The Winter King takes Arthurian legend back to its bloody Dark Ages roots. Forget Camelot, once-and-future kings and magical swords. Forget the code of chivalry -- it hasn't been invented yet. Based on Bernard (The Last Kingdom) Cornwell's 1990s Warlord Chronicles trilogy, the Winter King (also the title of the Warlord Chronicles' first volume) emphatically places its characters in the violent chaos of Britain around 500 AD. A collapsing Western Roman Empire had withdrawn its legions from the frontier province almost a century before, leaving the native Celtic Britons at the mercy of feuding local warlords and multiple invaders. The remnants of Britain's Romanized Celts, in Wales, Cornwall, Cumbria, and across the Channel in Brittany, would celebrate a handful of legendary warriors who defended them during these times -- in particular, one called Arthur. This is the embattled figure Cornwell seeks to recreate, a revered Celtic warrior fighting a long twilight struggle to preserve his people against Angle and Saxon invaders -- in other words, the ancestors of the English.
In 500 AD, Britain is divided into many petty kingdoms, some Celtic and some Angle or Saxon. The Celts' fortunes are declining: Their squabbling kings have lost control of southeastern Britain, and now inhabit drafty hill fortresses instead of the Roman cities and villas of earlier centuries. Arthur hails from a kingdom in the southwest called Dumnonia, roughly corresponding to modern Devon, Somerset and Cornwall. He's the son of the local king and he's a matchless fighter. But Arthur's father rejects the young man because he's illegitimate. Early in the first episode, King Uther banishes his Arthur because the latter couldn't protect the king's beloved legitimate son, Mordred. Leaving Dumnonia, Arthur saves the life of a Saxon slave boy called Derfel, who'll someday grow up to record the charismatic warrior's deeds. Arthur then travels to Gaul (modern France) to defend the Celtic King Bran of Benoic's realm against invading Franks. Arthur hones his combat skills on the Continent until the deteriorating situation in Britain impels a certain druid to sail there and summon him home to his destiny. Although Cornwell allows in a few characters from later Arthurian folklore, he strives for historical fiction not fantasy. There are plenty of swords, but instead of sorcery his characters are driven by familial and sexual jealousies, ambition, ego, greed, competing allegiances and rival faiths. Nor are the enemy soulless White Walkers: They're just another tribe, with a different warlord, scrambling for their place in Britain's uncertain sun.
Note: White supremacists will be Big Mad that this UK production didn't restrict casting to white people, since you have to be pale as moonlight to play 6th-century inhabitants of Europe.
I could make the case that this story takes place only 25 years after the fall of the Roman Empire's western half, which when it was whole encompassed North Africa, attracted trade and visitors from sub-Saharan kingdoms like Ethiopia, after 212 AD offered citizenship to all free men living within the Empire, regularly circulated troops from Syria to Britain. By contrast, the close association of skin color with social status is a relatively modern phenomenon, a product of global colonialism & imperialism after 1492. Which I think is fair, so far as history goes.
But, more practically: Why should Black Brits be denied an acting job because of their skin color? It's acting.
Finally, Britons in 500 AD probably looked a lot more raggedy than you'd want to see onscreen: with bad skin, bad teeth, outbreaks of leprosy, tuberculosis, etc.
Let's allow a little artistic license for the sake of treating our actors right.
