The message is coming loud and clear from all directions. “A new era: it’s time,” proclaims a lobby group called ERA 50:50, which (as even a tired old male brain can deduce) stands for Equal Representation for Actresses. Its backers, who include Emma Thompson and Olivia Colman, are calling for gender parity “across our stages and screens” by 2020.
“The lack of female faces has a detrimental effect on all of us,” says the group’s co-founder, the actress Elizabeth Berrington. All of us? The group’s image of sisterly comradeship would surely be greatly improved if its figureheads — who are rarely off our screens — extended their demand for gender parity to women trying to make a career as film and backstage technicians rather than
