Horrible histories - live show disappointment

[Mner2019]

Just back from seeing Horrible Histories’ live show. Whilst the show in and of itself was good fun, I was disappointed. Just two men on stage the whole time who did all the characters (men and women). One of their lines was that history is written by the winners and the irony was huge.

Yes history is indeed written by the winners - white middle class men. Why couldn’t our expensive ticket stretch to women being involved as well...?

The only women up there were two pulled from the audience to act as witches which just seemed to emphasise the ridiculous sexism even more to me - underpaid, there to help the men with the banter!

DS was disappointed with the lack of the rat. I missed the women. 50% of the population and barely deserving of a mention. Barmy Britain indeed!

Because the number two cannot be divided?

Because the number two cannot be divided?

I can't be bothered to look for my face palm emoji.

Yet you still are making out there's a problem.

That’s because it is a problem. Hundreds if not thousands of children will have seen this performance. They should ensure there are women actors in every single one (bar illness). Anything else is not good enough.

I saw one last year. There was one woman and one or two men. It was ok but quite frankly not a patch on the TV show so I came away disappointed and wouldnt go ahead.

Why do there have to be women actors in every single thing? Why do there have to be men actors in every single thing? Change it to any set of characteristics you like, it's just not necessary or practical, and it seems like pandering to me. It's great for a business of any kind to be aware of there general statistics with regard to being representative of the larger population, and to to have some idea of why if they aren't reflective, so they can see if it's something they should look to change. But it is not anti-exist to insist on a strict division of males and females for everything everyone ever does.

Damn, I mean anti-sexist, and their!

That’s because it is a problem. Hundreds if not thousands of children will have seen this performance. They should ensure there are women actors in every single one (bar illness). Anything else is not good enough.

Seeing 2 men in a show with only 2 people in is not going to make children think anything about men or women. It's madness to pretend it is. Again, if there were 20 people in the show and all 20 were men, I'd see your point. But 2....no.

Put make up on to look black, everyone would be quite rightly outraged at the racism. But it’s ok because it’s only women?

I don't know that this is a really great comparison. There are pretty specific reasons that's come to be considered offensive - it's not a principle, its a historical circumstance, which isn't necessarily applicable to other groups - it's not even necessarily applicable to every instance of playing a person of a different race, though opinions on that vary. Actors playing other people who are unlike themselves is pretty much what actors do.

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 whether you are a boy or a girl.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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 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.

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

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?

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.

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 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?

I think a previous poster says they have.