Horrible histories - live show disappointment

That Guardian article was pretty uneven, it somehow failed to mention that Williams was obliged by her contract to do reshoots, while Wahlberg wasn't, or that he already had taken a significant pay cut for the role.

There are real things you could discuss in relation to their disparate salaries, but they undermine the subject by making such a shallow attempt.

In this kind of show it is a given that actors will be playing cross sex roles some of the time. It's the same as with a comedy troupe, it happens even when the actors are mixed sexes. I've seen cases where the man played the women and vice versa, because they were the right body type, or could do the right voice, or even just for comic effect.

Insisting on gender parity for each individual circumstance, and only playing same sex roles, isn't practical, isn't necessary, and it's limiting for male and female actors.

Tough. She didn’t see a woman. So what.

if You go to the theatre wanting to see a specific person or gender you are going to be sorely disappointed. Your ticket is for the show, not specific actors.

You are right - the OP wanted to see something that wasn’t there; a woman.

Never heard of either of them. What’s it got to do with children’s theatre anyway?

Sigh. In that company both men and women play both sex parts.

But you are determined to see something that isn’t there so I give up.

It’s a great company consisting of friendly talented people.

Not that I can see. This stuff is insidious, firstly women weren’t allowed to act so men played both male and female roles roll on to 2019 and men are still playing both parts. Pretty sure Michelle Williams would have liked to have been paid $1.5m for a film reshoot like Mark Wahlberg rather than $1000. This stuff matters. www.theguardian.com/film/2019/apr/03/michelle-williams-paralysed-by-news-she-was-paid-1000-mark-wahlberg

I think a previous poster says they have.

But do they ever do it as a two-hander with 2 women actors - you know doing the male roles too? And if not, why not?

There is no right sex.

The company is formed of mostly long standing members, with extras brought in for bigger shows like Billionaire Boy. The actors all multi roll.

There is no reason other than contrived political correctness why the sex or gender of the actors in that two hander show should even be a consideration when casting.

But any other play would have an understudy of the right sex. I think it is interesting how many people are making excuses about this - most individual instances of sexism can be explained away and it would be easy to dismiss this stuff if there wasn’t a massive gulf between how men and women are treated in the world, but until the rest of society is fixed I am going to stick to agreeing with the OP.

Perhaps a female actor’s role was being covered by a male for that performance because she had a family commitment, a childcare crisis or a pregnancy-related illness?

Two female disc jockeys? Put that as a pinned post on this board, gender parity has arrived.

I think the question is whether it is a valid point.

My local morning radio show has two women hosts. Before it was always a man and a woman. But it's just not something you can really draw conclusions from.

Don't think your experience was typical. I've seen several of their shows Barmy Britain 1 and 2, Awful Egyptians etc and there are usually plenty of women prominent in the cast.

Perhaps a member of the was sick and someone filled in - it happens and with such small casts there isn't much choice for an understudy.

I’m more interested in how a valid point by an OP about the lack of representation of women in a stage show has descended into name calling. If more people like the OP called this stuff out then perhaps we would see more women in every possible role.

you seem to be mixing up two objections- whether they reflect history fairly (eg reflect multi cultural/gender etc events/people from history) and whether the actors are representative (of what- history? current society or the characters they are representing)

It may be a small company but actors contracts come and go and they could have cast accordingly.

Would they have done it with two women, I wonder.

Thank you. He’s also under the shadow of dd who is training professionally. He’s just as talented but for boys it’s not the done thing so he was much older when he stated classes etc. Even at school in PE the boys had to do rugby but the girls could opt for dance.

You will also get hundreds of children (like my ds who has been bullied for doing drama & dance) thinking - hey it’s ok to be on stage singing and acting and dancing

That's so sad that he's been bullied for it. Well done to him for keeping going, he obviously enjoys it. Kids can be horrible. I hope your son is happy.