The Watch has found its Lord Vetinari! BBC America has announced the latest batch of casting updates for its Terry Pratchett adaptation, and Anna Chancellor will be playing the Lord Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.
In a statement to BBC America, Chancellor gave a preview of her take on the character: “With the combining characteristics of Dracula and Elvis – Lord Vetinari has sprung to life in the most alarmingly joyful way,” she said.
Lord Vetinari isn’t the only character with gender-neutral casting. Chancellor will also be joined by Ingrid Oliver (Doctor Who) as Doctor Cruces, head of the Assassins Guild, Ruth Madeley (The Rook) as wily merchant Claude Maximillian Overton Transpire Dibbler aka Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler aka Throat, and Bianca Simone Mannie (Homeland) as Lupine Wonse, the ambitious secretary to Lord Vetinari. Meanwhile, James Fleet (Outlander) will take on the role of the Archchancellor, head of the Unseen University school for wizards, and Hakeem Kae-Kazim (Dynasty) will play Vimes’ mentor Captain John Keel.
Previously, it was revealed that Sam Vimes, commander of the City Watch, will be played by Richard Dormer (Game of Thrones), with newcomer Adam Hugill as the dwarf-raised, 6′ 6” City Watch ingenue Carrot Ironfoundersson. Other cast members include Sam Adewunmi (Doctor Who) as the villain Carcer Dun, Marama Corlette (The City and The City) as the Carrot-training Corporal Angua, Jo Eaton-Kent (The Romanoffs) as the non-binary forensics expert Constable Cheery, and Lara Rossi (Robin Hood) as the vigilante Lady Sybil Ramkin.
According to Deadline, the eight-episode season of The Watch begins filming in Cape Town, South Africa at the end of November and is set to air in 2020. BBC America also announced Brian Kelly (Outlander) and Emma Sullivan (Doctor Who) as the new directors who will be joining Craig Viveiros (Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.)
Genderswapping characters isn’t necessarily a bad idea – Anna Chancellor as Vetinari is genius – but in this case it feels like it’s been done a lot (and only in one direction). If they wanted to do a Discworld series with a mostly-female cast, it’s odd they didn’t just adapt the Witches of Lancre sub-series instead.
They’ve also changed the story, been up-front that this will be original stories not based on the novels (because clearly the scriptwriters are better writers than Terry Pratchett /s), made Angua Carrot’s superior officer and mentor (which is both a change and decidedly dubious in the power imbalance it gives to their relationship) and turned Sybil from a strong, late thirty-something/early forty-something figure working within society’s confines into a young Batwoman.
I am not hopeful for this series at present.
Have you noticed it’s gone from an adaption to being “inspired by”?
As for Vetinari, I get the vampire bit, but Elvis?! Have I missed something all these years in the books?
Wonse is described as a wizard in waiting… despite being cast with a woman.
Not to mention CMOT Dibbler is alleged to have inspired the character of Throat, “the city’s best snitch, with a gang of freelance henchmen at her beck and call.” Which does not sound to me like the entrepreneur and perennial small businessman Dibbler at all.
The claims of that it “follows several of Sir Terry Pratchett’s best-loved creations” seems increasingly inaccurate. It will need to be very special to overcome the changes they’ve made.
While we’re waiting, I heartily recommend the Cohen short that was recently released
Definitely a miss.
I was once excited about this, then wary, and now utterly dismayed. I won’t be watching a minute of this.
I am getting vibes of Game of Thrones Dorne plot here. The showrunners are so far off the original material that it can only end in pain.
Anna Chancellor can be very good at this but for the rest… Oh dear. I’ll watch at least some of it at least at the start out of morbid fascination. Unless it’s on some new subscription service…
If it turns out descent it will be a pleasant surprise.
@1 Wethead – That’s a very interesting idea that you allude to there – redo Weird Sisters or Witches Abroad with the major roles gender-switched.
Oughtta be fun seeing who they get for Granny Weatherwax.
Sorry, that should have been Werthead.
Beg your pardon, sleepless night to blame.
Thers’s an adaptation of The City and the City?!
Suddenly very excited. Has anyone here seen it? Is is good?
@9 KatherineMW
Well, I was hoping to see the first installment, but unfortunately there are no cross-hatched areas with coverage close enough.
In the US, at least, the City & the City adaptation is streaming on Amazon Prime. I enjoyed it, although it had been a while since I read the book; and I would’ve handled the two cities thing differently if they’d asked me. (Which they didn’t.)
Maybe they’re trolling us. Sir Pterry would have been cool with that.
This leads to the question, whether the people who are producing this have ever seen, let alone read, a novel by Terry Pratchett. Luckily I never planned on watching movies/TV series based on Pratchett’s work anyway. Much better to re-read the books…
@13 \ Kar-thurak – yeah, what does that even _mean_?!
Vetinari has a flair for the dramatic, certainly, even when he’s the only audience (for examples the death he reaerve for mimes, or any dealing with Moist), but the images that spring to mind for Elvis is his Vegas period, and Dracula’s image is the Bela Lugosi interpretation. So I’m suddenly worried the Patrician is going to look like Liberace!
but thinking about it, there’s a few different iterations of each, so maybe we’re going to get Luke Evan’s superhero Dracula combined with Elvis’s early-career sneering bad-boy image.
The more I think about it, the more my head hurts.
I really like the idea of Anna Chancellor as Lady Vetinari – it just WORKS when you think about it, not least because she would also make an excellent casting choice for Madam from NIGHT WATCH – but I’m sure we can all agree that the really, really important question posed by all these slightly-trippy casting revelations has to be “BUT IS THE ARCH-CHANCELLOR GOING TO BE MUSTRUM RIDCULLY?” (One must admit that Ridcully the Brown is my Personal Favourite – he’s so delightfully larger than life).
I think what irks me the most with some of these…interesting casting decisions, is that it doesn’t seem Pratchett’s work has been done all that much in the past, nor is his work severely dated to warrant messing with the source material. A Christmas Carol is perfect for retelling–it’s been done so may times before. Pratchett has only been adapted a few times, and the Watch has only been glimpsed. I want to see Pratchett’s Watch first, as close to the source as possible, then go and mess with it.
Also casting Keel as a black man will make it tricky to have Vimes take his place in the past if they want to adapt the plot of Night Watch.
This gave me great pause. I think I’ll read reviews before I seek this one out.
It might be good, anything is possible, but it won’t be Pratchett.
People are accusing the show runners but…..isn’t Rhianna Pratchett one of the show runners? you know, the self proclaimed gatekeepr of the Disc? maybe we should stop pointing fingers and see what she is doing with her father’s legacy before we yell the usual bull.
Inspired by Pratchett the producers may be, but they don’t seem to be inspiring too many of his readers!
The City and the City seems like a challenging book to adapt to TV. And there is the issue of how to finish the story: I enjoyed the book but it seems to me that Mieville failed to stick the landing. There was an ending but I didn’t think it lived up to the originality and imagination of the novel as a whole.
The Librarian will probably be the leader of the wizards – and they’ll cast him as a chimp.
@21
Or even worse, as a monkey.
“Also casting Keel as a black man will make it tricky to have Vimes take his place in the past if they want to adapt the plot of Night Watch.”
I thought that too. Vetinari as a woman could work; but you have to have a Keel who could be realistically mistaken for Vimes.
James Fleet could be a good wizard (he would be a terrific Bursar) but he’s no Ridcully.
And for people wondering why they didn’t just adapt the Witches books if they wanted a female-led Discworld story: that will never happen. Two of the three main characters are old. Ewww.
@@@@@ 23 / Ajay – to be fair, what’s Keel looks like doesn’t matter at all.
<Spoilers>
The real Keel is only present for about a page before he’s offed. The only one that knows what he looks like is the Time Travelling Vimes. All of the other Watchman know of him from letters, they’ve never actually met him, which is why the Time Travelling Vimes is able to so easily able to step into the role when Keel is murdered. Ankh-Morpork knows he’s a man and of a certain age, but none of the physical characteristics are mentioned in his letters or resumé. Everything else anyone knows about Keel is what Time Travelling Vimes knows about Keel. So why they made such a big thing about casting him is a puzzle, especially with the optics of a white man replacing a black man.
Given they don’t seem to have cast a younger Vimes yet, I’m wondering if they are going to do the Time Travel plot at all.
@19 –Rhianna Pratchett has stated that she is not involved with the series:
“Just to be clear (since I’m asked this a lot) I am not working on The Watch TV series, and haven’t been for many years. The show is under the creative control of BBC Studios.“
@19: Rhianna Pratchett is not currently involved in The Watch series. Source: https://twitter.com/rhipratchett/status/1172096652603248641
Ok. I understand the Anne Chancelor part. But… but… “Hakeem Kae-Kazim (Dynasty) will play Vimes’ mentor Captain John Keel”?
What does he even do there? I mean, there are Angua and Carrot there, meaning setting isn’t set earlier then “Men at Arms”. So John Keel is killed years ago. Lupine Wonse also was killed in “Guards! Guards!”, before the any idea of Angua being guard(wo)man is ridiculous. Are we going to see a lot of flashbacks there, or it’s another kind of messed temporal?
It sounds like they are basically picking and choosing bits they want and any resemblance to the books will be totally coincidental.
@24: Except Ned Coates apparently knew Keel from Pseudopolis, which is why he was suspicious of Vimes when he showed up and claimed to be him.
@29 / SlackerSpice – true. Have the cast Coates yet? They might not even include him. And even then, if they do include the time travel plot, I could see them having Coates reveal this to Time Travelling Vimes, and then have Carcer off him before he reveals it to anyone else, leaving Vimes morally conflicted.
Not that I agree with any of this. I still think it’s effectively going to create a huge media storm if you have a white character replacing a PoC in a time travel plot. Even if that PoC was only made a PoC by a casting decision.
Its disappointing to see screen writers and producers making decisions about characters that are already established as a certain type/way by the creator. But it’s ok it’s inspired by the books the same way CMOT Dibblers sausages are inspired by food. Either way no amount of condiments will let me stomach wither of them.
This is shaping up to be a bigger let down than the Dark Tower movie.
I was very excited about the Watch series and now? I’m very wary… Learning that 1) Rihanna Pratchett isn’t involved with the writing of the series and that 2) It’s being be “””inspired””” by the books rather than based on them has me worried. The Watch is probably my favorite sub-series in Discworld and I was super looking forward to finally seeing a faithful adaption of some of the books… It seems I’m going to have to keep waiting, which is very disheartening.
I’m not discounting the idea that this series will be good. But based on everything we’ve heard? It’s not going to be the Discworld I know and love. I don’t understand why screenwriters constantly have to do pTerry dirty like this; just give the poor man a faithful screen adaption for once!
Regarding the new… “Character directions”:
Vetinary is easily one of my all-time favorite Discworld characters, and the way he’s portrayed in the books is sublime. What he is absolutely not is a “combination of Dracula and Elvis”. I don’t know who saw the character and thought of that interpretation but my guess is they weren’t reading the same books I’ve been mainlining since childhood. Making the character gender-neutral is an interesting choice, and not neccessarily a bad one. But I doubt it will mean much in the long run considering they seem to be going in a completely different direction for Vetinary. Havelock Vetinary is subdued, not ostentacious, he’s a chess-master, a string-puller, the man-behind-the-man. He’s not goddamn David Bowie.
I don’t care who’s playing C.M.O.T Dibbler, but that character is not and has never been a “snitch-lord with an army of loyal henchmen”, they’re a merchant whose most notable character trait is that they can apparrently make a living selling the worst food imaginable and keep getting customers regardless of this. That’s an interesting character on its own! Why do they have to turn Dibbler into this weird underground info broker? Characters like that already exist within Discworld! There’s an entire guild of them! Where’s the Begger’s Guild? Where’s the Canting Crew? Where’s Queen Molly, or Cumbling Mitcheal or Arnold Sideways? What was wrong with them?
Angua being Carrot’s superior officer makes the power dynamic between them skeezy as hell. In the books, Angua has physical prowess over Carrot (hell, over most of the Watch in fact!) but Carrot has authorative control over her, being a higher rank, which means their power dynamic balances out. But now she’s his superior officer and capable of tearing his arms out of their sockets without breaking a sweat? Them getting into a relationship under that context gives off a… Not good vibe.
Sybil Ramkin is one of the most powerful and influencial characters in the books, in a number of very interesting ways. She is not Batwoman: Largely because she doesn’t need to be! She already has a huge reach of very subtle and interestingly nuanced power! Again, I don’t care much about who plays her, but they’re completely re-writing a character that was already solid as bricks!
It seems like the only characters they haven’t utterly rewritten are Vimes, Keel, Carcer and Carrot, and even then, who knows at this point? WIth how different everything else is, keeping those characters consistent to their book appearances might not even mesh well, the tone is completely different! Why keep those characters faithful to the original stories if you’re just going to completely upend everything surrounding them?
Discworld isn’t a goddamn pick-and-mix where you can take the bits you like and plonk them into some entirely different world: These characters are all shaped by their interactions with other characters and the world around them. If you change that, then you fundementally change everybody else!
I’m trying to keep an open mind here, I really am. But damn it if I am no longer nearly as excited for this project as I once was. The Watch was going to be one of my highlights for 2020, now I’m actively dreading it.
@33/Nick – agreed. I know there has to (and should be) changes between media, because story telling tricks in one format don’t work in another, so you tweak the story to make use of those that do and drop those that don’t. The important thing is to keep to the spirit of the work. From the sound of it the series has gone far beyond tweaking to the point where it’s becoming unrecognisable. This doesn’t reassure me they’ve managed to capture the spirit. I’m not quite at the point of dreading it, but that’s getting closer
Hope Anna chancellor can do a VERY convincing male voice. Very strange the casting decisions. Dibbler played by a woman? Is this pantomime TV? Also what mistake has mean vimes is being played by a man and Angua by a woman?
Sam ademunwe should play Angua by that logic and marama corlet should play vimes. Keel should therefore be played by marama corlet with makeup to look old.
Whoever made these casting decisions should embark on a new career washing dishes. If Pratchett were alive today he would put a stop to this idiocy.
I won’t be watching this. It utterly misses the spirit of Discworld and they can slap ‘inspired’ by all they want but the truth is, this isn’t Discworld. None of these changes are good.