A new BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations by British screenwriter Stephen Knight has hit screens across Britain, to immediate controversy from some viewers who criticised the colour-blind casting that involved non-white actors playing important characters.
The lawyer Jaggers is being played by black actor Ashley Thomas, the UK rapper better known by his stage name Bashy). The clerk John Wemmick is being played by Asian actor Rudi Dharmalingam. Most noticeably, Estella Havisham, who for many people is the book’s second significant figure, is being played by English-born Australian actor Shalom Brune-Franklin who is of Mauritian and Thai descent.
The series also addresses the brutal and corrupt history of the British empire. Abel Magwitch, the criminal who we learn is the benefactor of the story’s hero, Pip, asserts that the empire was “built on the lies of privileged white men”. This, alongside other changes, led to claims that the adaptation was both “woke” and unfaithful. “Woke” is a term derived from African-American vernacular which actually means alert to racial prejudice and discrimination, but is used by some, including racists, in the same way “political correctness gone mad” was in the 1990s and 2000s.
