She doesn't have Molly vibes at all. I am by far not the only person who has said she gives the impression of an American sitcom, and her "Molly" costume looks so clownish.
They're Not Even Hiding Their Racism... - Reacting To Conservatives FURIOUS At "Black Doctor Who" by Mr TARDIS
- Thread starter Shaka Zulu
- Start date
She’s an alright actress, does lean more comedy, but then so did Julie Walters. They’ve got the look about right for the time setting this time around (as in, she looks like my mother…) the age is a close run thing, but she and Arthur would simply had to have started popping out the kids in her twenties.
Mickey was all ‘babe, babe,’ and famously ‘pizzaaa’ when an auton. I think it’s like Ben Aaronovitch having Bambera say ‘shame’ so much. Words middle class BBC writers hear a random black person on the street say once, and assume it’s like a catchphrase or special lingo. Ironic, as say what you like about Chibnall, at least he got the slang right. Cringe as it was.
Middle aged women really did dress that way in nineties England. Especially those at the more crystal woo-woo end of the force, though also church types. It does look clownish. But… that’s accurate. Maybe it was just gingers *shrug*.
Another thought or two about "Black Guinevere"... This has led to some FB arguments about just when black people first arrived in Britain. History confirms that it was at least as far back as the Roman Empire before the Western Empire collapsed, and this pre-dates the earliest Arthurian legends.
I must say I like this version of Guinevere better than the ones I've read in novels. Even the actress who played her in the Camelot musical I worked on had her nose in the air most of the time. I'd originally been assigned as her dresser for quick costume changes, and thank goodness I was reassigned to Lancelot.
I just assumed that was a personal tic that she had. I loved Winifred Bambera, and don't get why so many people seem to hate her.
Though if Doctor Who ever decides to use a character that's specifically supposed to be Canadian, the words "eh" and "aboot" should NEVER come out of their mouths. Those are stereotypes based on ONE stupid comedy sketch that wasn't even funny.
Actual boyfriend. Sometimes.
But later when he's running around between dimensions with pregnant Jackie Tyler, Rose's mum, the actress, Camille Coduri got in on the joke, where off camera in an interview, she said that Micky was the father of her "character's" unborn child.
Married Dr. Martha Jones.
In real life, no idea what he did, but the actor was cancelled, so he's not coming back.
Shame was used by black kids *and* white kids, and teens, in late eighties/nineties London. It’s difficult to explain in words how precisely to use it, but it was a thing. (To an extent it was kind of like saying ‘that’s embarassing’ ’you must have felt shame’ ’you must feel shame now’ and was usually used as a sort of empathetic exclaim action. Mostly.) Problem is, Ben heard it used in a cinema by group of Black girls, didn’t quite grasp it, and then Angela Bruce was from the Midlands and probably a bit old and luvviefied to be using street slang anyway — and therefore also had no idea what he was going for.
Bambera is great, especially with Ancelyn.
As to the history of Black people in Britain, it’s not comparing apples with apples, and there’s been a big sort of weird push on it. The post wind rush Britain is a different world (the one I grew up in and is therefore normal to me) to what was before, and the last twenty or thirty years have changed things again. And fundamentally, there’s also (shockingly to some I am sure…) differences between say a Scots Rwandan refugee, a Somali shop worker, and an Afro-Caribbean whose grandparents settled here three generations back. And therefore a difference over the last twenty years even. It’s all a nonsense for bigotry of different flavours tbh.
No one cared about Guinevere cos Merlin was such a departure anyway, and… a bit odd.
Angela's actually from my home town - saw her once in Tesco.
Same shop I used to shove trolleys around in my teens for spare cash whilst doing my A-levels.
Same shop I used to shove trolleys around in my teens for spare cash whilst doing my A-levels.
Ironic. The Doctor, trying to fit in with the locals, tries using their slang. The Doctor would be the one character who should be getting it wrong.
The bulk of the human charters would obviously have the contemporary colloquialisms down pat, of course.Then again, humanity isn't a monolith and regions are inevitable and even within each region not everyone speaks the same way. Also ironic, given how everyone whined about Classic DW's overuse of "RP". Which isn't used anymore, apart from some commercials.I always took the drily-stated "Shame" to be a catchphase, like Lethbridge-Stewart's "five rounds rapid" that never was a catchphrase until a handful of decades later when somebody wanted to sell an iron-on T-shirt decal.
Angela was also Dave Lister's parallel universe double (and is a joy to watch). She also played a counselor in an episode of "Waiting for God". She has a good list of credits, but I recall her RD, DW, and WFG roles the most.
On edit, post consolidation:
Didn't know that, great info, thanks!
The Bambera/Ancelyn chemistry definitely did work. It's a shame we didn't get more of that, pun not intended.
I'd also hope that Merlin would be a bit odd.
Ironic. The Doctor, trying to fit in with the locals, tries using their slang. The Doctor would be the one character who should be getting it wrong.
I always took the drily-stated "Shame" to be a catchphase, like Lethbridge-Stewart's "five rounds rapid" that never was a catchphrase until a handful of decades later when somebody wanted to sell an iron-on T-shirt decal.
Angela was also Dave Lister's parallel universe double (and is a joy to watch). She also played a counselor in an episode of "Waiting for God". She has a good list of credits, but I recall her RD, DW, and WFG roles the most.
On edit, post consolidation:
Didn't know that, great info, thanks!
The Bambera/Ancelyn chemistry definitely did work. It's a shame we didn't get more of that, pun not intended.
I'd also hope that Merlin would be a bit odd.
I meant a bit odd by the standards of Merlin/Arthur adaptations. It caught a bit of the Harry Potter vibe that time. More people were slightly put out by Arthur not being King and it being a bit of a teen drama than anything to do with Gwen. And then it caught on and everyone just kind of went with it.
The later Robin Hood didn’t do so well, and nor did the Musketeers one with Capaldi a while after than.
I'd also hope that Merlin would be a bit odd.
It's one of those shows that was aimed at kids/teens, and adults loved it as well. I got into it 10 years late, as I hadn't even known it existed until I was browsing Pinterest for research (looking for examples of male medieval clothing that wasn't royal/aristocratic) and...
Boom. Up comes this screenshot of an absolutely GORGEOUS man who happened to be a near-twin of the main character in the fanfic I was writing based on a computer game that has absolutely nothing to do with Merlin (King's Heir: Rise to the Throne; Eoin Macken bears a striking resemblance to the character of Sir Randall).
According to the comments, the actor was Eoin Macken, the character was Sir Gwaine, and the show was BBC Merlin. I thought, "I absolutely have to watch this" - and found clips on YT, the first season on Amazon Prime Canada, and gave myself a multi-region DVD player and the UK version of the series for Christmas (the UK edition was considerably cheaper than the North American one). This was in 2022, 10 years after the show's cancellation.
I haven't looked back since. I've watched the TV series multiple times, searched out every blooper I can find on YT, watched a lot of fan videos (there are some really good ones), took a deep dive into fanfiction, and am now writing my own rather ambitious Merlin stories. This has meant historical research (thank you, Modern History TV, one of the best YT channels out there for practical research on life in the Middle Ages and how knights actually lived).
The thing about that show is that while the on-screen version was somewhat sanitized (note that when they run someone through with their swords, there's no blood on the sword afterward - not that I enjoy gore, but it's not realistic), the fanfic is where people can make it more realistic.
Of course there's a Harry Potter vibe. John Hurt was in both of them (he played Kilgharrah the Great Dragon in Merlin). Merlin is young and still learning magic, so he's going to make missteps like the HP kids did, and he's got this whole destiny thing going on. Arthur and Merlin don't even like each other during the first half of Season 1. Yes, there are romances being teased, but even if you think you know what's going to happen because you've read the legends, seen the movies, watched the Camelot musical... they took a lot of that and made it different (and thank goodness for that, since I doubt a show like that could have lasted if they'd had a storyline in which Morgana and Arthur had sex on Beltane and begat Mordred, not to mention that Guinevere in the legends is so unlikeable that I've always wondered wtf Lancelot ever saw in her).
Speaking of Lancelot, I heard that Santiago Cabrera was also in a show about the Three Musketeers. That's one I haven't seen, and would like to if I could track it down somewhere that's available in Canada.
As for Robin Hood? I prefer either the old 1959-60 Richard Greene series that was in black and white, or else Robin of Sherwood from the 1980s. They're very different, but both are fun.
I think the Potter vibe also comes from having Merlin be studying magic.
But it was the trend of the time in some ways, a bit like how we got Robin of Sherwood that was just a little dash of the then recent Excalibur in the eighties.
If RoS was the New Romantic Robin Hood, then Merlin was the indie kid 21st Century Arthur tale I guess.
I tried to watch Excalibur. It's unwatchable. At least for me.
At the time I started watching Robin of Sherwood, I'd joined the Society for Creative Anachronism. Since the emphasis in that organization is research and real history, it took some time before I could be convinced to even try Robin of Sherwood (had heard there was a lot of sorcery and magic in it, so therefore obviously not very history-minded).
But eventually I did give it a try, and am glad I did. The music was exquisite (even though in one scene it was so obvious that the guy playing the bodhran wasn't even trying to play in tempo):
From Season 3, episode 1, when Jason Connery takes over the role of Robin Hood; in this scene he's still just Robert of Huntingdon:
Medieval dance is something most people in the SCA learn, and the outfits the dancers are wearing remind me of what people wear to feasts and tournaments. SCA feasts are held in candle-lit halls. So I felt right at home with this show, and was spoiled for all other modern Robin Hood TV shows (did enjoy the Prince of Thieves/Men in Tights movies).
The Muslim member of the Merry Men was basically invented by RoS, and when they made Prince of Thieves they suddenly worried about copyright when they found out — because the guy who played the character in RoS was a bit-part/stuntman on Prince of Thieves.
I always find that story amusing.
I never even noticed Nasir in Prince of Thieves!
I'll have to look a bit more closely next time.
I never even noticed Nasir in Prince of Thieves!
I think they had to hastily change the name to Nazeem for Morgan Freeman, once they realised it wasn’t a general Robin thing but one specific to RoS. Amazing they got away with it really. I think Rabies from Maid Marion and Her Merry Men is also one of the villagers in PoT if I recall.
Those were probably the last Robin Hood adaptations I cared for tbh. But I was stupidly fond of them. (Though now I barely remember RoS. I was barely school age when I watched it after all. I may have missed Doctor Who for it. I also had the Spectrum Video Game, which given my age was terribly confusing.)
If you watch the clip I posted, take a look at the dark-haired man sitting next to the white-haired man (they're being served wine). The dark-haired man is Marion's father, played by George Baker. He was in the 4th Doctor story "Full Circle". He also played Emperor Tiberius in "I, Claudius."
Both Hooded Man Robins end up in Who too — Praed did a very OTT villain turn in one of Big Finish’s early New Adventures continuity stories.
It's going to be on HBO Max.
Yeah, I've always thought of it as Arthurian Smallville.