DEJA
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Following on from the raven royal below, in the words of Jimmy Cricket… “And there’s more!”

Just the other day the BBC website featured a story about the Mawa Theatre Company which claims to be “…the UK’s first all Black, all female Shakespeare Company representing Women of the African diaspora. Mawa will address how Black and Black Mixed Race Women are represented in classical text and explore how Shakespeare translates to Black audiences, producing content that focuses on themes within his works that correlate with the Black community.”

They claim the company will “…be a beacon of Black female creativity and an agent for change.” Fair enough!

The BBC news story featured part of the balcony scene from ‘Romeo and Juliet’, with a black, female Juliet, and a black, female Romeo. Shomething wrong there surely… or does the ‘Black community’ believe that women are women... and men are as well? Could be… because in researching the male protagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy, l did a Google search for "Romeo". Lo… and also behold… top of the list was a gay dating website… that’s gay as in ‘homosexual’ as opposed to the hijacked word meaning ‘light-hearted and carefree’. So… half-way there I suppose!

The Artistic Director of the Mawa company states… “I do think there’s a correlation between how black people are treated in this country, and how they’re represented on stage. So how does having black actors play white characters solve that? Would the lady on the left pass for King Shaka Zulu? Answers on a postcard please!

If an audience… black, white, tangerine or turquoise can’t relate to Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’, then they must be clueless, cold-hearted or comatose. Set in Verona during the Renaissance, the costumes, the setting, the colour, the music, prove that Shakespeare is indeed… a man for all seasons! 53 years on, it is still fresh.

The DVD is available via a national outlet for a mere £2.00. Watch it and weep!

Zeffirelli revamped the play without betraying it, and made it accessible to 1960s audiences, without updating it… ay, there's the rub! Andrew Lloyds Banks’ recent version of ‘Cinderella’ has a ‘Goth refusenik’ heroine etc., etc., etc. The ‘Godmother’ (notice no ‘Fairy…’) is, according to one reviewer, “a grotesque plastic surgeon”! Well… since the folk tale dates back to around 7BC, there is no copyright, so you can do with it what you want… and be as toploftical (good word) as you like! One critic declares that he couldn’t see the point of it all... or who exactly it was meant for(!)

In my book, Morgan Freeman should have been awarded an Oscar for his performance in the 1989 film, ‘Driving Miss Daisy’, but I can’t imagine him in the role of Scarlett O’Hara or Cruella de Vil!

You have had your 15 minutes of fame, Mawa… time to open your parachutes before the ground arrives!