The star of the BBC’s Agatha Christie adaptation has admitted he is not a fan of ‘colour-blind casting’ even though programme-makers have changed his character’s race from white to black.
David Jonsson, who plays the protagonist in tonight’s drama Murder Is Easy, said he initially turned down the role for this reason.
In the radical reworking of Christie’s book, Luke Fitzwilliam has been changed from a retired white colonial police officer to a black Nigerian, newly arrived in the UK for a diplomatic post in Whitehall.
Those behind the new adaptation, which also stars Penelope Wilton, say it has been ‘embedded’ with ‘themes of dying empire, power, and the desire for independence, political and personal’.
Screenwriter Sian Ejiwunmi-Le Berre said she wanted the drama, about murders in an English village, to reflect the experience of black immigrants in the UK.
David Jonsson, who plays the protagonist in tonight’s drama Murder Is Easy, said he initially turned down the role
In the radical reworking of Christie’s book, Luke Fitzwilliam has been changed from a retired white colonial police officer to a black Nigerian
The star admitted he is not a fan of ‘colour-blind casting’ (Pictured: Luke Fitzwilliam, played by David Jonsson, and Bridget, played by Morfydd Clark)
Those behind the new adaptation, which also stars Penelope Wilton (pictured), say it has been ‘embedded’ with ‘themes of dying empire’
Luke Fitzwilliam arrives in the UK for a diplomatic post in Whitehall and is accused by fellow Nigerian immigrants of working for a boss who is a ‘colonial butcher’
The story sees Fitzwilliam socialising in a West African Education Centre, where he is accused by fellow Nigerian immigrants of working for a boss who is a ‘colonial butcher’ and of ‘collaborating with his oppressors’.
He is also asked whether he would not be better ‘helping his own people gain independence back home’.
Jonsson said: ‘I’m not a big fan of colour-blind casting … to be blind to anything is not a good thing. So I think I said no and they were quite persistent.’
But he said that after speaking to the show’s bosses he realised they were not being ‘blind to anything’ and so he agreed to take part.
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