has virtually disappeared all over Europe. If the Chinese are getting too rich then the next source of cheap labour is going to have to be India or Africa. They seem to forget that many men get a sense of achievement through making things and tinker away in their sheds if they can no longer do it at work. Most do not want to be hedge fund managers, insurance salesmen or work in supermarkets, drive lorries or sit in front of a screen in a call centre.

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  7. The Daily Mail, 26/08/2015, reports that 8 million people in the country are immigrants. That ignores all the descendants of immigrants over the last 60 years.

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    1. I have commented on this on the next blog. The 8m does not include illegal immigrants either. The BBC is insisting on one in six non-white faces arguing that the population is now one sixth non-white so that is 11m alone. I estimate that the native English are now down below 80% of the English population, perhaps as low as 70%. They are meant to be in a minority by 2050 when the non-white population is meant to be a third.
      I think it will all take place at least a decade before then. So does Terence Stamp if we remember correctly. I would be interested to know who the Oxford think tank is that came up with this figure and what their agenda is.

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