Miriam Margolyes isn’t a national treasure, she’s an irrational disgrace
We love our national treasures. There's Sir Michael Palin , obviously. Dame Judi Dench , of course. And Dame Joanna Lumley , without a doubt.
But there is a still rarer group – those regarded by some as a national treasure and by others as simply detestable. Indeed, the group is so rare that I can only think of one member of it: Miriam Magolyes .
The actress, perhaps most famous for her role in the Harry Potter films, is a TV regular – a guest who can be relied on to tell a good yarn about other famous people she has worked with. But with those stories come the other side of the coin: Margolyes is obnoxious, which she makes clear every time she speaks.
Her latest demonstration came yesterday on ITV's This Morning , when she started asking the black co-presenter, Andi Peters, about his heritage. She asked: "What are you?"
Puzzled, Peters replied: "What am I?", prompting Margolyes to say: "You're a mix. You've got a black daddy and a white mummy?" Looking astonished, Peters replied: "No, no, no. Both my parents are black." His riposte left Margolyes looking a bit stumped. He then added: "Am I lighter shade than normal?"
Margolyes speaking to Andi Peters and Christine Lampard on This Morning - ITV
Then came Margolyes' descent into the gutter, intentional or otherwise. "I think you're high-yalla." A befuddled Peters prompted her to elaborate. "That's what they call it in America, when someone isn't deeply black."
"I didn't even know there were shades," Peters replied. "There are shades", she continued. When Peter then pressed his fingers to his ear and warned Margolyes that his producers were "getting nervous", she insisted: "Don't be nervous. We welcome everybody."
The phrase "high-yalla" (or "high yellow") – along with "pickaninny" was commonplace in the US in the 19th and early 20th century to describe lighter-skinned black people.
Along with the N-word, it rightly died out in polite society decades ago. It is used today only by those who want to offend, as well as the ignorant and stupid. Given she went to Cambridge, I hardly think Margolyes is either of the latter two.
You'd have thought that we are long past the sight of a black man being questioned on live TV about the status of his blackness. But when you invite Margolyes on, you never know what she'll say.
She has a long history of revolting behaviour. In 2020, for example, after Boris Johnson fought for his life in hospital with Covid, she said on Channel 4 show The Last Leg that she had "wanted him to die" .
Then, in 2022, she appeared on BBC Radio 4's Today programme immediately after Jeremy Hunt , who had just been appointed chancellor. Having met him outside the studio, she told listeners: "When I saw him there, I just said: 'What a hell of a job, the best of luck.' And what I really wanted to say was 'F--- you, bastard,' but you can't say that."
If Margolyes was a straight, white, middle-class male she would have been "cancelled" years ago. But she has two golden tickets which mean that no matter what she says or does, she will always be given a platform.
First, she is Left-wing. Her insults and jibes are always directed at Right-wing targets. This plank of her identity is a get-out-of jail-free card which means that where others would be pilloried for such remarks, she is treated as some sort of licensed jester.
But even more than that, she has the trump card: she is a Jew who not only seems to despise Israel but other Jews – and can be relied on to make that clear at every opportunity. In April 2024, for example, she said of Israel's behaviour in its battle with Hamas in Gaza : "To me, it seems as if Hitler has won."
She then said a similar thing in an interview with The Big Issue last year. "The terrible thing I face is that Hitler won. He changed us, made us like him," she said. Margolyes then added: "I was born in '41 at the height of the Holocaust and I cannot bear to think that my people are doing exactly the same thing to another nation."
It's simply gross to compare the bloodshed in Gaza with the systematic mass murder of the Nazi Holocaust. A few months after those comments, Margolyes told Kirsty Wark in a live Radio 4 broadcast that the first Charles Dickens character that gripped her was Fagin. "Jewish and vile…I didn't know Jews like that then, sadly I do now," she opined.
Margolyes makes being obnoxious into performance art, and bookers and producers who get a thrill out of her unfiltered Left-Wing odiousness run with it. Since her shtick is desperately unfunny, yet she still gets work, the last laugh is really hers.
