Tag Archives: Ian McDiarmid

What Shadows

Park Theatre, London (***)

© Mihaela Bodlovic, Ian McDiarmid as Enoch Powell delivering his `River Tiber' speech in 1968

© Mihaela Bodlovic, Ian McDiarmid as Enoch Powell delivering his `River Tiber’ speech in 1968. In the background, Amelia Donkor as `black’ academic Rose Cruickshank.

`Rivers of blood’, as Enoch Powell’s Birmingham speech in 1968 about immigration was famously dubbed. Except he never really said that. Like so much else we call history, it was a moniker adopted by the press out of an illusion the politician, fond of quoting from classic scholars made: `like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood.’ Yanked out of context, it stuck. Continue reading