Anne Boleyn

Lin52 Perhaps you realise that Jesus was made in the image of man, so yes all those could be him.
Absolutely! And man was made in the image of God. Back to square one. We don't know what God looked like. Maybe Robert Powell was a good likeness ?

The Kell theory has been known and talked about amongst Academics for a while, there is also a huge following of Boleyn on You tube, run by an expert and author of books on the Tudor period. It doesn’t take the playing of her by Smith to define her, and tell us differently. Apparently it is historically inaccurate too. Still a bit of fantasy is all too quickly counted as fact. Not many will check them, just believe it.

Lin52

Whitewavemark2

lemongrove

Whatdayisit

Come on Chestnut we know who Jesus certainly didn't look like.
Anyway tonight is the night.

No, actually we have no idea what he looked like.

Come on give it a guess, it wouldn’t be rocket science would it?

A. Jesus was almost certainly from European extraction.

B. Jesus was almost certainly from Asian extraction.

C. Jesus was almost certainly from Arab/Jewish extraction.

D. Jesus was almost certain from African/ Jewish extraction.

So I would go for C and D.

Given your objection to the young lady currently acting in the Anne Boleyn roll perhaps you have a comment about those actors having played Jesus?

Perhaps you realise that Jesus was made in the image of man, so yes all those could be him.

Oh yes that would be it then?????

Whitewavemark2

lemongrove

Whatdayisit

Come on Chestnut we know who Jesus certainly didn't look like.
Anyway tonight is the night.

No, actually we have no idea what he looked like.

Come on give it a guess, it wouldn’t be rocket science would it?

A. Jesus was almost certainly from European extraction.

B. Jesus was almost certainly from Asian extraction.

C. Jesus was almost certainly from Arab/Jewish extraction.

D. Jesus was almost certain from African/ Jewish extraction.

So I would go for C and D.

Given your objection to the young lady currently acting in the Anne Boleyn roll perhaps you have a comment about those actors having played Jesus?

Perhaps you realise that Jesus was made in the image of man, so yes all those could be him.

Chestnut

^Given your objection to the young lady currently acting in the Anne Boleyn roll perhaps you have a comment about those actors having played Jesus?^
As said before, these were mostly decades ago, and mostly American productions. If you want to discuss the rights and wrongs of American casting of movies over the last 60 years then that's another thread. As for Jesus, he was the Son of God, and we don't know what God looks like. Maybe he was white, so how can we know what Jesus looked like ?

Dear oh dear.

So a mother and father who were of Arab extract? Must give you a clue?

As the Greeks colonised the nearest coastal town, where Jesus uncle lived and traded, I would add E) jewish/Greek-European to your suggestions and that would be my vote!

Given your objection to the young lady currently acting in the Anne Boleyn roll perhaps you have a comment about those actors having played Jesus?
As said before, these were mostly decades ago, and mostly American productions. If you want to discuss the rights and wrongs of American casting of movies over the last 60 years then that's another thread. As for Jesus, he was the Son of God, and we don't know what God looks like. Maybe he was white, so how can we know what Jesus looked like ?

Daisend1

There must be many black actors who could have fulfilled other roles in this production.Why stop at the main character?

That makes more sense.

lemongrove

Whatdayisit

Come on Chestnut we know who Jesus certainly didn't look like.
Anyway tonight is the night.

No, actually we have no idea what he looked like.

Come on give it a guess, it wouldn’t be rocket science would it?

A. Jesus was almost certainly from European extraction.

B. Jesus was almost certainly from Asian extraction.

C. Jesus was almost certainly from Arab/Jewish extraction.

D. Jesus was almost certain from African/ Jewish extraction.

So I would go for C and D.

Given your objection to the young lady currently acting in the Anne Boleyn roll perhaps you have a comment about those actors having played Jesus?

The wardrobe department did a great job with the women’s costumes as well - I don’t know how authentic they were, but the colours were amazing, and they really excelled in making Anne stand out as the central character.

But oh, that script....

I think they’ve had a lucky escape. The vast majority of reviews are very scathing - why would anyone want it on their CV? Jodie Turner-Smith’s performance has been praised, and I agree with that - I think she and some of the other actors deserved a lot better.

Daisend1

There must be many black actors who could have fulfilled other roles in this production.Why stop at the main character?

Absolutely agree.

There must be many black actors who could have fulfilled other roles in this production.Why stop at the main character?

I have to agree that the script was very clunky at times. Anne would certainly not have been roaming about on her own so much, Henry liked to have all his wives watched at all times. He would never have been left in bed on his own after his fall. The panic caused by the possibility of him dying would have meant half the court would have been there along with Cranmer and assorted doctors. Have we seen Cranmer at all yet?

I watched the first episode, won't be watching again - what a load of codswallop. I feel sorry for that beautiful girl being put under the microscope for playing Anne Boleyn and having to contend with such an appallingly clunky script. Calling for the peacocks to be shot? There were only cannons available in that era, so whilst I don't expect total historical accuracy in a period drama I do expect the writers/researchers to have done their job properly.

AcornFairy

Doodledog I was interested by your comment that "As has been said, this is a drama, not a history lesson. Using the bones of one story to tell another one is a perfectly valid literary device."
Doesn't that depends on who is watching and why that person is watching? Surely I'm not the only one who watches historical "drama" on TV and hopes to learn about history; as opposed to sharing the artistic spin that a contemporary writer puts on "the bones".

Yes, I take your point, but there are things like the History Channel, or documentaries on BBC (and elsewhere) for people wanting factual information. Even then, though, there are differences in what they say, because historians have different views about what happened and why. If they didn't, there would be one definitive book of history and that would be that.

Any drama set 500 years ago is going to be largely fictional anyway.

I never watch historical drama and expect to learn more about the facts of history. It's drama set in the past, as far as I'm concerned, so should never been taken as historically accurate.

DH and I watched the new Anne Boleyn but we didn't like it much, it was a bit ponderous and I got fixated on what the clock represented! But we remembered how much we enjoyed the historically-inaccurate The Tudors. The episode where Anne goes to her death is amazingly well acted.

Doodledog I was interested by your comment that "As has been said, this is a drama, not a history lesson. Using the bones of one story to tell another one is a perfectly valid literary device."
Doesn't that depends on who is watching and why that person is watching? Surely I'm not the only one who watches historical "drama" on TV and hopes to learn about history; as opposed to sharing the artistic spin that a contemporary writer puts on "the bones".

I didn't watch it, not because the actress playing Ann Boleyn is black, but because I'm bored stiff with Henry VIII they've been doing dramas about him and the Tudor period forever

We did have other monarchs although you'd never think so from a drama point of view.

Lemongrove
We know he would have looked like a Jewish Galilean man living in Palestine in the First Century because that is what he historically was.
We know he didn't look like a white 20th Century British man.

Maggiemaybe

I only tuned in out of curiosity after all the controversy, as quality C5 dramas are as rare as hens’ teeth in my opinion. It turns out that the casting was the only interesting thing about it.

There are so many black history stories just waiting to be told. Surely black actors would rather be telling them instead of being dragged into something as stodgy and hackneyed as this.

That would be a definite watch for me, we are not that much aware of most black history, a series about Mary Seacole, Olaudah Equiano, Mary Prince, and so many others, stories waiting to be told. Would enlighten many . Instead script writers are lazy , would rather rehash something that we all know.

I think some historical accuracy is important to the story and the question of Anne's innocence. One major point is that she was seldom ever alone (unlike this one) which made her opportunity for adultery very slight and is one of the reasons her brother was charged and her minstrel Mark Smeaton who were among the few men she saw alone.

Apparently it was dull and historically inaccurate, well what a surprise, not.

Whatdayisit

Come on Chestnut we know who Jesus certainly didn't look like.
Anyway tonight is the night.

No, actually we have no idea what he looked like.

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