British TV still doesn't look like Britain

摘要

Some 12 years ago Kwame Kwei-Armah was sitting in his ambulance on the set of Casualty, where he played paramedic Finlay Newton. He was waiting for the cameras to roll when the show's producer bounded over to tell him some remarkable news: "Guess what, Kwame? We're going to have a black doctor." Not before time, thought the actor, but news of another non-white cast member joining the team at Holby City would inevitably mean curtains for his role. Or so he thought. "It was 'one in, one out'," recalled Kwei-Armah, referring to what at the time looked like token representation of BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) characters in the long-running BBC drama. "And it looked like I'd be the one out." What he hadn't reckoned on was the determination of the BBC's then-director-general, Greg Dyke, to do something about what Dyke famously described as the broadcaster being "hideously white".