I hate it when double standards go amiss myself, but personally I don't see it as any different from "We were looking for someone with brown hair" or "We were looking for a tall woman" Certain physical traits often come to mind when looking for a particular character role.

That said, there is a lot more flexibility when it comes to the role of the Doctor.

Can we stop pretending that white actors haven't benefitted from discriminatory casting decisions from - well - the beginning of time?

Shifting things the other way is a necessary step in order to bring some balance to a very unrepresentative industry.

I'm ok with the race of the Doctor changing but keep the British accent, that's the one thing I don't want to let go of haha.

I'm not sold on a female Doctor yet either, maybe in the future but the actress would have to totally nail the role.

Also I know black people are under represented but come on there are other ethnicities that are also in need of representation.

I really don't understand this obsession with hiring people because they are not white. Yes white people benefited in the past but I don't think that justifies hiring someone on the basis of their skin colour except for realism in some types of locations and settings (which is not applicable to the vast majority of Doctor Who where skin colour makes no difference whatsoever). I am more interested in story telling than the skin colour of actors.

That pretty much ended with Olivier's Othello didn't it and that was a long time ago.

Black actors playing previously white Shakespeare characters is very common though as seen in the recent BBC Shakespeare plays and the black Hamlet in the latest RSC production.

I'm always in favour of historical time periods being represented as accurately as possible. Moffat is okay with historical fantasy, as evidenced by the Viking episode last season. It's one place where my sensibility doesn't overlap with his.

The notion of 'improving' history by ethnically diversifying it is a bit of a silly statement. The vast majority of people simply didn't move around the globe until the 20th century. It's not to history's shame that cultures were not, for the most part, ethnically diverse, it's just a fact of how technology progressed. It is to our shame that typically different ethnicities often had different social standings where they did co-exist but that is something that should be portrayed, not shied away from. One could argue that the ethnic diversification of the Americas had catastrophic consequences for the Native American races and cultures that already inhabited that continent before the migration of Europeans. Would history 'be improved' by portraying an Aztec culture of black and caucasion people?

ON THAT NOTE, as Mullet touched upon, if we look at the 1960s Doctor Who serial, 'The Aztecs', we did see an Aztec culture made up entirely of white actors. Historically, casts were not diverse even when they should have been. I daresay they still aren't in many cases. As Mullet said, the casting of ethnically diverse actors is a tactic of positive discrimination to try and counter-balance this historical trend.

Also, how many future or alien societies (including the Time Lords) have been portrayed as entirely or nearly entirely white? That is nonsensical. Making such casts diverse isn't 'political correctness' (people who use that phrase typically don't even know what it means) it's logical. In most areas racial diversity in the cast is essential for a credible portrayal, if for no other social reasons. Indeed, if the human disapora continues at its present rate our future societies should be totally diverse.

But I really dislike the notion of 'judging' history full stop, let alone judging it against modern standards. Again, the idea that history is 'wrong' and contemporary society is 'right' is myopic and ego-centric in the extreme. I thought that part of Moffat's speech was childish and ill-considered. I'm sure he was speaking off the cuff of course and with a bit of analysis would agree. Of course, some aspects of history, such as slavery (which in fact still exists in the world), militate absolutely against our contemporary values but preaching against history has no worth as a pursuit; studying it, understanding it and learning from it does. Presenting a fantasy version of it is, to me, the worst possible option because if we censor history, or dress it up to make it appear more palatable then we cannot learn from it. There's no better critique of racism than an examination of the historical slave culture of North America.

It's a more complex issue than Moffat simplifies it to in those soundbites but it's also a much more complex issue than some of the idiotic comments made by Moleskin in this thread. Ethnic diversity in casting is absolutely a legitimate issue and something to be considered. But I think an accurate, and, if necessary, 'warts and all' portrayal of history is also important and beneficial to our culture. Sugar coating, or modernizing history is to negate one of the biggest tools for learning and improvement we have: the past.

Personally, I'd like to see Richard ayoarde play the doctor.....

Lack of non-white actors in key roles needs addressing. The place of stories in human society has always been important, is it any wonder that people who aren't white want to be represented in our modern day stories? Non-white characters are rarely the protagonists unless the film/show is about race and that's a sad state of affairs to be honest.

He can do the wacky and eccentric side, but I'm not so sure how he'd be with the more serious stuff. Being good at both ends and being able to seamlessly flit between the two is a requirement that every potential doctor actor should have.

Patterson Joseph I've seen do both eccentric and serious brilliantly, and in peep show he was able to change between them well which is why he'd be my pick if we are talking black actors.

I'd say him as a good choice anyway though just because he's a good actor, not because I think someone should be picked on race, because they shouldn't. So called 'positive racism' (picking someone based on a specific race) is just regular racism to the race your not favouring (everyone not that race).

If they want to go for an older black actor they could use Cyril Nri (of The Bill fame and SJA), a couple of years younger that PC.

A friend of RTD too, he was amazing in episode 6 of Cucumber.

No it doesn't need addressing unless non-white people who are best suited for the role are turned down purely because of their skin colour (in roles where the colour of the skin makes no difference).Television is not a representative sample of the population and never will be and the people saying it should be only focus on colour of the skin or gender rather than having a true representation (I don't understand why it should be since it is not a survey).

Actors should be selected based on their ability and not on the colour of the skin. As for your comment about lack of representation I am sure there are non-white people that are equally against selecting actors because they are non-white and not on merit. Some people (including me) have virtually no representation in television and I don't want anything other than the best actor for the role selected.

I work in TV/film. Racism is still endemic. I have personally seen execs say "they're great but we already have a black actor in the cast" or "we need a white person in this role because our audience demographic won't accept anything else." A lot of casting directors still think in very stereotypical terms where it simply won't occur to them to cast outside of racial stereotypes, or to bring in non-white options unless explicitly told to.


Um, Britain has had a significant black population for at least a thousand years (from Roman North Africa). What are you considering the decline, Adam and Eve being kicked out of the garden of eden? Hate to break it to you but that was a fairy story.

Clearly you are ignorant of the societal affect of lack of representative diversity in the media. Why should non-white people have to just put up with being so poorly (or under) represented?

Hate to break it to you but the majority of North Africans aren't black and weren't back then either.

The only black Africans the Romans knew about were Ethiopians, the rest of black Sub-Saharan Africa was unknown because the Sahara formed an impenetrable barrier.

You'd struggle to find enough Mexican actors in the UK to do that now never mind in the 1960s.

I don't and never have cared about the gender / race / sexuality of the doctor...just give me a good 45 mins of entertainment and i'll be happy

For me the doctor can swap around everything physical & what ever every regeneration so long as they don't make a right f--- up of it

First of all is there any evidence that they are under represented? No one so far on this thread has produced any statistics to suggest this. And why is the solution to this hiring non-white people over white people? What happens when non-white people are over represented? As I said in my previous comment there are groups of people that have even worse representation yet no one comments about it.

I don't know about "counter-discrimination" as such a thing sounds counter-productive if anything. I don't think none-whites should be prioritised over whites, but the reverse does happen and so diversity needs addressing, I believe.

But that's the problem, the BBC cares more about social engineering, diversity and being PC than they do about producing a decent programme, that's why it's rubbish, that's why a lot of British drama is rubbish.

I watched You, Me and the Apocalypse recently and every relationship in the show was a mixed one, except for one couple who were neo-Nazis, the message is not subtle.

Interview with Paterson Joseph from 2010- http://www.premiumhollywood.com/2010...eph-survivors/


Word round the campfire was he was only prepared to sign for one season at a time, which the beeb couldn't accommodate.

This has been known since it happened.

Adrian Lester should be considered for the next Doctor, regardless of any other considerations.

He has huge stage and movie experience, and his work on Hustle, where he played a con man adopting different accents and "characters" each week was excellent

Given what little we have seen of Galifrey it would probably make sense that there were more black Timelords than white but I guess that argument falls down a little when you are talking about a species that can change their physical appearance, race and gender at will,

I just think he's dull, no spark.

Need someone a bit more eccentric than him.

Yes, that was my thinking at the time. I'd never heard of Smith and he seemed far too young to be able to pull it off.

Yes. If black actors take on the roles of both Doctor and companion, post Moffat, it will because it was deliberately set up like that rather than because the black actors were good for the part.

Why all the pushing of an agenda? Why is it necessary to emphasise the importance of black actors? RTD introduced strong black companions in the form of Mickey Smith and Martha Jones. No one noticed because both were great in their roles and there was no "black actor alert" alarm going off. It was simply great casting that complimented the show brilliantly.

Moffat just seems to have damaging agendas all the time like "let's make the doctor a woman" or "let's make him black!" I bet he is relishing the prospect of a black woman who is a lesbian!

If a black actor takes on the role of the Doctor, brilliant. As long as he's the right person. I don't need to be told that black actors are taking the role for diversity, because Doctor Who is one of the most diverse shows on TV anyway, if Moffat hadn't been busy trying to get his ego inflated head from out of his backside, he will already have noticed this.