Black History 365: Public Lecture Series - Why Are Period Dramas So White?

Learning Skills is delighted to host the first public lecture of 2022/23, inviting artist-public historian Tré Ventour-Griffiths. Our Black History 365 public lecture series holds a particular focus on providing platforms and amplifying the counter narratives.

Why do you like period dramas? is the question Tré receives as a Black viewer of British historical programmes. Growing up, living, and working in the Home Counties, he ponders the number of contemporary-set dramas about Black British life that predominantly centre British cities, while period dramas more strangely represent his experiences of provincial Britain in the Town and Country.

Speaking from this positionality, Tré takes us on a journey showing how British history is more “melaninated” than our cinema and television screens might suggest. There is a further story of Black people in provincial Britain (Carby, 2019; Robinson and Pitts, 2022) showing that Black creatives should not only be auditioning for roles in these dramas, but have every right to make them as well, as Black people were part of some of the most pivotal moments in British history.

Positioned outside of Britain’s major cities, Tré shows the stories we tell matter – since the term “historical accuracy” in period drama discourse has often been used euphemistically to mean those racialised as white, at the racist and historically inaccurate expense of those racialised not white.

The Zoom link will be sent two days before the event.

References

Carby, H (2019) Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands. London: Verso.

Pitts, J and Robinson, R (2022) Home is Not a Place. New York: HarperCollins.

Biography

Tré Ventour-Griffiths is a neurodivergent practitioner-academic as a Public Historian of Black British History, as well as an artist and social scientist. His writing has been published across poetry, journalism, and nonfiction, while he has further worked with organisations in the arts, education, third sector, and others on projects linked to race and disability. Tré is also PhD student at Kingston University exploring British Black Caribbean histories in the Town and Country. He has been featured by The Guardian and BBC Radio 4, and has written for publications including OpenDemocracy, NeuroClastic and Media Diversfied.