A Huddersfield academic and actor Warwick Davis tackle the subject of black-faced minstrel troupes on TV tonight (Wed).
Prof Rachel Cowgill appears with the Harry Potter actor who is the feature of BBC One’s Who Do You Think You Are? which helps well-known personalities discover their ancestry.
Warwick Davis is shocked to discover one his forbears performed as a black-faced musician and Prof Cowgill, head of music and drama at the University of Huddersfield, helps explain the subject.
“I showed him the evidence and he finally twigged!” said Professor Cowgill, who added that the actor had been a pleasure to work with. The two were filmed at Northampton Town Hall and Prof Cowgill explained more about his great-great grandfather Dennis Manning, pointing out that during the Victorian period, blackface minstrel performance – by professionals and amateurs – was regarded as good, clean, wholesome entertainment.
“The thing that people often don’t get today is that it was highly respectable. In America, it was a very edgy, street-based form of entertainment, but when it comes to the UK it becomes very bourgeoisified,” she explains.
Prof Cowgill’s research investigated the blackface minstrel troupes that have long been banished from our TV screens.
