"Throughout all history, the immortal love story of Cleopatra and Mark AntonyAn ancient Roman politician and general, known for his affair with Cleopatra. has fired the imagination of men," declares the sonorousProducing a deep and imposing sound. voice-over, as a beautiful woman in a bath of milk prepares to receive three Roman officers. "Many magnificent motion pictures have been dedicated to their illustrious name. Now comes the most provocative, the most daring, the most shocking of them all."

The grandioseImpressive and imposing in appearance or style, especially pretentiously so. effect does not last long. A moment later one of the Romans slips on the soap and falls straight into the bath beside Cleopatra.

This is the trailer for Carry On Cleo, a 1960s British comedy in which historical facts are never allowed to stand in the way of a good joke. It is now regarded as a classic - but it can no longer claim to be the most provocative version of Cleopatra's story.

Netflix's new docudrama 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, with a lawyer called Mahmoud al-Semary accusing Netflix of "distorting and erasing the Egyptian identity". He wants the government to ban the streaming service.

Zahi Hawass, a former antiquities minister, agrees: "This is completely fake. Cleopatra was Greek, meaning that she was light-skinned, not Black... Netflix is trying to provoke confusion by spreading false and deceptive facts that the origin of the Egyptian civilisation is Black."¹

"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. "Given what being declared Black has often meant for people, it's unsurprising that Egyptians reject it. They want their own history faithfully recorded."

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

Nobody, however, knows the origins of her mother. Some academics in the US have used this to argue that Cleopatra was Black, and that African Americans should claim the great Egyptian civilisation as part of their heritage. But most experts reject this theory because of the lack of evidence.

Jada Pinkett SmithAn American actress and talk show host. , who produced and narrates the Netflix programme, defended the casting of Adele James: "We don't often get to see or hear stories about Black queens, and that was really important for me, as well as for my daughter."

But Kenan Malik argues in The Observer that what we are seeing is the hijacking of history to deal with present-day concerns:

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

Stephen Bush agrees. Black and White, he says, "are terms that had absolutely no meaning in the ancient 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.