By now, everyone and their dog is going fucking mad on t’internet about The Rings of Power. One of the early gripes, before it was even available to watch, was the casting of black actors in “white” roles.
Especially the casting of Sir Lenworth George Henry CBE as a hobbit.

Now I have great respect for Lenny Henry. We went to the same college, but not at the same time. Apparently he used to live in the flat across the hallway from the one I used to own in Preston, but the bloke who told me that also claimed that he had once owned the Rover SD1 from the Human League “Don’t You Want Me Baby” video.

Anyway… one thing bothers me, which I shall have to explain…

Lenny Henry is 6’2″ tall, or 1.9 metres. The same as me, actually. Hobbits aren’t. So I think we need diagrams. I love diagrams!

So, let us start with a silhouette of Mr. Henry, which we shall use as a guide.

Cunningly, that image is 190 pixels “tall”, which will make things easy.

The average height of a hobbit, according to the interwebs, is 3’6″, which is about 107 cm. So, let us put one of those next to Sir Len.

That reminds me of a photo of myself and my tiny hobbit girlfriend (6’2″ and 4’11” for the record)

Now at this point you might be thinking “hang on, the equally tall John Rhys Davis was cast as a dwarf!” And you’d be right. That was for practical filming reasons, as his height compared to that of the hobbit actors made filming them together easier.

Anyway, Lenny is such a great actor that he could pull off playing three parts. Three hobbits. Three hobbits sitting on each other’s shoulders, wearing a big overcoat, pretending to be a human.