Do you want to see a picture of Angua and Cheery from the BBC new Pratchett adaptation?

[BarkandCheese]

The program is called The Watch, from what I understand it’s a distillation of the watch novels. The blonde actor is Angua, the dark haired one is Cheery. I’m trying to wrap my head around the casting choice for Cheery, who in the books is spoiler alert a female dwarf who due to all dwarfs having beards is assumed to be male by her colleagues.

Hmm... not sure about Cheery, to be honest, but it is quite clear in the books that dwarf sexes are almost impossible to tell apart (I've not long read Thud and this came up a fair bit in that one)

Angua looks great although not how I pictured her - although that's probably due to her being sat down and Josh Kirbys drawings

Sorry, should add - Cheery definitely needs a beard!

And Anna Chanceller as Vetinari.........

The Pratchet family had no input, and the rights were sold a long time ago, and have passed through a lot of hands before this got made.
A lot of people are quite upset.

I think Anna Chancellor will make a good Vetenari, there’s nothing about the character that has to male. Cheery is a female dwarf with a beard and those things are very important to the essence of the character. The actor playing her is not bearded, female or short (let alone a dwarf).

I didn't realise they weren't actually a dwarf I thought the angle of the shot was just a bit misleading... well, that's even wronger than wrong, now! You would've thought they'd actually get someone who had read the books for some input here..

Just... no. No thanks. I think I’ll stick to the books.

Oh Rhiann, what have you let the BBC do?😟

Angua is meant to have long hair!

And to think Terry was so protective when it came to those sky adaptations.

I don’t think she had any say in it, as others have said. It must be a peculiarly unpleasant feeling, watching your dad’s work get pulled apart. She must have a real sinking feeling about it all.

Okay maybe, just maybe to Angua, but that is not Cheery Littlebottom! As far as I'm concerned Vetinari is Charles Dance, so I guess it's back to the books for me.......

Also- a PP has mentioned but the rights were sold long ago and to a previous version of The Watch/city guard related programme. The production company changed I think and the direction of the programme has too and has nothing to do with Rhian Pratchett or the company set up by TP (and others?) To work on discworld developments.

Quite a bit of the casting is imaginative...

The actress playing Sybil (Lara Rossi) is far too young and slim. Sybil should be operatic in every sense. Rossi is great but too delicate for the role. Sybil needs substance!

(Incidentally my mum has a friend who would be a perfect Sybil - good presence, excellent carrying voice, very jolly hockey sticks, constantly garbed in old but v expensive tweed and waxed jackets.)

I feel the actress playing Angua is giving her too much confidence; in the first book she's comparatively timid isn't she (the attitude comes later)? And where is her hair? I love short hair on women and have quite a similar pixie cut myself but Angua needs a mane!. She also looks a bit too petite for the role (in my opinion).

Cheery should be wearing armour and have a beard. And less makeup in the first book; as with Angua, that comes later as I recall.

They'd better dye Hugill's hair for Carrot.

Richard Dormer as Vimes might work.

James Fleet could work for the Archchancellor but I always picture him more like James Cosmo. The Sky adaptation of Hogfather had quite a good Archchancellor.

I like Anna Chancellor as an actress but Vetinari is obviously a man in the books.

Honestly I'm not sure I'll be watching much of this!

I really hope not, she seemed so protective over the IP in interviews.

The BBC have gone batshit with their adaptations recently. Over Christmas we’ve had Mark Gatiss’ ridiculous hammy house of horror Dracula and the Peaky Blinders do Dickens A Christmas Carol, but at least those two have been adapted countless times before and don’t have a legion of dedicated fans. Mucking around too much with Pratchett is another matter entirely.

Surely Cheery - being a dwarf - should have a beard and be short?

I’m sure Terry Pratchett’s dwarves all had beards, whether they were male or female. And dwarves are traditionally short.

Have they got electricity in this version of Ankh Morpork too?

Ooooh nooo, they don’t chime with the characters at all for me, especially Cheery. What were they thinking?

The height isn't an issue, the actors who played the hobbits in the lord of the rings were not actually that height.

But yeah this is not how I picture the characters!

According to an article I just found, Corporal Angua will be supervising new recruit Constable Carrot. Cheery will be a ‘non-binary native recruit in the Night Watch ostracized by their kin’. And Lady Sybil will be a vigilante - and seems to be being played by a rather thin actress to boot.

It sounds like they’ve taken the character and place names and chucked everything else out

io9.gizmodo.com/bbcs-discworld-adaptation-the-watch-nabs-richard-dorm-1838039785

That looks bloody awful. But no surprise.

Well, if you are going to fuck up you might as well do it in a spectacular way that shits on fans and pays lipservice to gender wokery.

Cheery isn't non-binary.. the fact she's female is almost at the core of her character arc! And Angua is training up Carrot?

The worlds gone mad!