Comments by "Helen Trope" (@heliotropezzz333) on "BBC" channel.

  1.  @BalkanMode  Oh lighten up and join the 21st century. I'm sure they said that the first time women were allowed on stage. Shakespeare had to use men dressed as women of course.
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  2. You need to know a bit about Shakespeare and his plays to get the jokes, but not too much. They missed off the punchline here where the "posh boy" sees Kate and immediately forgets his obsession with Rosaline (as does Romeo in R&J).
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  3. OctoV70. Don't watch it then, if you don't like it. Your dramatic "suspension of disbelief" isn't working. Juliet in Romeo and Juliet is usually played by someone much older than 13 years but people don't usually complain.
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  4.  Smith kean  I notice you are dropping this same message around this comments page but sadly it's misleading to suggest that herbs can cure cancer . Look up Barry Sheene and Kathy Acker.
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  5. It's not a laughter track. It's filmed in front of a live studio audience.
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  6. So do they have to go to Anjou and find someone who looks like a typical Anjou woman?
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  7. and witty
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  8. It's great that a Shakespeare play is getting so many views. So many Shakespeare fans!
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  9. Don't pigeonhole her. I've seen her do some great tragic parts on stage. She's funny in real life and can do comedy and comedic acting but she is a serious actress too. Very versatile actually.
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  10. +Say That's probably the part when she is quoting a sonnet from Shakespeare.
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  11. +Anastasia Novikova Tell us some authors names so we know. I like Turgenev, Gogol, Solzhenitsyn as well as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.
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  12. Adarcus Who is manipulating him? Richard was once a boy King and may have been manipulated then but not when he was an adult. He was not a very good King except in his support of the arts and unlike Henry IV who ousted him, he did not persecute heretics, but Shakespeare makes him sympathetic when he loses power.
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  13. Centurion. It's certainly not a joke. It's a good performance and you forget about the casting if you watch the whole thing and get involved with it. Also the character she's playing was regarded with suspicion and dislike, being a foreigner (French). Though Sophie isn't French her casting acts as a good metaphor for people perceiving her different background at the time
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  14. Many comments about the casting, almost none about the play, from people who've not watched the whole play I suspect. In some castings, like that of Harriet Tubman, the race of the character is important to the drama but it's not crucial in this play for Margaret. She was regarded as a foreigner anyway as she was French but it's not crucial that she be played by a French woman.
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  15.  @KIWIchix0r  ??? A boar is a male pig. There are no pigs among the images. Angelica Houston is one of the ewes (female sheep).
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  16. Sometimes you don't realise the true size of someone until you see them sitting next to someone else. Taylor Swift looks enormous next to James all the others on the couch when you see the full shot.
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  17.  @justaghoulintheworld  What has your comment got to do with anything or are you just some random Putin fanicer?
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  18. When people's comments are only about the casting of Queen Margaret, you know that they know nothing about Shakespeare or his plays and in all likelihood they've not watched the full play.
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  19. I would not mind if the performance was good, after all nationality is not necessarily denoted by skin colour these days. Art and Theatre is all about challenging assumptions and prejudices isn't it?
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  20. In one series (series 1?), a girl blew something similar at a horse Tommy was riding. I think that was for luck. I doubt this one was for luck.
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  21. Iambic
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  22. David Walliams is a comedian. That was an act. He wasn't serious.
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  23. It's not canned laughter though. It's filmed in front of a live studio audience.
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  24. Shakespeare was never an accurate source of history. As a dramatist he was more interested in the drama of his stories.
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  25. I think it's about widening the audience for plays like this, not just in Britain but internationally (in the US for instance). It's played more as a drama than a strict history. If it was a history programme I'm sure they wouldn't be so flexible with the casting.
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  26.  @BalkanMode  It doesn't matter in drama unless the role specifically requires a certain race because the story is about racism.
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  27. Shakespeare never portrayed history as accurately as possible. This is drama not history.
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  28. And the government was clueless from then on.
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  29. That's right. He he's not meant to be a cartoon goodie or baddie but a complex man like many others.
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  30. +Jillyy *boring
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  31. +London Para She starts to speak London slang in a Shakespearian way - so when he threatens to fail her she starts saying "Am'st I bothered (pronouncing all the syllables in bothered -meaning Am I bothered?) In other words she is not worried by his threat. Is this the bothered face thou sees before thee? Looketh at my face" etc etc
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  32. PrincessRandomgirl33 No it does not mean that. It means she's not bothered (in other words she does not care).
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  33. Much of the humour is ironical if you know any of Shakespeare's work or studied it at school or know anything about the history. It's not meant to be belly laugh slapstick, and maybe some of it does not connect with people who know little about Shakespeare or don't enjoy his work.
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  34. 'You take the high road and I'll take the low road.' It's a line from a famous Scottish song.
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  35. KC Miles.One historical description I read about Margaret was that her skin was quite tanned. She came from the South of France where it's hot. Also Okonedo does not look her age. She looks much younger.
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  36. It's recorded in front of a live audience.
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  37. HenrySims. Ha! Ha! Pardon me.
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  38. tubbyrainbow111. Not a classy comment from you though.
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  39. Evil etc. You do realise Shakespeare plays have been cast with all women, all men, transposed into modern settings, like Richard III done as a Nazi type dictator, and there has already been an all black Hamlet. Both Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles played Othello, who is a black character. One of the reasons Shakespeare plays remain popular and relevant is that they speak to very human issues and to all times. The answer for those who don't like the casting is not to watch it, but hey, this version's proved popular. Here's are clips from a modern/traditional style TV series about Shakespeare's life shown not long ago on US TV (TNT channel), (the music is not from the show) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MCwIRarv0Q
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  40. If you read informative news sites, you'd see that the government has given itself the power to force people to isolate if they have the Coronavirus or even they've come from a country which is of concern. However if a lot of people refuse to isolate, you wonder whether there would be the resources to take action on them.
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  41.  @Rakkeyal  Me too. I've hardly recognise my old comments. It's as if they were written by someone else - someone more intelligent than me.
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  42. No it's because she's a good actress and deserves the part. This is a drama not a history.
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  43. MuscleAlphaMale. No, it's a Shakespeare play but not a "recreation of history". Shakespeare was not averse to changing the facts of history if it provided better drama. Many of these people look nothing like the historical characters they are playing. Henry VI is too handsome. Richard III does not have the right hairstyle and does not have scoliosis. Edward IV doesn't look tall enough. Elizabeth Woodville's hair should be blond instead of red. They don't talk like medieval people either. The clothes are made using modern materials but it's a great drama nonetheless.
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  44. Matty Browne. It depends which side of the divide you come from, but she knows where she lives.
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  45. How many people visited this site because they enjoy a good Shakespeare play?
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  46.  @fenriz218  It's not a farce. Why do people get so wound up about casting? In Shakespeare's time they watched women characters played by men. This is a drama not an accurate history.
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  47. How does this translate into other languages I wonder?
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  48. * "poppet" is a term of endearment. Did you mean "puppet"? Forget it, I've lost interest.
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  49. sean locheed. Firstly you need to say who your comment is to. An eye for an eye is about vengeance and retribution. I can't see the relevance of that comment. If you are saying the casting is not o.k. I would say it's such a small thing I can't understand why people are getting worked up about it.
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  50. noti tuz Or a Japanese Macbeth (see Throne of Blood) Or an American or English Hamlet or Romeo. Tut tut.
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