The film trailer shows a beautiful woman in a palace, taking a bath of milk. She looks up as three Roman officers come striding in. It all looks very grand - until one of the Romans slips on the soap and falls straight into the bath beside Cleopatra.

The trailer is for Carry On Cleo, a classic comedy in which good jokes are more important than historical facts. Now another version of Cleopatra's story is also accused of getting it wrong.

Netflix's new programme African Queens: Queen Cleopatra stars the dark-skinned British actress Adele James. It has caused a furoreAn excited or angry reaction. It was originally an Italian word meaning "rage" or "madness". in Egypt, where some people have called for Netflix to be banned. They say it is rewriting history and threatening Egypt's national identity.

A former government minister called the programme "completely fake". Cleopatra, he argues, was Greek, meaning that she was light-skinned, not Black.

"Today's uproar is partly about how Egypt sees itself: an ArabArabia includes the countries on the coast of north Africa (from Morocco in the north-west) and the Arabian peninsula. It does not include Iran, which is in Asia but which is the most significant supporter of Shia Islam. country on the African continent," explains Stephen Bush in the Financial Times.

Cleopatra lived from 69BC to 30BC and ruled Egypt for 21 years. Her father belonged to a MacedonianFrom Macedonia, an ancient Greek kingdom (and current modern day region including the country of North Macedonia and the region of Macedonia in Greece). dynasty, and coins from her reign show her as a Greek woman.

Nobody, though, knows the origins about her mother's family. Some people use this to argue that Cleopatra was Black, and that African Americans have their roots in Egypt's great civilisation. But most experts reject this theory because of the lack of evidence.

Kenan Malik writes in The Observer that the TV series is using history to deal with issues that did not exist in Cleopatra's time.

"The very question 'Was Cleopatra Black or White?' - and the answers we give - tell us much more about ourselves, and our world... than they do about Cleopatra and her world."

Yes: To Egyptians it is a vital issue of national identity. And since many people's perceptions of history are formed by watching TV programmes, the makers should try to make them as accurate as possible.

No: The key point is that Cleopatra was a woman in a male-dominated world. Her affair with Antony was a fascinating meeting of civilisations: what matters is that the actress captures her attraction.

Or... Cleopatra's chief importance is not as a historical person but as the inspiration for brilliant works of art such as Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra.