Acting the part

SIR – Tom Hanks has said that straight actors should not play homosexual characters (report, June 17), as he did in his Oscar-winning film Philadelphia, because audiences no longer “accept the inauthenticity”.

My dictionary says: “Acting is an activity in which a story is told by means of its enactment by an actor or actress who adopts a character – in theatre, television, film, radio or any other medium that makes use of the mimetic mode.” So can only murderers play Macbeth or real wizards play Gandalf ?

Rev Cindy Kent

Barnet, Hertfordshire