The Woman King And The Oscars 2023
TO.P: Talking of Which, As I’m Listening To You Explain That, The Woman King. Tonight – Oscars – Fantastic. The Woman King – Barely To Be Seen In The Nominations. What’s Your Comment On That As An Actress?
JJ: It’s Not To Be Surprised Is It? This Is A Film Showing Us In All Our Glory, With Power And Not One White Person Has Told Them What To Do or How To Behave…
And What Is Interesting About These Women Is Any Stories You Would Hear About Them Is The Most Negative Stories And That They Were Part of The Enslavement Trade That Was Going On And That Helped To Sell People And Stuff. All That Might Be True. What They’re Not Talking About Is What You Do Is Called Survival.
There Was A Play That Was Going To Be On At The Royal Court Theatre That Talked About The Collaboration In The Concentration Camps And Trying To Survive They’d Made Deals With Their Captors. But It Happens In Anything Where You’re Held Captive. You Do Make Deals To Survive. However They [They Jewish Community] Didn’t Like That To Happen And They Made The Most Fuss About That Play Being On, They [The Theatre] Took That Play off.
But Then They [The Theatre] Put On A Play About Haille Salassie, But They Did The Play On A Book That Was Most Controversial Not On The Book About The Good Things That Were Done. They Did The Play On The Most Negative Things. So It Was Interesting That They Could Offend…And A Whole Heap of Rastas Came Out And Said You Can’t Be Doing That. But Nobody Cared About Them. And It Went Ahead Anyway.
Braverman’s Rwanda Deportation Scheme
TO.P: It’s A Bit Like We Mentioned Earlier, It’s Barely 20 Years, Certainly Not 30 Years, Since The Horrific Genocide In Rwanda (Cira 1994) About Which The Film ‘Hotel Rwanda’ Starring Don Cheadle And Sophie Okonedo Was Made 2004. But There Is No Sensitivity or Consideration Shown About That Fact When Talking About The Government And Rwanda And Small Boats Policy.
The Fact That They Even Chose That Country of All Countries Is A Disgrace Considering This Recent History. And Yet No One Is Allowed To Talk About The Persecution Era of The 1930s, A Much Longer Time Ago, Because of The Understandable Sensitivity (Which Is One of The Reasons Lineker Got In Trouble). It’s Blatant Racist And Hurtful Duplicity Based On Black People Being of A Different Colour And Ethnicity. One Which Appears Constantly Disrespected And Subjected To A Different Standard of Treatment, Even On The Most Sensitive of Issues.
JJ: Has Anybody Gone To Rwanda Yet? Yet They’ve Received 20 Million Pounds If Not More. Yeah, We’ll Get Our Reparations If You Don’t Want To Give It To Us But We’ll Get It In Different Ways.
I Think The British Government Are Just Scapegoating, Which Is What They Do. Just Trying To Use People Who Are Running Away From Persecution As Some Sort of Political Ball, Which Is What They Are Doing With These People. And Rwanda Has Said “Yeah Yeah, We’ll Take Them In, However I Don’t Even Know If It’s As Much As here’s As Much As 200 People.
TO.P: That’s What We’ve Heard And Seen Discussed. Something Like Just 300. And yet The Government Keep Banding About The Figure of 45,000 People Tried To Come Over On Boats Last. Meantime Over 125,000 Ukrainians Have Been Given Both Speedy And Safe Routes Into Britain, Housing And Various Forms of Funding. Clearly This Show Deal With Rwanda Is Just Propaganda. It’s Not A Solution To The Problem.
JJ: It’s Not. “Why Are People Leaving Their Country” That’s The First Question. [She Makes The Point That The British Government Would Try And Help The Countries Concerned If They Were Serious And offer Safe Routes Into Britain. Just Like They Have For The Ukrainians Who Are The Same Colour As Them And Colour Is The Differentiating Factor].
Sunak’s Dismissive Windrush Decision
TO.P: It’s Been Announced That Claire’s Husband Emmanuel (Founder of BUFF) Has Been Invited To Join The Windrush Film Festival Board. And It Is of Course The 75th Anniversary Year of Windrush. So How Do You Feel About That?
JJ: I Am So Pleased We Have Tied The Knot. Windrush Are The People Who Were Taken From Africa. And Now We’ve Got The Full Circle of A Man That Is Still Indigenous African, A British-Nigerian, Who Is Part of The People That Were Taken From Our Country Representing The Whole Circle That’s Happened. So I’m Very Pleased. He’s A Beautiful Human Being Is Emmanuel. As A Man, A Beautiful Human Being, So Actually I’m Really Pleased.
TO.P: It’s Also Been Announced, In The Same Year As The 75th Anniversary of Windrush That The Government Is Not Going To Honour The Pledge It Made To Compensate Windrush Organisations. What’s Your View On That?
JJ: Once Again Us As African People Means Nothing. And When People Say We’ve Got A Chip On Our Shoulder Slavery Was Ages Ago We Should Get Over It, It’s These Things That Make You Realise It’s Not A Long Time Ago, Because Otherwise Why Would You Think That Was Okay To Do That.
People’s Lives Totally Decimated. Ruined. People Died. Committed Suicide. Families Ripped Apart. They’ve Got No Home, No Life, No Nothing. Nothing. And Yet People Have Given Everything.
When I Think of My Mother And Father Getting Up At 5 O’clock In The Morning To Go And Do Some Labour That They Couldn’t Get Their Own People To Do In This Country, Hence They Did The Call For Caribbean People To Come Over Here, And They Did All That To Them When They Should Be Relaxing, They’re Telling Them They Are Entitled To Nothing…She Believes It’s A Crime. A Crime Against Humanity.
And She Points Out The Additional Injustice of The Fact That Up Until 2015, Her Taxes And Those of Other Taxpayers, Including Those of Black People, Who Are Windrush Descendants Were Still Being Used To Pay off The Abolition Compensation To Former Slave Owners. Again, She Considers It A Crime Against Humanity.
The Black Theatre Co-op ~ Desmonds ~ No Problem ~ The Real McCoy
Some of The Real McCoy Cast Members Including Eddie Nestor (Bottom Left/First Picture), Standing Next To Judith Jacob (Headscarf). Special Guest Olympic Medalist Tessa Sanderson OBE (Red Jacket) Stands Next To Llewella Gideon (White T-Shirt/Second Picture & First Picture). Olympian Linford Christie Also Guest Starred In An Episode @eddienestor @judithjacob1313 @llewella_gideon @tessasandersonobe @linford_christie
TO.P: We Saw An Eddie Nestor Post During Lockdown About The Fact That The Apparently Lost Real McCoy Tapes Have Been Found (After The BBC Claimed They Had Been Destroyed In A Fire) And The Show Is Now Available To Watch On BBC iPlayer.
Clearly Questions Remain To Be Answered By The BBC In Relation To This BBC Backtrack!
Meantime, We Know Now What Got You Into Acting – But What Got You Into Comedy?
[Lovers Rock Singer Janet Kay MBE (of ‘Silly Games’ Fame) Was Also In The Comedy ‘No Problem‘ Which Ran For 12 Episodes Between 1983 – 84 And She And Judith Have Remained Great Friends Ever Since @janetkaymusic. In 2020 Kay Starred Alongside BAFTA Winner Michael Ward In Episode 2 of The Excellent Small Axe BBC Series By Oscar Winning Director Steve McQueen. #smallaxe]
Coming Up Next
JJ: Going Forward I Need To Put Pen To Paper Or At Least Finger To Keyboard And Start Penning My Story. I Haven’t Worked Out What Angle I Want To Go At Yet Which Is Kind of Important. But Maybe I Should Stop Trying To Get That And Just Start Writing And Then Hone It Down. So That’s One of The Things I Want To Do.
Still Working Out
JJ: That’s How I Breathe. If I Can’t Train I’m Not Breathing.
TO.P: How Often Do You Train. You Work People Out Don’t You?
JJ: I Teach At Tottenham Green Centre, Well I Was Teaching At Tottenham Green Centre But It Hasn’t Been Open Since The New Year. I Do Personal Training With Clients And I Train For Myself. And The Training For Myself Is Really Important. It’s How I Keep Sane. My Training Has No Rhyme or Reason It’s Just What I Think I Should Do That Given Day.
TO.P: What Got You Into That Mind-Set of Training Because You’ve Always Maintained A Slim Figure?
JJ: There Was A Time In My Life When I Thought I Could Never Put Weight On, But That Was Proved To Be A Lie Over The Lockdown. And I Said Oh You Can Put Weight On. That’s A Shame, Because Now I’ve Got To Work To Get It All Off Again. I’ve Still Got Half A Stone, That’s Because I’ve Got An Image In My Head of How I Want To Look Like. I’m Absolutely Fine. I Am Know I’m Not Fat, But I’d Just Like To Lose Another Half A Stone.
I Did Martial Arts. I Trained With A Guy Called Ruben Joseph. He’s No Longer In The World. He Had A Breakdown Down Before I Knew Him And Then He Later Had A Second One From Which He Never Recovered.
But Don’t Ever Think You Could Sneak Up On Reuben And Go Hi Because You Would End Up On The Floor. A Couple of People Did. Another Guy I Know Told Me of An Incident When They Were In A Car Together And They Knew It Was Going To Crash. Reuben Jumped From The Passenger Seat, To The Back Seat, Behind The Passenger Seat And Curled Up And When The Car Crashed “Man Was Safe”.
He Inspired My Thirst For Training Because When You Started Doing The Martial Arts With Him It Wasn’t Just That. People Were Running, Doing All Kinds of Fitness And I Got Into The Whole Idea of Fitness. And Then Read That Bruce Lee Said You Have To Train Your Whole Body So That You’re Better.
What Happened With Me Was I Was Doing All This Martial Arts And I Went To An Aerobics Class In Birmingham Because I Was Filming In Birmingham. I Went In Front Because I Thought I Can Do This. Within 10 mins I Was Tired And So Wished I Wasn’t In The Front, But I Was So I Couldn’t Hide.
TO.P: You’re Not Going To Be Here At All If You Lose Another Half A Stone.
JJ: My Daughter Has Problems With Me. She Says I’ve Got Issues.
Family & One of The Longest Relationships In Showbusiness
What Judith Jacob Does Have Is A Loving Family. She Is Very Close To Her Daughter (35), So Much So The Two of Them Look More Like Sisters Than Mother And Daughter. And She Also (Like Denzel Washington) Has One of The Longest And Most Successful Relationships In Show Business, Having Been With Her Partner For Over 40 Years. All Three Are Pictured Above On Holiday (Photo Kindly Supplied By Judith Herself).
Being True Romantics Here At TheOrator.Press (TO.P) We Asked What The Secret Is And She Says It May Have Something To Do With The Fact That They Were Apart For Much of The First Seven Years As She Was Outside London Filming ‘Angels’ Up In Birmingham. Either Way, We Salute Them.
Well That May Have Accounted For The Majority of The First Decade. However They Made It Together For Another Three And Then Some. So Despite Our Great Chat, It Seems There May Have Been Some Holding Back. Guess We’ll Just Have To Have Another Sit Down, Pizza And A Glass of Wine Sometime @bar.palazzo (…Where, When We Asked, She Said Maybe She’ll DJ One Day)!
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