Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish - reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!
Last week, I shared my thoughts on three British films. We had four book reviews last week:
I love this short video from the Hull city council about how their town was transformed to 1850s London as a set for The Personal History of David Copperfield:
An on-set photo of Dev Patel perfectly embodying the character of Dicken's David Copperfield prompted The Guardian to reflect on nontraditional casting. We can hope to see The Personal History of David Copperfield in 2019, featuring Dev Patel (Londoner with Indian heritage) as the title character and Benedict Wong (born in Greater Manchester to parents from Hong Kong) as Mr. Wickfield among other color-inclusive choices. And, the much more conventional choice of Peter Capaldi for Mr. Micawber. I'm thrilled with all of those choices.
The article reminds me of the play I saw last winter, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, where the Bennet sisters and other characters were unconventionally cast. To quote my own post:
Four women, who don't look alike or sound alike, convinced me that they were sisters by how they related to one another. I find that hopeful this Christmas season.
I also appreciated the point, made later in The Guardian article, that while nontraditional casting solves a certain kind of problem, another still needs to be addressed. Where are the stories about people of color who lived in London during Dicken's time? Where is the story that David Oyelowo wants to tell about a black bareknuckle boxer who was famous in the 18th-century? I still want to hear the story that I missed while reading The Perfect Summer in 2014 - what were the lives like of people of color in Britain in 1911 just before World War I?
Are you looking forward to this new version of David Copperfield?
About Joy Weese Moll
a librarian writing about books
