On racially incongruous casting in period dramas:

Readers will note the unilateral nature and casual, practised arrogance of the underlying conceit. The urge to insert diversity, in one direction at least, regardless of incongruity.

As seen, for instance, in the pages of British Vogue, where Ms Hanna Flint, “a mixed-race woman, of British and Tunisian heritage,” expressed her dismay that new adaptations of works by Emily Brontë and Jane Austen have “cast the protagonists as white once again.” As if this were some kind of scandal or transgression, for which apologies and recompense were in order.

Presumably on grounds that it is somehow unfair that the Yorkshire moors of the eighteenth century did not entirely resemble twenty-first century London. Where Ms Flint happens to live.

Apparently, we must embrace “historical inclusivity,” via modish anachronism and jarring racial contrivance.