Something could be excellent history. Thew presence of a black guy in the cats doesn’t negate the entire piece. I’ve been watching history since I Claudius. Did all the Romans and Germans have british accents. Doubtful. In fact some Brits and Germans probably had Roman accents centuries ago.
Happy new year. Your posts make this site something special beyond politics. A former history major and a reader of Roman History..
"I CLAUDIUS" was just a T.V. series, taken from the two books OF FICTION, written by a Brit, Robert Graves, in the 1930s! Neither the novels nor the T.V. series were EVER meant to be taken as "historical" nor "documentaries"! And IF the BBC were to do a remake, casting a black actor as Augustus ( or an Indian, Chinese, or any other race Brit actor, for that matter ), or in any other role would be CRIMINAL, OFF PUTTING, and completely RUIN it!
And as far as your twee "problem" with accents...1) the books were written in the King's English 2) if the actors spoke Latin, you wouldn't understand what they were saying.
Thanks! The thing that wrecked "I, Claudius" for me was how they [SPOILER ALERT!] stabbed Sejanus in his jail cell -- everyone *knows* he was executed by strangulation.