Speaking out: Director Joe Wright at the Film Independent Screening of “Cyrano” in Los Angeles, California
(Picture: Getty Images)DIRECTOR Joe Wright has revealed that the BBC blocked his attempt to cast Sophie Okonedo as Charles II’s mistress in the 2003 period drama The Last King.
Wright says he was by executives that “the BBC or the BBC1 audience weren’t ready for that”. Yet the BBC marketed the show by celebrating the period’s “contemporary resonance” and writer Adrian Hodges pointed out that he had “taken certain liberties” because he is “a dramatic writer, not a historian”.
The series featured an all-white cast with Helen McCrory, Emma Pierson and Mélanie Thierry as Charles’s concubines. Okonedo did appear in the BBC’s series of Shakespeare adaptations The Hollow Crown as Margaret of Anjou in 2016.
Wright, who has directed Cyrano, said: “At that time I wasn’t powerful enough or strong enough necessarily to fight that difference. When I did Atonement I made sure that the black soldiers that served in the British army were represented. When I did Darkest Hour I made sure that the Caribbean community was represented, even in a small way,” he told the Empire podcast.
The BBC declined to comment.
Oh brother! Emily in Gallagher gaffe
EMILY MAITLIS is enjoying her freedom from Newsnight to say yes to “friends’ book launches and the odd invitation to dinner at the River Café”. But her chronic facial blindness still troubles her. Maitlis, who has just left the BBC for Global, writes about a recent River Café trip in Prospect magazine. She asked her supper companion, food writer Tom Parker Bowles, in “an am-dram conspiratorial whisper... ‘who’s the bloke next to us that looks like Liam Gallagher?’” Parker Bowles replied: “Noel”.
Mum’s the word at NME awards
JESSIE WARE brought her mum to the NME awards last night. “I think she’s going to have more of a rock ‘n’ roll night than me tonight because I have too high of a heel on,” Ware told us on the red carpet in Brixton. The singer and her mum Lennie run a successful podcast together. But Lennie was less sure than her daughter about who would have the better night. “My knees are hurting a bit,” she admitted. The price of glamour.
Tory tackle leaves Crabb hobbling
STEPHEN CRABB MP is recuperating after suffering a painful ankle injury in a rugby match following a tackle from a fellow Tory. Last weekend a Westminster team played one from the Welsh Senedd, but after five minutes Crabb had to be subbed off after a ruck involving Welsh Tory James Evans MS. “The challenge wasn’t even a nasty one,” a source in Evans’s office tells us. Crabb, though, was “rushed straight to hospital” and had to have surgery that evening. “If you see him hobbling around Westmister now you know why — he got done in by his own side,” the source added. Now that’s blue on blue.
Leshurr’s on yellow brick road to Brixton
LADY LESHURR hosted last night’s NME awards and prepared in style: “I took a couple of shots and clicked my heels like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz,” she told us, as stars flocked to Brixton. FKA twigs, who won an award, was full of love for London: “I’ve been pumping in Trocadero since I was 20.” And rapper Ghetts told us he would take Sadiq Khan to task over the congestion charge. If it changes, now you know why.
SW1A
BORIS JOHNSON claimed the UK’s system for welcoming Ukrainian refugees was “well out in front” of others. But last night the Home Office explained online that Ukrainians must book an appointment, have two checks and then wait “until we contact you”. Hardly the speediest for those fleeing from war.
---
STOP the War Coalition seem intent on doing themselves no favours. The group, at whose meeting Jeremy Corbyn MP spoke last night, is planning a No to War demonstration in London this weekend. But it was their choice of location that caught our eye. They want to hold it outside the BBC. Not the Russian embassy?
