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Television

Watching Queen Cleopatra felt like witnessing the death of scholarship

20 May 2023

9:00 AM

20 May 2023

9:00 AM

Queen Cleopatra

Netflix

Ten Pound Poms

BBC1

The most controversial aspect of Netflix’s new drama-documentary Queen Cleopatra – not least in Egypt – was the casting of a black actress, Adele James, in the title role. After all, one of the few things that seems certain about Cleopatra’s early life is that she was a Macedonian Greek.

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