I read in the Daily Mail today that a production of Show Boat - to be staged by Grange and District Amateur Operatic Society has been cancelled because of a public outcry.
It is claimed that the blacking up of white actors (in an area where 99.25 of the population are white) would be “dehumanising and offensive”.
A black person living in a nearby town said: “As a black person, I would have found the show offensive.”
Two issues seem to have been challenged - one the blacking up of white actors and the other the storyline of the show - which if anyone who knows the show will know it reflects the real situation in that area of America in the early 1900s. Double standards or what.
Annie Hertler-Smith
Tylers Close
Kings Langley
Hertfordshire
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