I watched this last night and I found it pleasant enough viewing. However if they are trying to go for realism then they were wide of the mark if they thought a young white girl dating a black man in the early fifties wouldn't raise any eyebrows back then, they are very much mistaken. Why do producers tie themselves up in knots, trying to impose today's PC world into period dramas? It makes the whole thing ridiculous. Only the most paranoid anti racism fanatics would have got upset if they had shown it how it would truly have been, warts and all and they can be ignored.
I think a lot of things were frowned on in those days but I suppose a lot depended on the type of people you mixed with. There was still the fact though that they accused him of stealing and I think that was probably because of the colour of his skin.
I think they're just keeping true to the book. I'm enjoying the series so far having read a couple of the James Runcie books. I like the casting especially Robson Green.
My parents adopted 2 black children in the early 50's (one being Ronnie Archer-Morgan of Antique Roadshow) and we were all stared at, and even my headmistress made cutting remarks, impossible to believe now!
Nonsense, in the 1930s Edwina Mountbatten had a fling with a black man and she wasn't the only aristocratic woman to do so.
It was the working classes that got uptight over that sort of thing.