{"id":41553,"date":"2023-12-11T17:30:30","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T16:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1942465"},"modified":"2023-12-11T17:47:53","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T16:47:53","slug":"the-winter-king-author-bernard-cornwell-reacts-to-diverse-cast-backlash","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/the-winter-king-author-bernard-cornwell-reacts-to-diverse-cast-backlash\/","title":{"rendered":"The Winter King author Bernard Cornwell reacts to diverse cast backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ambitious adaptation comes to ITVX later this month. <\/p>

By David Craig\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 11 December 2023 at 16:30 PM<\/p>

\n\n

The Winter King author Bernard Cornwell has addressed the \u201ccolourblind\u201d casting in ITVX<\/a>\u2018s adaptation of his popular Arthurian novels.<\/p>\n

Set in the Dark Ages, the story follows Arthur Pendragon (Iain De Caestecker) as he attempts to pull the kingdom of Dumnonia back from the brink of annihilation.<\/p>\n

Unlike some previous screen depictions of this era, The Winter King<\/a> features a racially diverse cast including Nathaniel Martello-White (I Hate Suzie<\/a>) as Merlin and Jordan Alexandra (Boiling Point<\/a>) as Guinevere.<\/p>\n

This has led to the show being \u201creview bombed\u201d (see MovieWeb<\/a>) \u2013 a practice in which negative user reviews are logged en masse on websites such as IMDb by individuals with a specific vendetta.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, if they\u2019re critical on those grounds, they can write their own damn books,\u201d said Cornwell in an interview for The Winter King podcast<\/a>, an official companion to the ITVX series.<\/p>

Of course, there have been more good-natured questions about this creative decision, too, with some viewers genuinely interested in whether this representation is historically accurate \u2013 amid fears it could be \u201ctokenistic\u201d (via Forbes<\/a>).<\/p>\n

During his aforementioned appearance on The Winter King podcast, Cornwell countered claims that diversity in ancient Britain is a far-fetched concept.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not out of the question,\u201d he said. \u201cRemember, this is taking place very shortly after the Romans leave Britain. And the Romans left Lord knows what kinds of people behind them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, certainly people from Africa, from what we call the Middle East, as well as obviously all around the Mediterranean. They all came to Britain and there are going to be some of them left.<\/p>\n

Cornwell continued: \u201cPersonally, I found the casting, if you like the colourblind casting, in the series to be very convincing, and it works.\u201d<\/p>\n