Anne Boleyn

I'm all for it - and for women taking male roles.

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.

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Chestnut

Both those are American productions and rightly or wrongly I suppose they choose actors who will attract audiences. I'm sure more effort would be made if we actually knew what Jesus looked like, but we don't. It was 2,000 years ago. We do know what Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I looked like.

Oh dear I mean we never watch American productions in England and of course we'd never utter a word of criticism about them.

Be honest you couldn't care less if a white man plays Jesus, no worries about respect and we certainly know that he didn't look like Ewan McGregor.

I wonder if there is anyone on here who has complained about Anne Boleyn being played by a black woman who has uttered a word about a biblical film with a white Jesus?

Callistemon

I'm not sure why history should be made modern.

I'm not saying that it should - just that I like the fact that the story is being made timeless, which (execution aside!) I think it is.

The story could be told in any era as a tale of a man who falls in love, pursues the woman until she gives in/marries him, and is blissfully happy for a short time until he gets bored. When that happens, everything she does annoys him, he finds a new woman on whom to fixate, gets rid of the first one, and the cycle starts all over again.

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.

How successful this production will be remains to be seen, of course - we are only a third of the way in. I think it is flawed, but interesting. Anne's fear and desperation is made clear, as is the fact that she has done nothing to deserve it.

Also, Jane Seymour is not being played as an innocent virginal mouse, as she usually is, which is probably far more accurate historically. Henry married her 11 days after Anne's execution, which is horribly heartless, but typical of the way in which some people can simply turn their back on ex-lovers when they have tired of them.

Yes I was very disappointed with Henry he had no presence whatsoever. Will reserve judgement on the programme itself until I see the next one which I think is tomorrow night.

Now I've watched the first part my main complaint isn't that Anne is black but that Henry is so unimpressive. He was agiant of a man in the 1500s and people feared him. This Henry is indistinguishable from the rest of the court.

Not sure about leaping on him either. In those days the only acceptable way of sex was the missionary position. Anything else was basically immoral. There were rumours that Anne had learned interesting techniques in France but we don't know how far these went.

It seems a bit odd to me to complain about the colour of an actor's skin but accept complete inaccuracies in how women were treated in the Tudor court and basic facts we know from historic documents.

This is where I found it Namsnanny

www.houseofnames.com

Can't vouch for the accuracy!

I'm not sure why history should be made modern.

There are lots of inaccuracies, but they are happening in an effort to make the story more universal and modern, and I have no problem with that in itself if it appeals to a younger audience.

I'm not sure what I think yet. It is certainly a different approach to telling the story. I do like that it is showing the story as one between a man and a woman, rather than just a king and a queen, and that we can see how her world slipped away from her through no fault of her own.

Well if you were looking for authenticity a black Anne Boleyn is the least of the problems. A Queen who walks around the palace at night alone and jumps on the king!! It's the Tudors seen through the lens of Eastenders!!!

Alegrias1

Oh dear.

The name Boleyn arrived in England after the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Boleyn family lived in Lincolnshire and various other areas throughout Britain. The name of this family, however, does not refer to these areas, but to the French Channel port of "Boulogne."

When is the cut off?

I'm not so sure. Where did you find this info Alegrias1?

I was always under the impression that the different spelling of the surname made it very difficult to pin down where it came from, let alone tie it closely to Boulogne.

It was spelt as Bullen as I posted earlier.

When she was writing in French she still signed it 'Bulen'.

Whitewavemark2

What do people think of the actors that have played Jesus?

Robert Powell. Best Jesus ever. Clearly not the right nationality. But it didn't matter.

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What do people think of the actors that have played Jesus?

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Chestnut

So you're saying her father may have had some distant French ancestors? Clutching at straws here. Anne was born more than 400 years after the Norman Conquest and would have had several generations of ancestors during that time. The name Boleyn is inherited from just one male line. Goodness knows how many females were in her tree during that period, none of them Boleyns. In 400 years you would have many hundreds of ancestors, only one was originally a Boleyn.

European, African, Asian etc - where do you think the English fit?

Oohh, I just found out Ustinov was descended from an Ethiopian aristocrat.

So you're saying her father may have had some distant French ancestors? Clutching at straws here. Anne was born more than 400 years after the Norman Conquest and would have had several generations of ancestors during that time. The name Boleyn is inherited from just one male line. Goodness knows how many females were in her tree during that period, none of them Boleyns. In 400 years you would have many hundreds of ancestors, only one was originally a Boleyn.

Oh dear.

The name Boleyn arrived in England after the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Boleyn family lived in Lincolnshire and various other areas throughout Britain. The name of this family, however, does not refer to these areas, but to the French Channel port of "Boulogne."

When is the cut off?

Alegrias1

As far I am aware England is in the continent of Europe...? ?

'of European descent' implies a possible mixed heritage of European countries. If someone is English you say English, if French you say French etc. It's not a term that implies they are actually just English. Peter Ustinov is of European descent.