THE BLACK QUEEN

A Shonda Rhimes hallmark is ‘colour-blind’ casting – putting black actors in key roles in a still white-dominated industry. She has some history to play with here as there certainly were black people in theregencyworld. Her Queen Charlotte, the wife of ‘mad’ King George III, is played by Guyana-born Golda Rosheuvel. Some historians claim she was of African descent and contemporary accounts suggest she was mixed race. She’s thought to be descended from King Afonso III of Portugal and his concubine Ouruana, a black Moor. In the show, her presence allows other black people to rise in society too, including the duke (Regé-jean Page is half-zimbabwean and half-british).

Golda Rosheuvel (seated) as Queen Charlotte