Robert Gorelangton

Moor and more

Robert Gore-Langton talks to one of the first black actors to break the British 'colour bar', about Ira Aldridge, a Victorian pioneer

issue 02 September 2017

In 1824 an ambitious teenage actor fled to England from his native New York where he had been beaten up once too often. He built a career here, being billed as ‘a Most Extraordinary Novelty, a Man of Colour’. What audiences encountered, however, was not the expected comedy of a simpleton mangling the Bard.

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