she played cassandra in troilus and cressida, but not because she was a deaf actor, because she, like arthur, she s a brilliant actor. but this is where it gets a little bit complicated. yeah. so, let s take this bit by bit, and we re talking diversity here. yeah. to what extent do you believe that colour blind casting is the future? i think it s often colour conscious casting that is the future, but i think there are many, many different ways of doing it. what we re trying to do is to reflect the society we are in, and whether that s to do with disability, ethnicity, gender. that s terribly difficult, isn t it? well, let s take gender. arguably, that s even more
in the cinema maybe, and you don t see somebody who looks like you up on that screen. which historically, you haven t. yeah. well, i mean, you know, the first black actor to appear in stratford was in 1958. and we have. i think we have actually pioneered diversity. erm. and, you know, ithink when paapa essiedu played hamlet in 2016, that was, that was, you know, out of time. that was way beyond what we ought to have done. it ought to have happened earlier. but i think we are. we are. so, arthur hughes, who is playing richard at the moment, is the first disabled actor ever to play richard on this stage. we had in 2018 charlotte arrowsmith, who is a deaf actor, became the first actor to play a major shakespeare role on this stage. she played cassandra in troilus and cressida, but not because she was a deaf actor, because she,
charlotte arrowsmith, who is a deaf actor, became the first actor to play a major shakespeare role on this stage. she played cassandra in troilus and cressida, but not because she was a deaf actor, because she, like arthur, she s a brilliant actor. but this is where it gets a little bit complicated. yeah. so, let s take this bit by bit, and we re talking diversity here. yeah. to what extent do you believe that colour blind casting is the future? i think it s often colour conscious casting that is the future, but i think there are many, many different ways of doing it. what we re trying to do is to reflect the society we are in, and whether that s to do with disability, ethnicity, gender. that s terribly difficult, isn t it? well, let s take gender. arguably, that s even more difficult in shakespeare, because he wrote at a time when, frankly, actors were all men. yeah. so he did limit the number of women.
TOM UTLEY: Radio 4 s long-running show, Quote . . . Unquote was finally scrapped last month - after no fewer than 57 series and 506 programmes - but I never enjoyed it much.