UR TV CAST

“I wouldn’t bother with Land’s End if I were you.”
Colin Lawry had been more than indifferent. “It’s been spoiled,” said Cornwall County Council’s only Mebyon Kernow (Sons of Cornwall) nationalist He had two objections – economic and aesthetic “It’s been turned into a tourist theme park,” he said. Tourism was all well and good in its place but it had serious disadvantages “It is vulnerable to the weather It provides jobs which are part-time, low-paid and seasonal. It makes great demands on infrastructure – hospitals, roads and so on – which are funded only on the basis of the resident population without taking account of visitors.” And it distracted policy-makers from better alternatives. “You should go somewhere else,” he said.With such a united front telling me to avoid the place there was only one thing to do I set out for Land’s End.

The woman behind the counter at the railway buffet in Liskeard where I had arrived in Cornwall had said it wasn’t worth the effort So had the man in the ticket office. I was supposed to be setting off for Wales, having previously decided not to bother with this south- westerly extremity of the British Isles It was only a bit of cliff like any other, after all

Everyone was telling me not to go. It is time to reclaim this play for regular performance, and by our greatest actors, be they black or white.. “Go to Land’s End,” said Mrs Downey, who ran the Penzance guest house “You probably won’t like it. But you’ll be able to say you’ve been.” I sat at the little table in the corner of my pink and blue ruffled bedroom (only the ceiling was painted landlady white) and thought as I ate my full English breakfast, sausage included. And the National’s current Othello must not be the last for yet another decade by our national companies. It should not be bedevilled by the pressures of political correctness.

We certainly need more black actors and actresses at every level. But this, too, misses the point – that Othello is a role that should be a career peak for every performer.Theatre can have enormous social and political impact on our lives But it remains a performance. Further, it’s a great shame to deprive white actors of one of the most demanding roles in the repertoire. Why is a white man singing the role permissible, but acting it beyond the pale?In academic circles there is growing unease with the bar on white actors playing the part. Professor Stanley Wells, director of the Shakespeare Institute at Birmingham University, says: “There is a large element of political correctness in the feeling that it’s somehow wrong to cast anyone but a black actor in the role I think myself something is lost by it The play deals in the paradoxes of black and white Iago is white outside but `black’ inside … I would like to see Brian Cox in the role, for example.”Others argue that the ideal position is for many more black actors to gain sufficient experience and stature to be able to play the role.